The compass led them deeper into the district, where the ruins grew taller and the silence became ominously thick. The air grew heavy, filled with the smell of oxidized metal and something old, musty, as if they were walking through the lungs of a sleeping giant. Even their footsteps on the gravel seemed unnaturally loud, as if someone was deliberately muffling all other sounds.
"Someone was here." — Arielle stopped, pointing her blade at an unnaturally neat pile of debris stacked against an opening in the wall of a semi-collapsed building. — "Recently, the tracks are fresh."
Lloyd felt his inner guide pause for a second, assessing the situation. There was no acute danger, only a viscous, sleepy calm that seemed suspicious after the constant tension of the last few days. The compass pushed him forward, gently but insistently — straight towards that opening.
"Looks like a camp." — Leo noted, gripping his pipe. — "Maybe we should go around?"
"Going around means wasting extra hours, and night is falling." — Arielle countered, already approaching the opening.
"If there's shelter and any information, it's worth the risk." — Lloyd also voiced his desire to check the camp.
Cautiously entering inside, they found a small room, probably a former storeroom or utility room. And here, the traces of human presence were obvious and fresh. In the corner lay a torn but high-quality backpack made of durable synthetic material. Nearby — a tipped-over camping stove, several empty cans with labels from the Pleraz Food Plant. A crumpled pack of cigarettes lay on the floor — a luxury ordinary workers couldn't afford.
"Hunters." — Arielle concluded, poking a blade at one of the cans. — "A group of Resonators, judging by the expensive gear."
Leo, forgetting his fear for a moment, began examining the walls with a professional energy engineer's interest.
"Look, scratches. The metal was stripped carefully, with something thin and sharp. They were harvesting wiring. So they had not only tools but time. They weren't in a hurry. They were settling in..."
Lloyd silently approached the backpack. A worn, plastic-covered notebook, stained with marks of unknown origin, had fallen out of its ripped bottom. He picked it up. The pages were filled with a hurried, nervous handwriting that sometimes devolved into illegible scribbles.
— «Day three. Reached the point. Anomaly stable, readings normal. The place seems... quiet. Too quiet. No birds, no those writhing shadows. As if we're in an aquarium, and someone is watching from outside the glass.»
— «Day five. Keller started complaining of headaches. Says he forgot what day it is. We all feel a bit off. The air here is stuffy, hard to breathe. Marlen asked me today if I thought the shadows lasted longer than usual.»
"The shadows last longer?" — Leo repeated, involuntarily shuddering.
— «Day seven. Whispers. I hear them at night. Unintelligible voices, not from outside, but in my head. It seems they know we're here, just watching...» — Lloyd read aloud. His voice sounded hollow in the cramped, oppressive room.
Arielle, listening, slowly scanned the room with her gaze.
"A psychoactive anomaly? Or a Drifter with mental abilities? I've read about them, but they were dismissed as survivors' delirium." — Her fingers unconsciously clenched and unclenched around her blade hilts.
— «Day nine. Still plenty of food, but the water canteen is missing. Keller swears he didn't take it. Everyone is getting nervous. Decided to break camp tomorrow. I've hidden this diary. Just in case.»
— «Day... which one? Writing so I don't forget. We tried to leave. Walked for hours, but... came back to the same place. The same crack in the wall. The same cans. As if we were walking in a circle. Keller says we already tried to leave yesterday. But I don't remember that. I don't remember... Marlen looked at me today with such a gaze... as if seeing me for the first time.»
"We need to go." — Leo said firmly, interrupting Lloyd, and retreated towards the exit. His face had paled. — "Now. Before we become the next entries in this diary. Something's wrong here. I can feel it in my bones!"
"Wait." — Arielle raised a hand. — "They were Resonators. They had gear, weapons. And they couldn't leave. If there's a trap here, running blind is the last thing to do. We need to understand its mechanism. And where, after all, are the hunters themselves? Why do we only find their backpack?"
"She's right. We're tired. There's shelter here, walls. We can rest for a few hours, staying vigilant. We'll decide in the morning. A fresh head will analyze the threat better than our fear-addled brains. We'll take turns on watch, without closing our eyes." — Lloyd's gaze shifted from the diary to his companions. The compass was calm. Too calm, as if it had been lulled to sleep.
Leo wanted to object, but he saw the shadows under Arielle's eyes and noticed his own hands trembling. The idea of rest, even in this eerie place, was too tempting.
"Alright. But we set a watch. I'll take the first. And... let's stick together. Don't lose sight of each other." — he conceded, resignation in his voice.
Night fell upon the ruins, thick and impenetrable. Lloyd, despite his deadly fatigue, couldn't sleep for a long time. He tossed and turned on the cold concrete, listening to every rustle. He thought he heard something small and persistent scratching at the door, like a branch, but there was no wind. He chalked it up to paranoia, having read the diary.
Later, closer to morning, a strange sound woke him — a clear, wet click, as if a door had snapped shut. He instantly sat up, his heart hammering wildly. In the faint light filtering through the cracks, he saw that Arielle and Leo were asleep. But the door to the storeroom, which they had securely blocked with a piece of rebar, was slightly ajar. The gap was wide enough for a person to slip through.
He woke the others. The panic was brief but intense.
"I didn't go anywhere! I swear!" — Leo was pale as a sheet. — "I checked the door every hour! It was in place!"
"Maybe we didn't block it properly?" — Arielle suggested, but her voice lacked confidence, carrying only a cold trickle of fear.
They blamed the incident on nerves and fatigue. They decided to wait until dawn and leave immediately. But when the first rays of grey light penetrated the room, Arielle, while gathering her things, froze.
"Where is my second blade?" — Her voice was quiet, even, and therefore all the more dangerous.
They searched the entire room. They emptied the backpack, moved all the cans. The blade was nowhere to be found. The tension peaked; the air became thick and prickly. They were ready to abandon everything and run when Leo, who was examining the perimeter of the camp outside in hopes of finding any trace, called them in a strange, choked voice.
They went out, gripping their crude weapons. Leo stood ten meters from the entrance, staring at the ground.
In the middle of a neatly cleared patch of earth, the missing blade was thrust into the ground, point down. It was impeccably clean, polished to a mirror shine, and its surface reflected the morning light. As if it had just been drawn from its sheath and carefully, almost reverently, stuck into the earth, like a gravestone or an unambiguous warning.
Arielle slowly approached. She didn't rush to pull it out, but first cautiously, almost tenderly, ran her finger along the part of the blade nearest the hilt.
"Cold..." — she uttered, and that single word hung in the air heavier than lead. — "Perfectly clean. Not a speck of dust."
"It... did it polish it?" — Leo whispered with disgust and horror. — "While we slept, some monster sat there polishing the steel, as if for a parade?"
"Worse." — Lloyd replied hollowly. His gaze slid over the dead windows of the ruins. — "It's not just stealing our things. It's demonstrating that it can do whatever it wants with us. We're not just trapped. We're exhibits in a collection."