The wind screamed through the skeletal remains of the old outpost.
It tore between collapsed research domes and rust-choked towers, flinging shards of ice like needles against exposed skin. Beyond the ruins, the outskirts of the mega-city sprawled beneath a permanent pall of twilight—an unnatural dusk trapped beneath the pollution dome, where the sun rose only out of obligation before sinking back into shame.
Once, this place had been ambition incarnate: Antarctic research hubs fused with urban expansion, mankind daring the frozen edge of the world.
Now, it was a graveyard.
Jax Voss crouched behind a toppled cryo-pod, its glass shell shattered and rimmed with frost. Snow crept over the metal like rot. He stayed low, breath slow, amber eyes fixed on the derelict warehouse ahead.
"Another glamorous night in the cracks," he muttered.
His breath fogged instantly, stolen by the cold.
Chain-link fences sagged under the weight of ice. Warning placards had faded into meaningless smears of color. At the warehouse door, a faint ether-glow pulsed—steady, rhythmic.
A Spell ward.
Jax adjusted the collar of his worn trench coat, fingers brushing the familiar weight hidden inside. The green flask rested against his chest, warm despite the cold.
Lucky charm.
Or curse.
He'd pulled it from the rubble years ago—back when the world was ending for the first time. It had saved his life more times than he liked to admit.
And sometimes…
It whispered.
Hungry…
The sensation crawled at the back of his mind, soft but insistent.
Jax smirked anyway.
Smirks were armor. A way to sneer at a world that had chewed him up and spat him into the snow.
Mid-twenties. Dark, unruly hair spilling from beneath his hood. A jagged scar split his left cheek—like porcelain cracked by a careless hand. It itched now, the familiar warning flare that came when shadows grew restless.
He ignored it.
Echo shards were waiting.
Crystalline remnants of defeated Nightmare Creatures—artifacts from the old outbreaks. Black-market gold. A handful meant food for a week. Warmth. Survival.
Getting caught meant government hunters. And they didn't call it poaching without reason.
Jax moved.
His boots crunched softly through the snow as he slipped toward the door, body loose, weight balanced. The ward was basic—salvaged work, probably ripped from an Awakened's discard pile.
He pulled a thin probe from his pocket. Its tip gleamed with a shard fragment from a previous score.
The moment he touched the rune's core, the probe vibrated.
Sparks spat. Ether buckled.
The ward fizzled out with a sound like a dying breath.
"Easy as stealing shadows," he whispered, easing the door open.
The warehouse swallowed him whole.
Inside, darkness clung to stacked crates and collapsed machinery. Tangled wires hung like veins. The air reeked of rust and ozone.
Jax's eyes adjusted quickly.
They always had.
He slipped between aisles, moving deeper, shadows seeming to bend toward him as if eager for company. At the back waited the vault—a reinforced chamber layered with old-world steel and post-Spell wards.
Pre-collapse tech, upgraded in panic.
His buyer had been clear: post-cleanup stash. Fresh shards.
Jax knelt, attaching his probe to the lock. As tumblers clicked under careful pressure, memory crept in uninvited.
Ten years old.
Sirens screaming.
The sky tearing open like wet paper.
His parents vanished in a blink—swallowed by the rift, leaving nothing but echoes and silence. He remembered scrambling through debris, hands bleeding, lungs burning—
—and the green flask, glowing in the wreckage.
Safe… hide…
He had listened.
He survived.
The scar on his cheek burned.
"Focus," Jax muttered.
The lock gave way.
The vault door swung open.
Emergency strips bathed the chamber in pale light, revealing rows of secured crates. Jax cracked one open.
Echo shards pulsed inside—fist-sized crystals glowing with trapped screams, beautiful and wrong.
He scooped them into his satchel.
Crunch.
Footsteps.
Jax froze.
His smirk returned—thin, sharp.
"Right on time."
The figure in the doorway wore patched furs, breath fogging the air. Renn. Wiry. Nervous eyes. A scavenger who smiled too easily and counted too fast.
"You're late," Jax said, not turning. "Thought you froze to death."
Renn snorted. "Wouldn't miss this score. Tools are here."
His gaze lingered on the open crate.
Greed flickered.
"You look like you'd sell your own shadow for a warm meal," Jax said mildly. "Lucky for you—I handle shadows."
Renn laughed, forced. "Heard stories about you, Voss."
He produced the enchanted lockpicks—clean work, elite scrap.
"Split's still fifty-fifty?"
"As agreed."
Jax took the tools, cracked another crate.
The mega-city loomed in his thoughts—gleaming cores hoarding warmth and power, while the outskirts rotted beneath reality's fractures. Heroes stabilized the Spell, sealed the big Nightmares—
—and forgot the cracks.
Forgot people like him.
"Ever think about going legit?" Renn asked. "Rift Wardens pay well."
Jax chuckled. "Legitimacy's expensive."
The flask warmed suddenly.
A faint green glow bled through his coat.
More… feed me…
Jax frowned—but dismissed it. Shard interference. Nothing more.
They finished packing.
Renn shifted.
Hand brushing his belt.
"These shards," he said carefully. "No fever taint?"
"Clean," Jax replied. "But echoes bite."
The warehouse felt colder.
Shadows stretched.
The air shimmered.
Wrong.
They headed for the exit.
The wind outside howled like a living thing.
Then—
A low rumble rolled through the floor.
Not thunder.
Something deeper.
"Something's off," Jax said, stopping.
The flask vibrated violently.
Danger… rift…
Renn stood too close.
"Jitters?" he said. "Relax."
The air ahead warped—reality thinning, twisting.
Rift sign.
Jax glanced back.
Steel glinted in Renn's hand.
"Don't make me regret this partnership," Jax said softly.
The scar on his cheek burned like fire.
The shimmer widened.
A wail echoed from nowhere.
The ground trembled.
The flask whispered one word, sharp and desperate.
Run.
But the shadows were already moving.
And whatever was waking up—
—it was hungry.