Day 47 after the Gray Realm. Morning.
The sky is gray—like something that never quite rinsed clean.
Li Kaine stands in a patch of open ground fenced with barbed wire, a toolbox hanging from his hand. The air reeks of diesel and disinfectant, with a cold, metallic stench underneath that he can't put a name to. It crawls into the back of the throat.
A lieutenant calls roll with a clipboard.
"Li Kaine."
Li looks up.
The officer doesn't look at him. He looks at the notes column and reads aloud, flat as a part number: "Spatial-perception Resonance user."
Somewhere far off, a low hum answers.
It's faint—like a finger pressing against Li's eardrum from the inside. His head tilts on its own. His fingertips begin to numb.
Marcus Brown is forming the line. Big man. Hard edges. Every movement has the stiffness of a door that's been forced open too many times.
"You. Point. You. Left flank. You. Watch the rear." His words are so short they're violent. "Don't fall behind. Nobody turns back for stragglers."
Daniel Zhao hugs a bundle of wires and radios to his chest, mouth running like a motor.
"This place is dead-dead. Not even birds would crap here… hey, can't we go past a subway entrance today? At least the subway has walls—"
He talks too much, but his hands don't shake. In three quick motions he's got the floodlights and spare batteries strapped down tight.
An armored vehicle rolls in and stops. Brian Cole steps out.
No speeches. His gaze sweeps over them and stops on Li.
"Recovery team," Brian says—not loud, but every syllable lands. "Remember what you are. You go in to bring things out. Data first. Equipment second. Wounded third. Recovery is not rescue."
Noah Green stands at the back of the group. Young. Pale in a way that looks unearned. His shoulder patch still has that new-cloth crispness. He steals glances at Li, and there's something in his eyes—hope, maybe. Or fear wearing hope's face.
Brian jerks his chin toward the tent. "Briefing."
Inside, a map is spread across a table. Red marker circles a spot: a communications station, half-collapsed.
"Target." Brian taps the paper. "Data case ID 7–4 and a portable relay unit. Bring them back before dark. This is the last record before Sector Seven went silent."
Erin Walker sits on a folding chair nearby. She's not in uniform. She wears a badge on a lanyard.
She doesn't look at the map. She looks at people.
"Once you enter a Thin Zone," she asks, pen poised over a tablet, "do your heart rates spike? Anyone experiencing auditory hallucinations? Aphasia? Or… emotional flattening?"
Marcus frowns.
Li says nothing. He feels Erin's eyes on him. It isn't concern. It's calibration—like she's checking whether an instrument will misfire.
Brian repeats the rules: do not break formation; if you see an Observer, do not shoot; prioritize withdrawal.
Daniel mutters, "Wounded third… man, working class really gets it rough—"
Marcus cuts him off with a look. Daniel clamps his mouth shut.
Noah's hand tightens around his rifle until his knuckles bleach white.
Sophia Lane leans against the tent flap. An old bandage wraps her upper arm; bruising blooms beneath it like storm-cloud ink.
She turns her head and looks straight at Li.
"You can hear which route is thinner," she says. "Right?"
Li doesn't answer.
Sophia's smile is small and strained, but it's honest. "Then don't carry it alone. If you need help—say it."
They file through a gap in the barbed wire.
Fog pours in as if poured from a bucket, swallowing most of the light from the watchtower behind them. The temperature drops in a blink, as if the world exhaled.
The low hum comes clearer now—thud, thud, thud—hammering behind the ear.
Li lifts a hand. The team halts.
Ahead lies the main road: wide, open, easy. The hum from that direction turns sharp, needle-bright, cold enough to sink between bones.
To the right is a narrow alley, black and tight. The hum there is lower—heavier—steady, like an engine idling.
Li points to the alley.
Marcus stares at him. "You sure?"
Li nods. His throat tightens. No sound comes.
Marcus bares his teeth like he's biting down on a bad choice. "Reroute. Right side."
Noah whispers, "How do you know?"
Li opens his mouth. Nothing.
They pass an overturned school bus. Inside the cracked windows: dried handprints. Torn seatbelts dangling like severed veins.
Daniel doesn't talk anymore.
The station lobby is black as a drilled hole.
Marcus flashes a signal.
Sophia inhales once—and in the next second she's on a platform half a story up. Her face goes white. She sways, catches herself, and signs down: Clear.
They move into the equipment rooms.
Daniel raises his flashlight to the ceiling.
A sound. Soft. Like something dragging itself along a surface it shouldn't exist on.
