Daniel's footsteps now moved across damp, sandy soil that smelled of wet earth and old metal dust. He had exited the suffocating concrete corridor and now entered a more natural stone tunnel—one that seemed shaped not by human hands, but by time itself, or perhaps by something deeper—darker.
The silence behind him remained. No heavy breathing, no hasty movement. Yet the feeling of being watched never truly faded. Behind the stone shadows, something still seemed to be watching… or perhaps it was just the echo of fear within his own mind.
After an hour of walking, he found a crack in the ceiling—like a gaping tear in the skin of the world. He climbed up carefully, until finally he emerged to the surface.
A dim twilight greeted him, sweeping over a dead plain filled with dry grass and broken trees. Thick clouds hung in the sky like wounds that never healed, and a cold wind slapped his cheeks with the scent of ash and old decay.
Daniel checked the scanner on his wrist. The heat signatures that had flickered into view a week ago—signs of survivors—still burned in his memory. If his calculations were right, he was now only one or two kilometers away from that location.
He picked up his pace, following a dusty path partially buried under rubble. The farther he walked, the more signs he saw: tire tracks, shards of metal, even spent bullet casings on the ground.
And then, as he crossed a shallow stream that had turned into gray sludge, he saw it.
The silhouette of a barbed wire fence. A watchtower. And large tents in the distance. **A survivor camp.**
Daniel broke into a jog—hope swelling in his chest. But that hope lasted only thirty seconds.
As he drew closer, reality struck him like a sledgehammer.
The tents were charred ruins. Protective walls had collapsed. The stench of burned flesh was suffocating. And more than that— **Bodies were scattered everywhere.**
He froze. Stared. Paralyzed.
Human corpses lay in different positions: some shot, some grotesquely torn apart. As if what had slaughtered them wasn't just looters. But something **not human.**
He slowly knelt down. A woman—still clutching a small child in her arms. Her eyes open, frozen in terror. With a trembling hand, Daniel gently closed the child's eyes.
He walked slowly between the rows of tents, his body feeling weightless. Every step was met with silence and devastation.
The signs of battle were unmistakable—blood on the ground not fully dried, fires that had only recently gone out. But something felt wrong...
**There wasn't a single corpse of the attackers.**
Only the survivors had died. No foreign bodies. No strange footprints. Not even scavenger animals dared approach the area. As if whatever had attacked them—came, slaughtered, and vanished without a trace.
He found the camp's center: a small control tower with its door hanging broken. Inside, an old communication panel was half-destroyed by an explosion. In the corner of the room— A holographic recording still flickered weakly.
Daniel stepped closer, pressed the playback button.
The image buzzed into life, shaky and full of static.
"...this is a message from Camp C-7. We're under attack... not by humans... not by the usual ones... they don't cast shadows. They make no sound. They just appear... and—" The voice turned into a scream. Then silence. The image froze on the last face: an old man, his eyes wide in horror— Then black.
Daniel bowed his head. His hand fell onto the table. There, an open notebook contained a final note:
**"They are not from this world. They leave no bodies. But they feed on sound. And if you speak... they know."**
He didn't know if that was metaphor or truth. But he knew one thing: he was **too late.**
This camp, perhaps the last hope for other survivors, had been destroyed.
Above him, the sky darkened. Thunder rolled in the distance, muffled behind hills of broken stone. Daniel stood among the ruins, his breath heavy. Beneath his feet, the last thread of hope had turned to ash.
But just as he turned to leave, something caught his eye in the distance— Atop a nearby hill, a **silhouette** stood. Still. Unmoving. Too distant to see clearly, but too upright to be called human.
Daniel reached into his pocket, fingers wrapping around a small ultraviolet flashlight.
He turned it on—pointed it at the hill. **The figure was gone.**
The wind blew colder. The world fell more silent than ever.
He exhaled slowly. The mission to find survivors was not over. But after what he had seen today, he was starting to realize:
**The enemies of this new world were not always visible. And the unseen... might be the most deadly.**
Daniel looked west, where the uncharted landscape stretched far into the unknown. That was where he would go next. But now, he carried more than just a tired body— He carried a burden of questions that refused to let go.
What exactly was hunting mankind? And did he still have time... Before everything was too late?
To be continued....