Sunday, June 22, 2025

Ash on the Road

 
(The burning blockade.)


The first sign was the smoke.


A single column, thick and oily, rising straight into the gray sky—too heavy to be a campfire. Too steady to be an accident.


> Draven (flat): “Stop the truck.”


Brakes hissed. Tires bit gravel. The engine idled, grumbling against the sudden silence. Draven stepped out before the vehicle had fully settled, already motioning to his men.


> “Shields up. Sweep the perimeter. Watch the ridgelines.”


The soldiers fanned out, resonance shields flickering to life, blue arcs humming in the damp air. Draven slung his rifle forward, checking the charge with a practiced flick.


> “Alright... Looks like the day won’t be so boring after all.”

> His eyes didn’t leave the smoke.

> “You three. Stay put. Wait here. You only come if called. Clear?”


Vell crossed his arms.


> “Crystal.”


Gaius just nodded, shotgun across his chest. Lyra shifted, fingers brushing her datapad like it might somehow shield her from what was coming.


Draven didn’t wait for complaints. He trudged forward, boots crunching the broken dirt road, vanishing around the bend with half his squad trailing behind.


A moment passed. Then the wind shifted—and the smell hit.


Burnt oil. Melted augments. Charred flesh.


>
Vell (grimacing): “That’s not a campfire...”


Another breath heavier than the last. The tension coiled tight.


Silence—then gunfire.

Saturday, June 21, 2025

The Only Road Left

 
(The final warning before departure.)


The rain hadn’t started yet, but the sky was thinking about it. Gray clouds weighed heavy over the broken highway that led out of Nexus Prime, toward the forest line smeared against the horizon like a bruise.


Draven Holt’s voice was flat. Practiced. Like a man who’d given too many briefings for jobs no one came back from.


> “This path was classified. The mission isn’t. Everyone knows we hunt the Seed. And there’s only one road that leads there.”


> Vell: “Meaning…?”


Draven shifted his weight, boot grinding against gravel.


> “Meaning be ready. Bandits know. Scavengers know. Every damn zealot who thinks the Hollow is a curse knows.”

>

> “And so do the families of every poor bastard we sent before you.”


His eyes flicked toward the truck—a half-rusted personnel hauler armored just enough to pretend it was safe.


> “These people out there... they won’t be looking to scare you. They’ll be serious.”

> He paused. Let that settle.

> “So are we.”


Draven gestured lazily toward his squad prepping by the vehicle. Resonance shields unfolded on their forearms with a faint blue shimmer—thin, but strong enough to stop most kinetic fire.


> “My boys will be running shield lines. You’ll notice... you don’t have one.” He tapped the side of his rifle.

> “That’s because, as far as I’m concerned... creatures don’t shoot.”


> “If we run into people... that’s different. You’ll want to stay close. Stay behind the shield line. And make sure you're wearing the under-armor we issued you.”


His gaze settled on Lyra, then flicked to Gaius.


> “Otherwise? Stay in the truck. This is a fight, not a science fair.”


Vell scoffed under his breath.


> “Charming.”


> Gaius (dry): “Didn’t exactly pack the fine china either.”


Draven’s tone didn’t change.


> “Good. Keep it that way.”


The wind shifted. Out there, beyond the broken fence line, the forest loomed—waiting.

Monday, June 16, 2025

The Seed and the Smiling Thing

 
Gaius didn’t remember falling asleep.


But suddenly, he was standing.


The world around him was not his room. Not Nexus Prime. Not anywhere real.


It was what remained of a city that once thought itself eternal.


Charred towers jutted from the ground like broken teeth. Roads cracked open into canyons of green fire. Ruined spires twisted into the clouds, their metal bones creaking in the wind like forgotten hymns. Ash fell slowly, unnaturally—drifting sideways in patterns that mimicked breathing.


There were no stars. Only a sky stained black and green, pulsing with a rhythm that didn’t belong to time.


And across that fractured skyline… something moved.


A cloaked figure, walking calmly across the shattered ground.


Its armor was blackened steel, not forged but grown—jagged, ribbed, laced with faint spiral etchings. Its horned helmet bent unevenly, one side twisted downward like a malformed crown. From its eye sockets leaked green resonance—not glowing, but *bleeding*, slow and steady, as if the helmet itself wept corruption.


It smiled.


A mouth of too many teeth, curved in amusement—not joy.


When it reached Gaius, it knelt.


And spoke.


> “Oh great Champion…

>

> The time of change has come.”


Its voice was a whisper carved into iron.


The creature raised one armored hand, revealing something small, ancient, and pulsing.


The Hollow Seed.


> “Plant this in our king…

>

> So may paradise bloom.”


Gaius didn’t move. At first.


