The silence between us was so heavy it was almost chewable.
The woman kept the iron bar resting on her shoulder like it was part of her body. Her eyes, cold, didn't land exactly on me. They swept everything around us—every shadow, every corner—as if the whole world were an ambush just waiting for the right moment to jump at our throats.
Behind her, the other three spread out into a semicircle.
Me in the middle.
Perfect.
One of them coughed, breaking the silence. The sound was dry, and a shiver crawled up my spine like someone had dragged a nail along it.
"I asked who you are."
She repeated, without raising her voice.
Her voice had the texture of metal scraping concrete. The kind of voice you obey either out of fear or pure survival instinct.
I tried to swallow, but the taste in my mouth was still bile.
Who am I?
The question echoed inside me like someone had whispered it right in my ear.
I tried to drag something—anything—from my memory, but all I got was that horrible sensation of being a hollow space.
Nothing.
Like someone had dug out the middle of my head and taken everything.
The only thing I remembered were the last few minutes… the church, the smell of rotting flesh and blood… and the purple flash.
"I…"
I tried to speak, but my voice came out weak, shaky, like it didn't belong to me.
"I don't know."
She frowned.
The others traded quick looks and, as if they'd rehearsed it, adjusted their weapons in their hands. They all started staring at me like I was a bomb about to go off.
"Amnesia… or trauma."
Muttered the one with the torn mask, hollow-eyed and skinny as a stick with skin stretched over it. Looked like a strong wind could carry him away at any second.
"Or just another one of the Marked."
Said another, with disdain.
Marked…
The word stuck in my head. One more label for something I didn't understand.
The whispering started to grow, tripping over itself and turning into nervous murmurs. I couldn't catch everything, but a few words slipped through: "church", "crazy". None of it helped. At all.
The woman raised her hand.
Silence.
She took a step forward.
The ground creaked under her boots and the sound echoed through the empty street like it was too loud for that dead world.
"Look at me."
There was no anger in the order. No kindness either. Just… apathy.
My heart tried to climb out of my throat, but I obeyed.
The iron bar tapping against her shoulder in an almost irritating rhythm was a pretty good incentive.
She stared at me for long seconds.
Her gaze was so direct it felt like it went straight through my face and started digging around inside, between my bones and the little bit of thought I had left. I had the feeling that if I blinked, she'd ask for my head as a souvenir.
I'm not lying…
Just when I thought I was about to pass out, she nodded slightly. Like she'd found something only she could see.
"Looks like it's true."
The others loosened up a little, relaxing a few millimeters. Only the skinny one with the hollow eyes kept watching me like he was waiting for me to do something unbelievably stupid.
"But if you're lying…"
She spoke again, bringing the iron bar closer and pressing the tip against my chest.
"You'll wish you weren't."
The cold metal cut straight through me.
"Where did you come from?"
"A church."
I whispered.
"I was in a church."
She hesitated.
The iron bar lifted and pressed under my chin, forcing my head up.
"A church…"
She repeated, more to herself than to me, then turned to the others:
"Was there any church around here?"
The three of them looked at each other and shook their heads almost at the same time.
"No way in hell… not anymore."
Muttered the older one.
The iron bar pressed harder into my throat. The pain in my wrist became tiny compared to the ice crawling up my neck.
"Don't mess with me…"
This time there was anger in her voice.
"I'm not in the mood."
"What?… I… I'm not messing with you."
Panic took over everything. Every part of my body felt awake and desperate to run in the opposite direction. Cold sweat slid down my back, but the icy wind just made me shake harder.
"Tell me the truth."
But I am telling the truth.
I wanted to say it with conviction.
But…
Even I wouldn't believe me.
I swallowed hard and forced the words out.
"I… I'm not lying. I was there and, out of nowhere, I ended up here. There was… there was a thing…"
The images came back sharp.
"A monster…"
I went on, tripping over the sentences:
"Bigger than that building. I swear. It was huge… and it had that… yellow stuff…"
As I spoke, their expressions changed.
The skinny old man went even paler. The others glanced around, nervous, like whatever I was describing might step out of the fog any second and come say hi in person.
"Quiet."
The woman cut in, hissing the word.
Silence came back, but it was different now. It felt like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.
She stared at me again.
"So you saw a Rizonte…"
She spat the word out.
"And you're still fine? You seriously expect me to believe that?"
Rizonte?
So that thing had a name.
I repeated it without realizing:
"Rizonte…"
The iron bar dug into my throat again, dragging my focus back whether I liked it or not.
"It's true."
I blurted, fear shoving the words out of me.
"It's true, I swear. There were bodies too… they… they were on the stairs… like… like…"
The sentence died halfway.
"Echoes?"
One of them asked, voice dripping with disgust and sadness all at once.
Echoes.
Another word that made no sense and, at the same time, felt like it had already lived in my head.
"Captain…"
Murmured the chubby man behind her, voice low and almost pleading.
"If they really were Echoes, we can't leave it like that. They still—"
"Shut up, Ian."
She snapped without taking her eyes off me.
"Did you see anything else?"
I thought of the thick yellow fog and the dark holes that looked like eyes.
"I did…"
I breathed, barely above a whisper.
"After the monster… the Rizonte screamed… I saw a yellow fog."
Her face changed.
Just a little. But it changed.
A flash of fear.
The same fear crossed the others' faces. They started shifting on their feet, restless, like they wanted to bolt.
For a second, she looked at me like I was a much bigger problem than some amnesiac stranger.
"So the Rizonte is moving again."
She muttered to the others, not to me.
"And you saw it."
The wind blew harder, gray mist swirling around us.
I wanted to say that maybe I'd misunderstood everything, that maybe I was delirious, that none of it was real. But the memory was so vivid it felt like it was still happening.
