The barracks corridor always felt colder than the rest of Grim Hollow.
Even before the evacuation, even before the Covenant's sabotage, this entire stretch had been a place of quiet—long stone walls, narrow windows leaking thin threads of daylight, and a wind that somehow knew how to whistle only in shrill, unsettling tones. Now, with the outpost emptied of its workers and fledglings, the corridor had become something worse:
A throat.
Long. Narrow. Waiting to choke or be choked.
Bright Morgan stood at the entrance, boots planted on frosted stone, the air heavy with old dust and older echoes. His new squadmates approached from opposite ends of the hall, their silhouettes bending and sharpening against the flickering torchlight.
First Lieutenant Estovia stepped forward first.
