The library was once a grand structure of stone and steel, stretching across three floors of winding halls, reading rooms, and research vaults. Now, it serves as Camp 17 — one of the only known surviving safe zones east of the collapsed Seaboard Cities as far as we know.
The outer perimeter was sealed with scavenged iron sheets, reinforced by a tangle of rebar, makeshift traps, and perimeter alarms made from broken radios and pressure plates. Its main gates were mainly operated manually to save solar power, always guarded by two scouts at a time — day or night. The basement level housed food stores, water filtration drums, solar converters, and the infirmary. The second floor, once home to fiction shelves and archival records, had become sleeping quarters, stacked with handmade bunks and separated by hanging sheets for privacy.
Camp 17 was home to seventy-six souls.
It had once been one hundred and twenty-two.
The missing forty-six had either vanished during scouting, fallen during Hollowed attacks, or simply walked away — against protocol — hoping to find another sanctuary. None returned.
Now, no one argued when Boss said caution came before curiosity.
Each member of Camp 17 had a duty, a cycle, a rhythm drilled into them over years. Water runs. Signal decoding. Radio sweeping. Garden tending. Wall checking. Every task was silent, efficient, clocked down to minutes. And every routine was laced with one shared belief: precaution is survival.
Even the children, of which there were only few, had learned not to cry out — even when scraped, even when scared. Their toys were fabric-made, padded, muted. Laughter existed, but only behind closed doors, muffled beneath blankets.
Outside these walls, silence was not golden, It was the line between life and becoming one of them.
And inside the camp, every echo mattered.
----
Later that afternoon, I prepared my gear to go out scouting. My satchel was packed with a collapsible scope, analog maps, dried ration strips, and a tightly rolled length of insulated wire. My boots were already laced, and my jacket was strapped tight at the shoulders. I moved methodically, like I am performing a ritual — one I'd done hundreds of times.
Then I heard Boss's voice behind me.
"You're not going."
"I have to." I added.
Boss stood just inside the doorway, arms crossed. "Not until we know what's happening. We need time to adapt, to observe."
I didn't waver. "I am how we observe. If I don't go out there, we're blind."
Kaela entered the room, stopping beside me, her brow furrowed. "Noah... maybe wait. Just a day. Let us settle."
"I can't." my voice was quiet but firm. "What I saw last night wasn't random. If something's changed, we need to know now — not later."
Mira appeared behind Boss, arms folded, gaze sharp. "You step out there alone and you draw attention, you might not return and we can't lose you to the Hollowed too."
"I won't be stupid. I know how to stay off the ground. I'll scout from the rooftops. Silent. No Sound. Just eyes." I explained. "The camp won't lose me, it'll be like every other day. I just want to make sure."
Boss didn't respond immediately. His gaze locked with mine, reading something deeper. Then he sighed and spoke in a tone that brokered no argument. "Fine. You go. But not one foot touches the street. Roofs only. You break that, you don't come back."
I nodded once. "Deal."
Kaela touched his arm as I turned. "Be careful. Don't do anything reckless."
"I won't," I promised, although a flicker in my mind said otherwise.
Minutes later, I was out. Once again, outside the camp to scout for anything of value or concern.
----
The world outside was too quiet.
I stood on the edge of a rooftop, the wind tugging at my scarf, the sun hanging low over the skyline like an old wound that never closed. The city stretched before me—jagged silhouettes of four- and five-story buildings, their windows shattered, their beams tangled in ivy and decay. Roads that once pulsed with life were now graveyards of rusted vehicles and skeletal trees. All that remained was silence. And even that felt… hollow.
I moved fast, hopping from roof to roof, boots landing on concrete that hadn't yet crumbled beneath time. My eyes swept across alleys, broken intersections, gaping doorways. No sound. Not even the wind between the wreckage. Just that eerie stillness, like the whole city was holding its breath.
Here and there, I spotted the green blink of jammers—little metal boxes affixed to rooftops, humming low. They were ancient tech, meant to jam the AI's local signal links. It worked. Mostly. The Hollowed didn't like stepping into jammer zones. Something in their messed-up coding kept them out. Like they still feared the interference.