But his hand lifted—almost on its own—as if obeying something he hadn’t heard yet.


Just before he touched it… he hesitated.


The demon watched.


Its smile widened.


It began to laugh.


The sound was hollow and endless, as if echoing through every ruin, every failure, every forgotten name the city ever buried.


And still—


—the seed appeared in his hand anyway.


It burned. Not with heat, but with memory.


His veins lit up like circuits. His vision blurred. The sky above folded inward. Towers fell sideways. The air screamed. Everything collapsed into spirals spirals spirals—


---


He woke.


Sweat clung to him like ash.


His breathing ragged. Cold. Slow.


He looked down at his palm.


There, seared into the skin—faint but unmistakable:


A spiral.


Still warm.


Still waiting.


The Loadout and the Lie

 
Gaius leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes still on the map.


> “So. What kind of toys are we getting?”


Without a word, Lin Sorell stepped forward from the wall. He dropped a hardened case onto the table with a dull thud. The latches hissed, popped, and folded open with a mechanical shrug.


Inside was a mess of weaponry:


* A stack of modular under-armor rigs with reactive plating.

* Compact sidearms with Codex-mod lineage.

* Short blades with glyph-etched edges.

* Two fragmentation charges, clearly hand-packed.

* And at the bottom: a prototype machine gun, still wrapped in foil-tagged cloth.


It looked hungry.


> “That one,” Lin said quietly, “eats ammo. A lot of it. And there’s no resupply.”


Draven stepped in.


> “No drones past the fold. No signal. No retrieval paths. Once you’re in, you’re in. Every shot matters.”


Vell picked up one of the sidearms and flipped it in his hand. “Can’t remember the last time a briefing included grenades. Starting to feel romantic.”


> “Don’t romanticize it,” Draven replied. “This isn’t about firepower. It’s about not being forgotten.”


Gaius grabbed one of the under-armor rigs, tested the weight.


> “We get to keep these if we survive?”


Draven didn’t answer.


> “You’ll leave Chethollow at first light,” he said instead. “A small field unit will escort you to the edge of the Hollow. From there—no support. Serra Claine is already positioned near the entry path. She’ll make contact when you’re close.”


> “What’s the fallback plan?” Vell asked.


> “Don’t die,” Draven said.


A long pause followed.


> “You’ve got rooms here,” he added. “Rest. You move out in the morning.”


Gaius stood, shoulder stiff from the weight of it all.


> “And who’s funding all this generosity, anyway?”


Draven looked up from the datapad.


> “Anonymous patron.”


He didn’t blink when he said it.


Which somehow made it worse.

The Room Without Maps

 
The upstairs room wasn’t much—just a rectangular shell with a humming resonance lantern, a warped table, and chairs that looked allergic to comfort.


Draven Holt stood at the head of the table, a projection already flickering to life beside him. Lin Sorell adjusted the emitter without being asked, fingers dancing across the pad like muscle memory.


Gaius and Vell took their seats. Lyra didn’t. She lingered near the far wall, eyes on the shifting map projection.


> “You’ve likely heard,” Draven began, “but none of the previous teams returned.”


> “Heard it,” Gaius said. “Also heard one team tried turning back. Lost signal before the third marker.”


Draven nodded. “Every expedition that reached the deeper Hollow vanished. No transmissions. No drones returned. Data cores scrambled. Artifacts dead. Last clean readings stopped at what we now call the resonance fold. Beyond that—scrap.”


> “So,” Vell said, leaning back, “why send in a handful of people now instead of a battalion?”


> “Because no one wants the job anymore,” Draven replied flatly. “Not even for triple hazard pay. This mission is voluntary only. You’re the only ones who didn’t back out.”


Gaius folded his arms. “Why haven’t I signed up yet?”


> “I’ve got more... things to do.”


> “So I’m supposed to handle everything while dragging two nerds through the woods?”


> “Vell can put up a fight in close quarters,” Draven said.


Gaius raised an eyebrow.


> “And Lyra?”


Draven glanced at her. She was still watching the map, unmoved.


> “We didn’t actually want her to go,” he said. “She insisted. Wants to catalog firsthand anomalies. Besides, she can show you how to use the gear we’re issuing.”


Gaius blinked. “She can show me how to use the toys?”


> “And she cooks,” Draven added.


Gaius turned to Vell.


> “She cooks?”


> “Real good,” Vell muttered.


Draven continued, as if that sealed the matter.


> “We also deployed a scout ahead of you. Serra Claine. She’s on public detail, assigned to patrol the border route. Officially, her presence keeps bandits off the trail. Unofficially—she’s there to make sure no one gets in your way. Highly capable. If you don’t trust Vell, trust her.”