She seemed to make up her mind.
She slid the iron bar back over her shoulder.
"Take him."
My body reacted before my brain caught up.
What?
"Wait! Where are you taking me?"
"To a safe place."
She answered, without looking at me.
"It's already getting dark, and trust me: you don't want to stay here."
She paused for a second, turned her head and gave me a half-smile that never made it to her eyes.
"Come on. I'm not a monster."
Debatable.
Two of the men came closer and grabbed my arms, one on each side. Their hands were cold and the grip way too tight to be comforting.
They pulled me along with them.
The dead streets stretched out ahead, covered in the same stubborn ash. As we walked, the daylight died too fast, like someone was in a rush to switch the sky off.
The fog started swallowing signs, cars, storefronts.
Above us, between the clouds, a purple aurora spread. I couldn't tell if it was beautiful or terrifying.
It looked like an open wound in the sky.
No one spoke.
Just the sound of footsteps, rubble crunching under boots. Every now and then, a distant noise made everyone tense for a few seconds before they went back to walking like nothing had happened.
After a while, I started noticing the walls.
Words burned into them with fire. Symbols I didn't recognize. Dark red letters, almost brown, scrawled in a hurry. Some I understood. Others didn't look like any language I knew.
But one sentence kept repeating, always in red:
RETURN TO THE ARMS OF THE FLESH.
My stomach flipped.
"What's that?"
I asked before deciding whether I really wanted to know.
The woman answered without looking back:
"Nothing. Just a bunch of lunatics."
The others laughed. Short, dry, humorless laughs. That's when I noticed one of the people holding me was a woman. Her grip was as firm as a fighter's, but when she laughed, her voice came out surprisingly melodic.
For some reason, that just made everything feel more wrong.
She noticed my discomfort.
"That was the church's promise."
She said, almost explaining.
"In the early days, they thought they had something that could save us."
"And… did they?"
I asked automatically.
They laughed louder. It wasn't the laugh of people who found anything funny. It was the laugh of people who had long since passed the point of crying.
"Take a guess."
She said, looking at the writing with disgust.
The captain—because by then I was sure that's what she was—stopped and turned to look me in the eye.
"For someone who says they came from the church, you don't seem to know much."
I opened my mouth.
I was going to say "I'm not from the church," but something jammed in my throat.
What if I am?
Before I could start arguing with my own brain, she had already turned her back on me.
The others followed, and the heavy silence settled again, broken only by the echo of our footsteps.
Until… something changed in the air.
The fog seemed to vibrate, like it had a life of its own.
And then we heard it.
The same chant.
Far away… but not far enough.
The same low, deep, distorted sound I'd heard before. Now it felt like a lament cutting across the entire world. The ground shook, just a little—barely—but my body noticed.
Everyone stopped for a moment.
The air grew thicker. I couldn't tell if I'd stopped breathing or if the air had just given up on coming into my lungs.
The captain raised her hand, then spoke quickly:
"Run. Now."
No one argued.
The four of them moved at once and I was dragged along, stumbling as I tried to keep up. Boots pounded the wet asphalt, and every step sounded too loud, too obvious.
The sound came back. Louder.
One of the men behind us tripped and fell.
"Get up, Malik!"
The woman at my side shouted, her voice shaking.
He didn't get up.
He started convulsing.
His body arched backward in a way no human body should. His hands clawed at his own chest, arms, neck, like he was trying to tear something out from inside.
The man holding my arm let go for a second, ready to help—until he saw what was happening.
"Shit…"
The captain muttered, running back with the iron bar in her hands.
"Shit, shit, shit…"
I heard bones breaking. Wet cracks.
Unmistakable.
Even standing a few feet away, a hot, rotten breath hit my face.
Malik opened his mouth like he was going to scream, but what came out was a guttural, rasping sound. His neck started to stretch. His fingers fused together, melting like hot wax.
The flesh bubbled.
His eyes rolled back, turning a sickly yellow. His jaw opened wider than any jaw should, splitting, and the skin kept stretching until it tore.
I didn't understand why no one ran.
I wanted to run. I should have run.
But the two on my sides held me so tight it felt like my arms were theirs.
The thing that had once been Malik gave one last spasm. It stopped expanding and stayed there, trembling, in an impossible shape, its face frozen in pure despair.
Silence.
"Echo…"
The captain murmured quietly.
"He turned into one of the Echoes."
The others looked like they'd been punched, but not surprised. It was the kind of horror that had long since become routine.
"It's getting dark…"
She said, tired.
"Make it quick."
The skinny old man pulled out a bottle with a yellowish liquid. I knew what it was before I smelled it.
Kerosene.
He poured it over what was left of Malik and struck a match.
The hiss of burning flesh almost made me throw up again.
They stared for a few seconds, in silence. It looked like a ritual they hated, but could perform with their eyes closed.
I don't know how much time passed. For me, it was an eternity.
Finally, the captain said:
"Let's go."
We started walking again.
The image of the deformed body burning at the side of the street stuck in my head. I could still smell it even when we were far away. And I was sure I could still hear the crackle of flesh burning right next to my ear.
When the night swallowed everything, we reached a slightly sloped street. Ahead, a fallen sign, half-covered in ash and moss, still showed the letters under the rust:
CENTRAL STATION – LINE 3.
Without explaining anything, the captain stepped over the sign and pulled aside a layer of overgrowth hiding a staircase.
The smell that came from below was of iron, mold… and something older.
Faint lanterns lit the steps.
It looked like the open mouth of something.
The captain didn't hesitate. Before going down, she said:
"Finally home."
Home…
If that was home, something was very wrong with this world.
Or with me.