It took us around forty minutes to reach the outskirts of a small village — barely more than a handful of houses tucked between fields and fog. Silva had already done a full background check on the area.
"Ninety-three civilians, two farms, one abandoned motel, no law enforcement presence within five kilometers," she recited from memory as we drove in. "Local reports say they can still hear a radio playing at night... even when the power's been out for decades."
The rain had thinned to a mist by the time we parked at the edge of a forest road. The air smelled of wet bark and rust. Beyond the barrier of trees, the world fell into darkness — not pitch-black, but hazy, like a bad dream you couldn't wake up from.
Silva stepped out first, shutting the door with her usual calm precision.
"The station is located approximately two kilometers inside the forest," she said, pulling her coat tighter. "No roads, no official paths. The geography doesn't align with satellite data — expect distortion."
Theo slung his pack over his shoulder, grimacing. "So basically: no roads, no trails, no GPS. Fantastic."
"I get that there are no roads," he added a few minutes later, brushing wet leaves off his sleeve, "but how come there aren't even any pathways? All this mud is ruining my good shoes!"
Mira shot him a grin over her shoulder. "Your fault for wearing your good shoes, genius. What, you think the anomaly cares about fashion?"
"Hey, a man's gotta keep some standards alive," Theo muttered. "Just because we chase nightmares for a living doesn't mean we can't look decent doing it."
"For what it's worth," Mira said, ducking under a low branch, "these trees at least temporarily shield us from the rain."
"Temporarily," Silva echoed from behind, voice flat as ever. "Forecast predicts an eighty-seven percent chance of precipitation intensifying."
Theo sighed dramatically. "Thank you, weather app Silva."
She blinked, processing that for a second. "…You are welcome."
Mira stifled a laugh, whispering, "She's trying, Theo. Don't bully the boss."
We continued on in silence for a while, the forest swallowing our footsteps whole. The further we went, the quieter everything became — no crickets, no wind, not even the steady hiss of rain hitting the canopy. Only the soft crunch of wet earth and the hum of our flashlights cutting through the fog.
Even the air felt heavier here, like breathing through static.
Silva suddenly raised a hand, and we froze. Her neon-green eyes caught the faintest glint of light as she spoke.
"It's past nine p.m.," she said quietly. "Turn your earpieces on."
We obeyed without hesitation.
Was it to communicate? No — communication tech never worked this close to an active anomaly.
What the earpieces did do, however, was tune us into its frequency.
Which was the equivalent of walking into a death trap willingly — but it was the only way to trace the core.
A faint hiss filled the channel as the connection stabilized. For a moment, it was just static. Then—
[■■■■■■■■—■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]
The sound was jagged, like a broken signal trying to imitate a human voice.
Mira frowned, glancing around. "Did you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?" Theo asked, already gripping his flashlight tighter.
"That voice. It doesn't sound human—it's… mechanical. Like it's pretending to be."
Silva nodded once, completely unfazed. "The anomaly presents different futures to each individual. It tailors its signal to the listener. At times, it may guide one of you more than the others."
Theo looked uneasy. "And if we follow it?"
"Then you cease to exist within the correct timeline," Silva replied, voice flat. "In short—certain death."
She said it as casually as someone discussing tomorrow's weather.
We pressed on. The rain returned in faint drizzles, pattering against the leaves, and thunder rolled in the distance. Our flashlights wavered with every gust of wind, shadows bending and twisting like they were alive.
Then, faintly, a distorted voice cut through the static again—closer this time.
[Hu■■■, T■■n b■■k n■■.]
I froze. The signal burrowed into my skull like a whisper behind my thoughts.
'So it's finally trying to reach me too… but there are still gaps. Does that mean I'm too far from its source?'
No one else reacted. Maybe they hadn't heard it.
We walked another twenty minutes before the trees thinned out, revealing the silhouette of a structure ahead.