Gaius didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the map. One blinking dot. No return trail.


> "What’s she look like?"


> "You’ll know her when you see her. Blond, light gear, carries herself like she’s already been through the worst of it."


Gaius nodded slowly.


> “Right,” he said eventually. “Because it always starts clean.”

You Started Without Us

 

They didn’t hear the door open.


But they did hear it close—with a soft, deliberate click that felt louder than it should have.


Gaius looked up mid-sip. Vell stopped talking mid-joke.


Three figures stood just inside the Chethollow’s flickering doorway:

A tall, grim-faced man in a regulation Duskwell coat.

A pale assistant with a satchel and eyes like empty signal ports.

And Lyra.


She didn’t say anything at first. Just raised one eyebrow.

Gaius set his drink down slowly.


> “You’re early,” he said.


> “You’re drunk,” she replied.


Draven Holt—Field Oversight Officer, by posture alone—ignored the exchange entirely. He stepped forward like the bar owed him something.


> “Perenos. Arseth.” His voice was dry. Not unfriendly. Just

too efficient. “We were told you’d be waiting upstairs. Not... sampling local anomalies.”


Vell raised his mug in a lazy salute.


> “We were checking the local flavor. Got hit with something between floor cleaner and a poor life choice.”


Draven didn’t laugh. Or react.


Behind him, Lin Sorell quietly tapped something into his datapad. Never looking up.


> “You’ve been briefed on the incident parameters?” Draven asked Gaius.


> “Define ‘briefed,’” Gaius said, standing. “We read the whispers. Tasted the fog. Dug a body count out of drone static.”


> “Then you’ll be able to follow the rest in silence,” Draven replied.


Lyra stepped forward before the tension could settle into something worse.


> “We’ve secured a room upstairs. There’s mapping data, hazard profiles, and a preliminary route draft. Thought you’d want to see it before anyone else touched it.”


Gaius nodded once, already moving.


Vell lingered just long enough to drain his mug, slap a coin on the table, and mutter:


> “Best briefing I’ve ever had. Five stars. No cult symbols in the drinks this time.”


They filed upstairs in silence.


The table behind them pulsed faintly once more—spiral carving barely visible under the condensation ring.


Saturday, June 14, 2025

The Table That Listens


 
They weren’t supposed to be early.


But Gaius Perenos and Vell Arseth arrived at the Chethollow Tavern an hour before the scheduled meeting. Which, in their experience, was just enough time for the place to try and kill them before the briefing even began.


The tavern looked like a collapsed saloon trying to cosplay as a legitimate business. Neon signage buzzed in half-formed letters: `CH_HELL_`, followed by a flicker like someone was still arguing with the power grid.


> “You sure this is it?” Vell asked.


> “It’s either this or the laundromat that leaks static.”


They sat at a table near the wall. The surface was rough with carvings—spirals, eyes, bad poetry. Someone had etched “ZORPX IS REAL” next to a crude drawing of a spoon.


The bartender didn’t speak. Just stared until they nodded. Two mugs were dropped off moments later—one with a foam that shimmered faint green, the other containing something that smelled like citrus and old battery.


> “Cheers,” Gaius said.


> “To poor decisions,” Vell replied, and they drank.


On a wall-mounted screen, a low-resolution tape began to play—some old salvage broadcast dug up from a street core. Grainy footage. A man in a robe yelling about “the Spiral Equation.” Then static. Then the same man again—this time selling dehydrated soup.


> “Was that the same guy?” Vell asked.


> “Could’ve been,” Gaius said. “Might’ve been two guys with the same delusion.”


> “Or two delusions wearing the same guy.”


The table beneath their arms let out a pop. Not wood. Not resonance. Just... awareness.


They didn’t move.


> “You ever wonder if this is a real place?” Vell asked.


> “I’m starting to think we’re the hallucination,” Gaius muttered.


Then the spiral near Vell’s hand twitched. Just a crack in the grain. Probably.


They didn’t mention it.


They just drank.


---


The drinks kept coming. Not because they were good. Because they were here.


Somewhere between the third mug and the fourth regrettable gulp of “whatever that green foam was,” the atmosphere had loosened enough for Gaius to lean back, arms crossed behind his head, and squint at Vell like a man inspecting a mildly possessed boot.


> “So,” he said slowly, “what’s it like? Life in the woods.”


Vell raised an eyebrow. “You mean before or after people started thinking I'm crazy?”


> “That bad, huh? And here I thought the fairy thing was the weirdest part.”


Vell snorted into his drink.


> “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t recommend it as a retirement plan. You get solitude, mushrooms that bite back, and once a month the Hollow whispers things that make you feel like someone else's memory.”


> “Sounds peaceful.”


