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CHAPTER TWO: THE HUNTER'S RAGE
Days 2–3
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There was something in the dark.
Not the kind of thing you hear before you see. This thing felt real first—like pressure in the skull, a tremor beneath your bones. The kind of presence that didn't bother with sound, because it knew the silence made you listen harder.
Silas held his breath. The bunker vibrated faintly. The lights flickered.
Then went out.
Total blackness.
No breathing. No movement. Just—
A single step. Heavy. Wet.
Thump.
Nira cursed under her breath.
Senya activated her Fragment—barely a whisper of energy, but it glinted in her eyes. "It's inside," she said, low.
Grin checked his blade. "Guess we're not alone."
Silas was already moving, shadow flowing behind him like leaking ink. They spread out silently. It wasn't training—none of them had worked together before Hollowforge. It was survival instinct. Maybe something deeper.
A second step. Closer this time.
Then a growl.
Wet, animalistic, but familiar.
Silas's Fragment pulsed, and that's when he felt it.
The thing wasn't Echo. It wasn't Hollow.
It was human.
Or it used to be.
A blur crashed through the center of the room. Metal shrieked. A table split in half. Nira barely dodged a swinging arm that looked more like a molten weapon than a limb. Sparks flew. Grin shouted and rolled behind a collapsed wall panel.
Then light.
Senya slammed the emergency release on a secondary core. Dim red flooded the space—just enough to show them what they were fighting.
A boy. Maybe eighteen.
Bare-chested, skin burned in geometric scars. His arms weren't arms—they were lengths of fused metal and bone, wrapped in living chain. His chest glowed with Rift scars, and his eyes—no whites, just molten gold.
He was snarling. Not speaking. Like he'd forgotten how.
"Back!" Senya shouted.
But Silas stepped forward.
The feral boy's gaze locked on him.
And lunged.
---
Pain.
The world flipped.
Silas hit the wall with enough force to crack it. His shoulder dislocated with a sickening pop. He gritted his teeth, shadows already wrapping around the joint to keep it steady. The boy was already turning toward Nira, who flared her Fragment and unleashed a burst of kinetic force.
It barely slowed him.
He slammed into her mid-charge and sent her skidding across the floor.
Grin jumped on his back, knives flashing—only for molten iron to surge across the attacker's body, forcing him to jump off or burn alive.
Senya snapped.
Her rifle spun into her hands, then dropped. Useless in close quarters. She stepped forward and touched the boy's arm, just long enough.
Her eyes glowed faintly.
And the boy stopped.
Just—stopped.
Chest heaving. Hands trembling. Snarl fading.
Senya whispered something. A language none of them knew.
The boy blinked.
Collapsed to his knees.
Silas got up slowly, wincing. "What did you do?"
"I spoke to the Remnant," she said. "He's still in there."
"What the hell is he?" Grin asked.
Senya knelt beside the boy, scanning him. "Same as us. A Candidate."
"Doesn't look like any Candidate I've seen."
Nira groaned from across the room. "That's because he's further along. His Contract isn't broken. It's fused."
Grin blinked. "So what? He's a Boon junkie?"
"No," Silas murmured. "He's bonded too deep."
Senya looked up. "Name's Torren. I saw his file flash before drop. Was flagged as unstable."
"Unstable's a nice word for that," Grin muttered.
Torren twitched but didn't speak.
Then he whispered one word.
"Cold."
Silas knelt beside him. "He's coming down."
"From what?" Grin asked.
"The Tithe," Nira said. "Too much Boon output, not enough control. You burn out. Or burn through."
Silas met Senya's gaze.
"How do we keep him alive?"
"We don't," she said. "He keeps us alive. Or we all die."
---
They stayed in the bunker that night.
It was dangerous, but they had no choice. The winds outside had turned sharp—echoing like screams. Riftstorms brewed in the distance, warping the sky into spirals of color that no one dared look at too long.
