The rail yard appeared out of the fog like the skeleton of a dead city.
Towering rail supports stretched into darkness above them. Rusted tracks crisscrossed the ground in chaotic patterns. Old freight cars sat half-buried in trash and scrap metal.
And there were children.
Dozens of them.
Playing.
At an hour when no children should be awake.
Some kicked a broken drone casing like a ball.
Others sat drawing shapes in the dirt.
One small boy spun slowly in circles, staring up at the hanging cables above like they were stars.
None of them reacted when Squad Nine approached.
Zeri slowed.
"...Okay," she whispered.
"That's weird."
Darian stepped closer, scanning the yard instead of calling out.
"Something's off," he murmured.
The children moved like sleepwalkers.
Laughing softly.
Running in slow looping paths between the rusted train cars.
Ignoring everything around them.
Ravion watched them with visible irritation.
"They're unsupervised," he said flatly. "Untrained. Undisciplined."
"They're kids," Zeri muttered.
Ravion ignored her.
Darian's gaze drifted across the rail yard.
There were too many blind corners. Too many derelict structures. Too many places something could hide.
Then—
He felt it again.
The same thread.
The same faint pull of Essence.
Running through the yard.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"It's the same trail," Darian said quietly.
Ravion glanced at him.
"From before?"
Darian nodded.
"It leads here," he said. "This is connected."
A beat of silence.
The children kept playing.
Laughing.
Like nothing was wrong.
Darian exhaled slowly.
"We split," he said quietly.
Ravion immediately frowned.
"Unnecessary."
"Actually very necessary," Zeri said, gesturing toward the scattered children. "Look at this place. It's massive."
She pointed across the rail yard.
"There's buildings, railcars, tunnels—whatever's going on here could be anywhere."
Ravion glanced at Darian.
His expression hardened almost immediately.
"Fine," he said.
The word sounded more like a concession forced through clenched teeth.
"I will accompany him."
Zeri snorted quietly.
"Wow," she muttered. "Didn't even try to hide the dislike there."
Ravion didn't look at her.
His eyes stayed fixed on Darian.
"Someone must ensure the mission remains efficient," he said coldly.
Darian didn't respond.
"You check the kids," he told Zeri instead.
"See why they're acting like that."
"Yeah yeah," Zeri said. "Try not to murder each other while I'm gone."
She walked toward a group of children kicking a piece of metal plating across the dirt.
"Hey," Zeri called as she approached. "You guys shouldn't be here this late."
The children kept playing.
One of them kicked the metal plate harder.
It skidded across the dirt and slammed against a rail support.
"Did you hear me?" Zeri said, crouching slightly.
"This place isn't safe."
No response.
One girl laughed softly at something invisible.
Zeri frowned.
"Okay that's officially creepy."
The group suddenly ran off together, chasing the metal plate deeper between the freight cars.
"Hey—!" Zeri called.
She followed them.
The children darted between the railcars with surprising speed.
Zeri squeezed through a narrow gap between two rusted freight containers.
"Guys, slow down—"
The space beyond opened into a dark storage room inside a collapsed depot building.
The smell hit her first.
Rot.
Heavy.
Wet.
Zeri stopped dead.
The children were gone.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
And then she saw them.
Bodies.
Several of them.
Collapsed against the far wall.
Rotting.
Clothes torn.
Skin blackened and peeling.
Zeri took a slow step backward.
"Oh..." she whispered.
Her voice trembled.
"Oh shit."
Something moved among the corpses.
Zeri froze.
A person shifted weakly on the ground.
Barely alive.
Their skin hung gray and loose over bone, eyes sunken deep into their skull. Their clothes were soaked with old blood.
They looked up slowly.
"You…" the figure whispered.
Zeri's breath caught.
"Don't move," she said automatically, voice shaking despite her effort to control it.
The figure reached weakly toward her.
"I came…" they croaked.
Their voice cracked into a broken sob.
"I came to save my child…"
Zeri stared at the bodies around them.
Her throat tightened.
For a moment she couldn't speak.
"Jesus…" she whispered.
Meanwhile.
Ravion and Darian moved deeper into the rail yard.
The fog thickened between the abandoned train cars.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
Finally Ravion broke the silence.
"You should not be leading missions," he said abruptly.
Darian glanced at him.
"Noted," he replied.
Ravion's jaw tightened.
"Do not pretend you misunderstand," he said.
They kept walking between the rusted cars. Steel groaned somewhere in the fog.
"Silas was better suited," Ravion continued without hesitation.
The words landed like a blade.
Darian's expression didn't change.
"We're not having this conversation," he said quietly.
"We already are," Ravion replied.
His voice sharpened.
"You think I cannot see it?" Ravion continued. "The mask you wear so no one notices what sits underneath it."
Darian's eyes hardened.
"Careful," he said.
"No," Ravion said coldly. "You be careful."
The spear in his hand lowered slightly, its tip scraping the rail.
"Zeri may not see it," Ravion continued.
His gaze locked onto Darian.
"But I see the cracks."
Silence stretched between them.
"You hide your trauma behind performance," Ravion said. "And one day that performance will fail."
Darian's jaw clenched.
"And when it does," Ravion continued, "people will die."
The fog shifted around them.
"I will not allow that," Ravion said quietly.
His spear lifted.
A slow clapping sound echoed from somewhere above them.
Both men looked up instantly.
A man stood atop a rusted freight car.
His appearance was wrong.
His coat was a patchwork of mismatched fabrics stitched together in chaotic layers. Metal rings and wires dangled from his sleeves. His hair exploded outward in tangled white strands.
One eye glowed faintly with a cracked cybernetic lens.
He smiled widely as he continued clapping.
"Wonderful," he said cheerfully.
Ravion's spear snapped up instantly.
"Identify yourself."
The man tilted his head like a curious animal.
"Oh?" he said brightly.
"And who might you be to give orders here?"
His glowing eye flickered across their uniforms.
"Ah," he said.
"POND."
The smile widened.
"Now that's interesting."