The sky above Sector 17 was a washed-out smear of gray and rust. Ash drifted like lazy snow, settling on twisted metal and shattered stone. The skeletal remains of long-abandoned structures loomed like the bones of fallen titans. The wind hissed through broken windows and rusted scaffolding, carrying with it a metallic tang and the faint scent of ozone.
Arix moved through the wreckage with care, favoring his left leg. Blood darkened the torn fabric at his thigh, but the wound was shallow. The cold helped numb the pain.
The system fed him updates with quiet urgency:
> [Proximity Alert: Lifeform Detected – 36 meters. Classification: Human. Status: Armed. Caution Advised.]
He froze behind a broken generator coil, listening.
Footsteps.
Light, measured. Crunching over debris.
A female voice called out—sharp, practiced. "I know you're there. Come out slowly, hands visible."
Arix weighed his options. He had no weapon, no armor, no idea who she was. But his leg wouldn't let him run, and the system warned of two more signatures circling in from the sides.
He stepped out.
The woman standing across from him wore black tactical armor, reinforced at the joints, her rifle aimed directly at his chest. Her eyes, beneath a sleek helmet visor, were pale silver. Not the result of a mutation—an augmentation. She didn't flinch as she studied him.
"Name," she demanded.
"Arix," he said. "I just woke up in a vault facility. I don't know how I got here."
"Convenient."
"I don't care if you believe me. I'm not with anyone."
She didn't lower the rifle.
Another figure moved into view—a tall man with a shotgun slung over his back and a scanner in hand. He gave her a nod.
"He's clean. No tracker, no Obsidian tag. Something's… weird, though. His Echo signature's fragmented."
The woman narrowed her eyes at Arix. "You sure you're not a plant? Some kind of Echo-bleed experiment?"
"I'm sure of nothing," Arix said. "Except I want to survive."
Silence stretched.
Then she lowered her weapon—slightly.
"Calyx," she said. "We're not rescuers. We're not babysitters. You follow my lead, or you get left behind."
Arix nodded. "Understood."
Kael, the tall man, offered him a ration bar. "You'll need this. You look half-dead."
"I feel worse."
---
They led him through the outskirts of Sector 17—twisting alleys of half-collapsed structures and melted metal. Whole sections of road had caved in, revealing cracked foundations layered in frost. Drones buzzed overhead like distant insects. The deeper they went, the more the environment changed.
Snow shifted from white to gray to a faint, unnatural violet. Rusted signs hung sideways from warped steel beams. At one point, they passed a shattered playground fused into a war-damaged comms relay—swing chains tangled with fiber-optic cords, a plastic slide melted halfway into a slag heap.
Feral wind moaned through the ruins, rattling loose panels and making the debris whisper as they stepped over it.
The static in the air thickened.
Arix's system pinged softly:
> [Echo Residue Detected – Source Unknown.]
He looked at Calyx. "What happened here?"
She didn't look back. "Vault breach. Partial. Obsidian cultists tried to open a shard gate. Failed. Made a mess."
"How recent?"
"Three days."
Arix blinked. "Then why are you still here?"
Calyx stopped walking. "Because we're trying to find out why the Vault reacted the way it did. Why it's still echoing. And because something in this sector is still breathing."
That silenced him.
---
They reached a reinforced shelter embedded in a collapsed tower's base. The door was half-covered in ice, streaked with soot. The interior was narrow, but well-defended—portable field emitters pulsed at the corners, and salvaged solar panels glowed weakly on the ceiling.
The team—four total—worked with quiet efficiency. Selis, the medic, scanned Arix and treated his leg with a sealant patch that hissed as it sealed. Thorne, a mountain of a man with a scar over one eye, offered Arix a glare and a half-nod as he loaded fresh power cells into a shoulder-mounted launcher.
Calyx stood apart, arms crossed.
She didn't trust him. Not yet.
But something in her gaze hinted at something more than caution.
Recognition?
Or something deeper?
> [System Update: Party Sync Request – Pending Approval.]
> [Calyx – Squad Leader. Status: Unknown. Affinity: Unmeasured.]
The system seemed unsure.
So was Arix.
But the Vault was still whispering.
And now, it wasn't whispering to him alone.