But the farther I moved from Camp 17, the fewer jammers I saw. And the weaker the hums became.
I crouched on top of what used to be a grocery store, next to a rust-streaked billboard advertising cereal that probably hadn't existed in twenty years. Below me was a playground. I knew this place. Or at least, the version of it from before. Kids used to scream there. Laugh there. Now the swing sets hung motionless, the seesaw half-buried in dust and weeds.
Then I saw it.
Movement.
One figure. Just one. Standing in the middle of the cracked playground, right between the faded lines of a hopscotch grid.
A Hollowed.
It wasn't twitching. It wasn't shuffling. It wasn't even moving.
It was just… standing. Upright. Still.
And facing the sunrise.
My chest tightened. I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
It wasn't normal. None of this was.
Something had changed. I felt it deep—under the skin, under the bone. Like an alarm without a sound.
Whatever this was… it had already started.
And we weren't ready. Not for this. Not at all.
----
I stayed high. Always the roofs.
Down there was a gamble. Up here was the path I knew — mapped in muscle memory, burned into instinct. The buildings weren't tall, not like the old city centers. Four, maybe five stories, packed tight enough to move across without ever touching the ground. Vines twisted up the stairwells, rust ate through old pipes, and where the jumps were too far, we'd built planks and ladders years ago. Little by little, we'd carved a trail into the sky.
But something was wrong today. I felt it in my guts. That cold, creeping churn I couldn't shake.
I've seen it again.
That same Hollowed.
Three times now. Three different spots. Always alone. Always facing east. Always staring directly into the sun.
And every time, I felt it.
Not the Hollowed — that thing didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't even see, as far as I could tell. But there was pressure. A weight. Like eyes that weren't eyes watching from just beyond sight.
I started scanning more—windows, corners, rooftops, wires. Paused under an overhang, letting my breath go still. Nothing moved. Nothing called out.
But the feeling didn't leave.
I adjusted my course. Slid north. My steps became less predictable—zigzags, backtracks, climbs. I wasn't afraid. Not exactly. But I knew better than to make myself a trail.
Whatever was out there, I wouldn't lead it home.
It was nearly dusk by the time Camp 17 came into view. A scattered constellation of rooftops protected by our flickering halo of green — the jammers. We'd placed them ourselves over the years, scavenged from the husks of old tech and wired together like prayer beads. Their pulse was faint but steady, a synthetic heartbeat meant to disrupt whatever ghost commands still whispered to Hollowed.
No one really knew if they worked.
But in twenty-two years… not one Hollowed had crossed the line.
Still, Boss always said it wasn't safety. It was tolerance.
And tolerance always runs out.
I glanced over my shoulder one last time.
Nothing.
And yet…
The rooftops behind me felt wrong. Not loud, not obvious — just off. Like walking through a room someone else had just left.
I leapt the final gap and landed on the camp's roof in silence.
Dusk settled over the horizon in bruised colors. Downstairs, the old library was as it always was — thick with the scent of oil, dust, and lingering ghosts of circuitry. The long table was cluttered with relics: half-gutted comm-links, broken drones, battery packs, old-world tech. Some for parts. Some for hope.
I took a seat. Hunched forward. Spun a fractured comm-link slowly in my fingers.
I didn't hear Boss come in.
But I felt Kaela. Even before she said anything, I knew it was her. She sat beside me. Solid. Quiet.
Boss moved into the far corner. Always watching. Always waiting for the first word to break the air.
"So," he said, voice low and rough, "what did you see?"
I didn't answer right away.
Didn't look up.
The silence stretched, thick as smoke.
Then I spoke. Quiet. Flat.
"I saw something that doesn't make sense."
I finally lifted my head. Met Boss's eyes.
"I think something's watching us."
Kaela went still and Pale, even in the fading light. Boss didn't flinch.
I set the comm-link down. Carefully.
"I don't think we're alone anymore."