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 movements. 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?
Daniel's steps felt heavier as he moved away from the camp. The wind swept dust and ash like a trailing shadow—never touching, but always near. No birds. No rustling trees. Even his own footsteps felt muted, swallowed by the dead earth.
He moved west, drawn by something voiceless yet persistent. The ground beneath him cracked with old scars. Trees stood like skeletal hands reaching toward a breathless sky.
Eventually, he stumbled upon a crumbling asphalt road. To his left, a **collapsed building**—once maybe a school or a clinic. Its shattered windows whispered of things long forgotten.
Daniel didn't want to enter. But something pulled him toward the half-open door.
He stopped at the entrance. The scent of rust and rot coiled in the air. His fingers brushed the cold wall, flaking like a gravestone. From within, a tremor—not a sound, but a vibration. Like something sleeping… or waiting.
He lit his ultraviolet beam and shined it inside.
The walls were etched with symbols—alien, unreadable. Some looked fresh. Still wet. Ink? No… blood.
Then—click.
Not from the light.
From inside.
He froze.
Click.
Again. A jaw snapping slowly. Deliberately.
He stepped back. Once. Twice. And as he turned—he saw it. A shadow in the hallway. Human-shaped, but too long. Too still.
Daniel ran.
The path behind him warped. The sky shrank. Cold deepened. Each footstep felt like he was stepping into the throat of something that wanted to swallow him whole.
Then—he saw a wrecked car.
Door open. Blood-dried glass. And a cassette tape half-fed into the still-humming radio.
Static.
Then a voice:
"...sound is an invitation… do not speak… they are born from echo… they live between the seconds unspoken…"
The voice wasn't human. It tried to be—but failed.
He pulled the radio's battery out.
The voice continued.
It was inside now.
Daniel shut his eyes. Breathed deep.
When he opened them—the sky was different.
No direction. Stars too close. Like punctures in the sky. And in the distance, chittering—a million unseen legs scraping stone.
Through thin fog, he saw a tower—old, broken, like a lighthouse with no ocean.
It had never been on any map.
But Daniel knew: that was where he needed to go.
He wasn't searching for survivors anymore.
He was searching for the source of the horror.
Each step, heavier than the last.
And deep in his mind, a truth settled:
This world no longer belonged to the living. And maybe... his footsteps had already invited them.
To be continued...