Grin rigged a motion trap at the door using scrap wire and a volatile Fragment he swore was "mostly stable."
Nira stayed near Torren, watching him twitch in his sleep, her wrist-brace sparking with low diagnostic pings.
Silas sat alone near the wall, rolling a shard of black crystal between his fingers. The Fragment. It hadn't spoken again, but it pulsed when Torren got close.
Senya sat beside him without speaking for a long time.
Then: "You saw it, didn't you?"
He looked at her.
"In the dark," she added. "The moment before he attacked."
Silas nodded slowly. "A memory. Not mine."
"Yours now."
He glanced down at his hands. The shadows weren't moving tonight. Just curled there. Waiting.
"Why are we still alive?" he asked.
Senya leaned back against the wall. "Because whatever's watching us doesn't want us dead yet."
"Comforting."
She looked at him sideways. "You're different."
"So are you."
"I mean... different from before. From the other drops."
Silas didn't respond.
"I saw you take that hit. You should've been dead."
"I wanted to be," he admitted.
Senya raised a brow.
"Only for a second," he added.
They didn't speak after that.
But neither of them moved.
---
By morning, the wind had stopped.
They moved again.
Torren walked in the back now—quiet, subdued, but with that unstable hum beneath his skin. His hands sparked when he flexed them, and the ground twitched where he stepped.
"He's still not safe," Grin muttered.
"Neither are we," Nira replied.
They moved across fractured terrain—bone ridges, sunken hills, fields of silver ash that hissed when stepped on. The landscape shifted subtly every few hours. Sometimes they could hear it breathe.
Silas stopped once, staring at a ruined monolith in the distance. Half-submerged. Covered in glyphs.
The Fragment pulsed again.
He stepped toward it.
"Silas," Senya said sharply.
"It's calling me," he murmured.
Nira moved fast. Caught his arm.
"That's not a message," she said. "It's bait."
He blinked, eyes clearing.
Then they heard the growl.
Low. Deep. Wrong.
A pack.
Not Echoes.
Contractors.
---
They arrived in an arc—six of them. Clad in Tribunal gear, faces covered, symbols painted in black tar across their armor. Their Remnants pulsed in perfect sync—green energy coursing between them like shared blood.
One stepped forward.
A woman. Tall. Gaunt. Her eyes were covered in black cloth.
"You're off course," she said. "This sector's restricted."
Silas stepped forward. "We didn't choose this drop. We're just trying to survive."
She tilted her head. "Then die with dignity."
Behind her, the others readied weapons.
Senya raised her hand. "We're not enemies."
"Wrong," the woman said. "You're irregular. Unregistered. Your glyphs didn't activate. That means you're off-script. And off-script means expendable."
Grin stepped beside Silas. "They always this polite?"
Then the ground shook.
Torren moved.
He stepped past them slowly, deliberately.
The rival team raised their weapons.
Torren raised a single hand.
And the earth cracked.
Flames surged from beneath the dust, rippling in jagged veins of orange and black. The contractors stumbled, two of them falling. The others moved fast—but not fast enough.
Silas's shadows surged. Nira's blast knocked one unconscious. Senya stepped forward, rifle humming with pure static, and took down the lead.
Grin stabbed one in the thigh, spun, and shoved him into the Rift pit.
It ended as quickly as it started.
The woman fled, blood pouring from her shoulder.
Torren stood in the middle of the wreckage, panting. His eyes still glowed. The flames receded around him like a tide.
Silas stared at him.
"Did you hold back?" he asked.
Torren nodded slowly.
"Why?"
Torren looked at him.
And for the first time, spoke clearly.
"Because we're not monsters yet."
---
They didn't talk much that evening.
Not about the fight. Not about what came next.
But something had changed.
They'd survived their first encounter with other Candidates—and it hadn't been clean. It hadn't been honorable.
It had been war.
And Hollowforge was only beginning to show its teeth.