Then it drops.
Not leaps—drops. A chunk of darkness that stretches as it falls, hits the floor, and slides forward—pressed flat, moving fast, as if the ground itself has decided to run.
Bullets hit with wet pops—pff, pff, pff—spraying dark fragments. It doesn't slow.
"Flares!" Marcus roars.
White light detonates.
The shadow—Shadowbinder—stutters, movement jerking as if the light scalds it.
Marcus brings up his shotgun. BOOM. He fires point-blank. Fragments burst like rotten snow.
Sophia vanishes again. When she reappears, she yanks Daniel off the creature's sliding path. The bandage on her arm immediately seeps red.
Noah screams and empties a burst—ratatat—muzzle jumping wild. The magazine runs dry.
The hum in Li's ears spikes into a shriek.
So sharp his scalp prickles.
Underfoot.
The Thin Point is underfoot.
He slaps Marcus's shoulder and jabs a finger at the doorway.
Marcus turns, reads the urgency in Li's eyes, and bellows, "Fall back! Move!"
They retreat, flare after flare turning the air into a strobing white nightmare, forcing the Shadowbinder to curl back into darkness. But the scraping sound stays—close, patient—waiting for the light to die.
Their way out is blocked. A fallen steel frame has crushed the corridor.
The scraping grows nearer.
Sophia pants, face bloodless; one more jump and she'll drop. Daniel clutches the equipment case, breathing like he's about to vomit. Noah's hands fumble a new mag in—only half a load left.
Li stares at the corner.
The hum changes there. It becomes something else—something like fabric tearing.
He presses his palm to the wall. His fingertips go numb. The world goes briefly dark around the edges.
He looks at Marcus and makes a motion: hit it.
Marcus blinks once, then shoulders forward and slams into the wall.
Nothing.
Again.
On the second impact, the wall doesn't crack—it loosens, like paper giving way. A seam opens. Not a break. A split.
A slit just wide enough for a body turned sideways.
Marcus shoves Daniel through first, then Noah. Sophia looks at Li.
Li waves her on. Before she slips through, she glances back at him once.
Li goes last. As he squeezes through, heat floods his nose. Blood spills. A hard ring fills his skull, and suddenly—he can't hear anything at all.
He tries to speak.
No voice comes.
Behind them, the seam seals itself, smoothing shut as if it had never been there.
By the time they reach the recovery point, the sky has darkened.
Brian checks the equipment case first, then the metal data box Daniel is hugging like a lifeline. He verifies the ID, nods, and motions for someone to take it away.
Only then does he look at the people who made it back alive.
"Alive is enough," he says.
Erin approaches and hands Li a tissue.
Li wipes his nose. The blood doesn't want to stop.
Erin writes briskly: Aphasia. Tinnitus. Delayed pupillary response. She looks up, voice calm. "You made a judgment call under pressure and got the team out. That isn't strength. That's… stability."
Li stares at her. He tries to answer. Only air hisses from his throat.
Erin steps closer. In one quick motion she slips a folded scrap of paper into his hand.
"This is your first bite of information," she murmurs. "Fragment coordinates. Supply cycle. The next bite depends on whether you can get onto the observation list."
Li closes his fist around the paper.
Sophia stands nearby, biting down on the end of her bandage while she rewraps her arm one-handed. Pain twists her face, but when she catches Li looking, she still forces a smile.
"See?" she says, voice thin. "You can live. You can save."
Li doesn't respond. He can't feel joy. He can't feel gratitude. His emotions sit behind thick glass, muffled and distant.
Noah stands far off, not coming closer. His eyes are hollow as he watches his own trembling hands. Like he finally understands: he isn't the hero of any story. He's a number that might get spent on the next run.
Marcus sees it. Says nothing. He's seen that look too many times.
Brian draws a red line through a name on a list.
"Tomorrow," he says. "Again. We need more data near the Anchorpoint."
He looks at Li the way you look at a tool, silently calculating how many uses it has left.
That night, Li sits alone in his tent.
The ringing in his ears comes in waves, tide after tide.
He takes out Erin's note and reads the coordinates and times by weak light.
Then he flips it over.
On the back, squeezed tight in hurried handwriting, is one line:
"Range ID: A–47–… (Adaptive sequence)"
Li's hand closes until the paper creases.
That isn't a shelter number.
That is an experiment number.
His throat works. Still no sound—only the ringing, and in his mind the same faint, plastic-rubbing whisper looping again and again.
His daughter was never on the list of the protected.
She was on the list of the used.