The transfer came sealed in red wax—an urgent dispatch from Dominion High Command.
"Field Lieutenant Duncan Haleth is hereby reassigned to Outpost Virex, Section Delta-Five. Effective immediately. Under sealed authority: Classification Black."
No explanation.
No protest permitted.
Just a location—Virex—a name most soldiers only muttered over campfires and alcohol, usually with a shiver.
Virex was where careers went to die.
And Duncan had been sent there by name.
Before Departure – A Last Visit
He stood at the gates of the medical wing, watching Rell sleep beneath layers of soaked cloth and fever balm. His chest rose shallowly. The strike from the wild beast had shattered more than bone.
He didn't wake.
Vey leaned against the stone wall behind him. "You're not going to wait until he wakes up?"
Duncan shook his head. "They won't give me the time."
She crossed her arms. "Then I'll stay. If Rell stirs, I'll write to you."
A long pause stretched between them. Her eyes, usually sharp with sarcasm, now held a steady concern.
"You going to come back from this one?"
Duncan didn't answer right away.
"I think this place," he said quietly, "wants me to disappear."
"Then don't give it the satisfaction."
He turned to her, offering a rare smile. "Watch my back from here. I'll be back to claim that bottle of stormbrew you owe me."
Vey smirked. "Only if you come back with both arms."
Outpost Virex – Two Days Later
The transport stopped just before nightfall.
Duncan stepped out into a land drenched in silence.
Virex wasn't a fortress—it was a ruin. Stone towers crumbled into the hills. Moss devoured the broken road. The only building intact was a squat barracks sunk into the ground like a bunker. Two watchtowers stood crooked, their lanterns unlit.
But the air here… was different.
It tasted like something old.
The commanding officer was a one-eyed major named Brannoc. His face was more scar tissue than skin, and his handshake was a vice.
"No salutes here," Brannoc grunted. "They make you a target. You're not here to fight a war."
"No?"
"You're here to uncover one."
Brannoc led him through the bunker, past a dozen soldiers—quiet, hard-eyed, marked with jagged scars. These weren't green conscripts. These were survivors.
"What is this place, really?" Duncan asked.
Brannoc opened a door at the end of a long hall.
Beyond it lay a map room, though "map" barely did it justice.
Huge charts, etched into metal plates, covered the walls—territories not shown on standard Dominion grids. Paths through jungles, mountains, and rivers long abandoned.
Carvings of beasts, some Duncan had never seen before. Others... too familiar.
"We call them the Ancestrals," Brannoc said.
"Beasts?"
Brannoc shook his head. "People."
The Old Bloodlines
The room smelled of oil and dust. Brannoc lit a lantern, casting flickering shadows across a large metallic disk on the wall.
"This continent was once ruled by tribes who lived with the wilds. Not above them. Not behind walls. They walked among beasts. Some say they were kin to them. Others say they were something else entirely."
Duncan felt his heartbeat slow. The air felt heavy.
"Those people are gone," Brannoc continued. "But the beasts remember."
He ran a calloused finger across a name etched deep into the metal.
"Haleth."
Duncan stared.
"That's—"
"Your bloodline," Brannoc said. "Your grandfather knew. Your father knew. The Dominion burned the records—but they couldn't erase the echoes."
Duncan's voice came low. "What does it mean?"
"It means," Brannoc said, turning to him, "you're not just some unlucky conscript with talent. You're part of something the Dominion fears."
"Why?"
Brannoc's eye gleamed. "Because if the wild recognizes you… then so might the beasts that still slumber."
Nightfall – The Howl Beneath the Earth
That night, Duncan couldn't sleep.
The stone bunk beneath him was cold, but it wasn't discomfort that kept him awake.
It was the sound.
Faint.
Deep.
A howl, far below the outpost, too low for human throat, too long for any natural predator.
He wasn't the only one who heard it. Down the corridor, someone cursed and threw on boots. Brannoc stepped into the hallway, armor half-done, a rusted lance in hand.
"You hear it too?" Duncan asked, already grabbing his blade.
Brannoc nodded grimly. "It's been growing louder each cycle. Something is waking up beneath the Hollow. Something old."
"The beasts?"
"Worse."
The Hollow – Forbidden Depths
They descended by torchlight into a tunnel sealed with old Dominion sigils—scratched out and overwritten by ancient carvings. The temperature dropped, breath frosting in the air.
Duncan paused at a doorway, its stone frame etched in a circular spiral.
In the center, someone had painted an eye. It wasn't fresh.
It was bleeding.
Brannoc pressed his palm to the seal. The door cracked open, groaning like a dying beast.
And beyond it, in the dark...
Something moved.