> “Oh, the best. Especially the part where your neighbors are ex-hunters who scream backwards at sunset.”


Gaius chuckled, finishing what was left of his drink. The table didn’t vibrate this time—but one of the spirals looked deeper than before. He ignored it.


Vell tilted his head.


> “Alright. My turn.”


> “Nope,” Gaius said, too fast.


> “Too late. What’s going on with you and the scholar?”


> “Which scholar?”


> “The one who knocks unannounced, doesn’t blink at cursed relics, and makes your voice get half a shade more patient when she’s around.”


Gaius sighed.


> “There’s nothing going on.”


> “I heard she caught you half naked the other day.”


> Gaius choked slightly on his drink.


> “She showed up early. I had just gotten out of the shower.”


> “Of course she did,” Vell said. “So you were getting all ready for her, huh?”


Gaius didn’t answer.


Vell smirked and raised his glass.


> “To awkward tension and glyph-fueled nightmares.”


> “To fairies who ghost you after saving your life.”


They clinked.


The screen flickered again.

Behind the bar, the mirror caught a reflection that wasn’t theirs: a little girl, sound asleep on a table, surrounded by empty Cocca bottles. Her spiral hairclip glinted faintly in the neon light.


But neither looked.

Because in that moment, they were real men, drinking in a fake place—and forgetting what they were there for.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Stillness is Not Safety

 
He stepped out onto the street, the noise of the city pressing softly at his back.


Somewhere above, an ad-drone buzzed through the haze, cutting lines through light. Below, a tram passed, its windows flickering with newsfeeds and flickers of old icons.


In a storefront to his left, a cracked piece of glass caught the light just so.


In it, something looked back.


Just for a second—no more.


A helmeted figure, standing in a place that didn’t exist. Its horns were jagged, asymmetric—curved like broken metal grown wrong.


Green light leaked from the sockets where eyes should’ve been.

Not a glow. A flow. Like the helm was bleeding resonance.


And then it was gone.


Gaius didn’t move. Didn’t blink.


The glass showed only the city now.


But the weight of the stare lingered. Like something had marked him. Like it had been waiting for that moment—not to threaten.


To confirm.


He lit a smoke with steady hands.


And this time, he didn’t pretend it was nothing.



The Chethollow Briefing

 
Two days. That’s all the space left between memory and descent.


The Chethollow Tavern squatted between two scaffolded arc-towers. Neon buzzed weakly against its cracked signage. Gaius had passed it a hundred times before. He’d never gone in.


Now it had a room reserved for them.


For loadouts.


For route coordinates.


For whatever official Duskwell sent to bless their slow return to the thing that had never stopped watching.

Practical Lies

 
"Duskwell's breathing down our necks," Lyra said, not looking up. "They want clarity. Designation. Proof the artifact exists."


> "We’ll need better gear. Real shielding. Backup sensors."


She nodded. "They’re sending someone. Field operations. We meet them in two days."


Gaius raised an eyebrow.


> "Where?"


She hesitated just long enough to be self-aware.


> "Chethollow Tavern. They rented a room above."


He blinked. "...Chethollow?"


> "That’s the name."


> "This place is cursed. I can feel it."


> "It’s just the name."


> "...Name’s worse than the Hollow."


She didn’t argue.


> "Be there. Bring Vell. He won’t show without you."

The Records That Don’t Exist


 Lyra was already at her desk when he arrived. Pale lights buzzed overhead, casting soft white across stacks of datapads and half-folded maps. A holographic neural map rotated slowly beside her, flickering with Vell’s resonance scan.


Gaius dropped his notebook onto the table.


> "You’ve got access to personnel records, right?"


Lyra glanced up. "Some. Why?"


> "Vell said he had a wife. Red hair. Called him 'Vee.' Disappeared after he came back."


She paused, fingers already moving across her interface.


> "Let me check."


Data scrolled. Names, tags, faded field clearances.


> "No spouse listed. No emergency contact. No shared lease file."


She tried another index. Still nothing.


> "Could be a clerical gap. Or maybe... trauma. Memory distortion."


Gaius didn’t answer. He just looked down at the blank line where a name should have been.

The Morning Without Meaning

 
Gaius woke before the sun touched the city.


The light outside his window was dim and grainy, scattered through the smog-thick skyline. His coat lay folded across a chair. His boots were where he left them. Nothing hummed. Nothing pulsed.


He checked his palm, though he didn’t know why.


Just skin. No glyph. No scar. No glow.


The dream, if there had been one, was already dissolving. He felt it only in the tightness behind his ribs, like a word he couldn't remember having spoken.


He muttered something under his breath, pulled on his coat, and stepped into the cold silence of Nexus Prime.