A long-abandoned radio tower rose from the clearing, its skeletal frame rusted and half-swallowed by ivy. The surrounding fence had collapsed, and the sign near the gate was barely legible under layers of grime.
The tower's lights were long dead — yet somehow, I could feel the low hum of power beneath my feet, like it was still breathing.
Another burst of static crackled through my earpiece.
[■■■an, sp■■■ ■■ ■■to pairs.]
Still full of gaps. Still incomplete.
'How do we even contain an anomaly that's basically time itself?'
Theo broke the silence, scratching the back of his head. "Yup, power's definitely cut off. No generators, no cables. So… what now, Team Leader?"
Silva stepped forward, rain dripping from the ends of her messy bun. Her expression, as always, didn't change.
"We proceed inside," she said, voice even.
We moved as a group, stepping through the torn fence and into the clearing. The tower loomed above us, vanishing into the low fog. Every gust of wind made the steel frame groan like it remembered its own collapse.
The ground beneath was soft and uneven, patches of mud swallowing our boots. The smell of rust and wet moss hung thick in the air. Somewhere behind us, a loose metal sheet rattled — not from wind, but from something brushing past.
Theo muttered under his breath, "This place gives off the worst kind of déjà vu."
"Déjà vu?" Mira asked quietly, sweeping her flashlight across the base of the tower.
"Yeah. Like we've already been here… or like we're about to."
Silva stopped near a concrete building at the base — the control station, from the looks of it. "Inside," she said simply, pushing the door open. The hinges shrieked.
The interior was worse — cold, stagnant air filled with the scent of dust, metal, and something faintly electrical. Old radio consoles lined the walls, coated in grime. Dozens of cables hung like vines from the ceiling, snaking across the floor.
A single red light blinked weakly on one of the panels.
"The power's dead," Theo said. "That shouldn't be on."
"Unless something's keeping it that way," I murmured.
Silva crouched by one of the terminals, brushing a hand across the dust. "Residual electromagnetic activity," she said, voice calm as ever. "It's drawing energy from somewhere. Possibly... our devices."
I glanced at my wristwatch. The digital face flickered for a moment before stabilizing.
"So containment," Mira began, rubbing her arms as if to shake off the chill. "If this anomaly is a frequency, we can't exactly trap it in a box. What are we thinking— signal jamming? Isolation?"
Theo leaned over the console. "A Faraday cage might slow it down. If we find the central transmitter, maybe we can ground it. Turn the tower against itself."
Silva straightened, blinking slowly. "Feasible. But it won't be enough. Frequencies bleed. They always find cracks to seep through."
She turned toward me, eyes reflecting the faint red glow of the panel.
"Yuwon. Thoughts?"
I hesitated, glancing at the tower's shadow stretching through the cracked windows. "I think we're approaching this too narrow-minded. This anomaly takes shape of a frequency, and thats what it uses to spread its influence, but isn't it still a anomaly that calculates and manipulates the future-- any future?"
Theo tilted his head. "You mean it's… sentient?"
"Not necessarily sentient," I said, "but it adapts. The frequency isn't just predicting the future — it's shaping it. Like a script that keeps rewriting itself depending on how we react."
Mira frowned, stepping closer to one of the corroded consoles. "So the more we listen, the more it learns about what comes next. That's why the civilians disappeared — they probably kept listening until their futures weren't their own anymore."
"Exactly." I pointed to the dormant speakers mounted along the walls. "It doesn't need to pull you anywhere physically. It just needs you to hear it long enough to make you part of its story."
Silva stayed silent for a long moment. The only sound was the steady dripping of water from the ceiling and the faint hum of the tower outside. Then she finally spoke.
"That… is not ideal."
Theo sighed. "You don't say."
She blinked slowly, processing his sarcasm a few beats too late. "No, I… literally said it. It is not ideal."
Mira smothered a laugh with her sleeve. I caught her grin in the dim red light — a small comfort in this suffocating place.
Silva continued, unfazed. "If the anomaly feeds on attention, our best chance is to make it lose interest. Like an algorithm starved of data." She turned to the cracked window, watching lightning briefly illuminate the tower's metal ribs. "We find its core signal and silence it."
I glanced toward the main console again — the red indicator had stopped blinking. The room suddenly felt heavier, as though the air itself had gone still.
"Uh, guys?" Theo said quietly. "Was that light supposed to turn off?"
Before anyone could answer, our earpieces let out a deep, distorted hiss — then a voice, fractured and hollow, threaded through the static:
[—d■■■—■■■k—■p—]
Mira froze. "Did it just—"
[—don't—look—up—]
Theo's flashlight trembled slightly in his hand. "Yeah, okay, that's way too specific."
Against every instinct, my eyes drifted upward.
The ceiling's metal paneling had begun to shift — not move, exactly, but ripple, as if sound itself was pressing against it from the other side.
Silva's voice steady but faintly tilted with that familiar odd rhythm of hers. "Everyone. Step back. The ceiling is... behaving inconsistently."
Mira whispered, "You mean it's moving?"
"Correct," Silva said, eyes still fixed on the rippling metal. "That is a less technical but emotionally accurate description."
We backed toward the entrance as the distortion grew louder, the static deepening into something almost melodic — a pulse that synced perfectly with our heartbeats.
Then the voice came again, clearer this time.
[—thr■e step■ ■eft—]
Theo stiffened. "Wait. Did it just—?"
[—now—]
The floorboards creaked under him — and a beam of rusted steel and concrete came crashing down from the ceiling where he'd just been standing.
Mira gasped. "Theo—!"
"I'm fine!" he coughed, stumbling back, breath ragged. "I did what it said, and it saved me?"
Silva's neon-green eyes flickered under the faint light. "Do not obey the instructions," she said, her tone flat but edged with a quiet urgency. "That was coincidence… statistically unfortunate coincidence."
Another crackle burst from the speakers, this time layered with a chorus of faint, overlapping whispers — like voices trying to synchronize but constantly falling out of tune.
[—four rem■in—]
[—time rewinds wh■n belief begins—]
My stomach twisted. "Silva… I think it knows we're trying to silence it."
"That… does not change our objective," she replied, voice clipped, matter-of-fact. "Let's vacate this control room before it collapses any further."
"About that…" Theo's voice came from behind the fallen rubble. "My path toward you guys is completely blocked off. I tried moving it, but it's… yeah, not going anywhere."
Our expressions darkened.
Silva's head tilted slightly. "I'm assuming there isn't a window or door either?"
"Negative," Theo answered. "But there's this weird staircase here. According to a map on the wall, it leads to some kind of underground tunnel system. Says there's another entrance further south."
Mira scoffed. "A radio tower with an underground tunnel? That's not ominous at all."
"Alright then," Silva said firmly. "Make your way to the southern entrance. We'll regroup there."
"Copy that, Chief."
We left the control room right after, stepping into the rain-slick hallway. The air outside felt different — heavier, charged, like the storm itself was listening.
"Let's hurry up," I muttered, scanning the treeline ahead.
"Aww, is our rookie getting worried now?" Mira teased, though her voice lacked its usual bite.
Silva suddenly stopped and turned.
"Wha… what is it?" I asked.
Without warning, her hand met the top of my head in a soft, oddly deliberate pat.
"Uh—what?"
Her gaze lingered on me for a moment — distant, like she was somewhere else entirely.
"Theo can handle himself well… most of the time," she said, her tone as measured as ever. "Do not worry. The sun does not worry either."
'Okay seriously, what is it with her and the sun?'
"Right… thanks," I said awkwardly. "Let's get going then."
The wind howled through the trees as we pressed on, the forest groaning like it was alive.
Somewhere behind us, the tower creaked — and beneath the roar of the storm, I could swear the static was still whispering through my earpiece.
[—one ■■■it ■ec■me■ t■■—]
I tightened my grip on the flashlight. "...Let's move faster."