They'd been walking nearly an hour in silence.
Vance walked quietly ahead of them—level-headed, not shaken, always watching for something to move in the woods. Ellie gripped Kian's arm tightly, holding him back from falling again. He was gasping but continued on.
Eventually, they reached a clearing near a shallow creek. Broken stones lined the edges, like there used to be something here—an old shed, maybe a cabin—now long gone. Only a collapsed roof and a rusted water tank remained.
Vance stopped. "We rest here. You've got ten minutes."
Ellie looked around, skeptical. "This doesn't look safe."
"It's safer than out there," he said, glancing toward the forest they came from.
Kian leaned back against the rocks, half-closed eyes. Ellie knelt next to him, brushing dirt from his face. For a moment, there was silence—only the river flowing, birds silent, as if even nature held its breath.
Vance stood alone, facing the trees. Waiting. Listening.
Ten minutes had elapsed.
"Ok times up let's go," he said.
Ellie stood Kian up, and they followed behind again.
And this time, they traveled deeper into the ancient woods—where moss covered everything and even the air was stifled. Almost immediately, something was visible in the distance: a bombed radio tower, half-buried under trees, with twisted fencing and a torn sign that had once displayed military markings.
Above it, a compound.
Low buildings, vines and fog-enshrouded. No lights. No noise.
But the doors opened as they reached them—wide enough for Vance to slip through without having to close the door.
He turned back to them before disappearing inside.
"Welcome to Hollow Base or in other words the Shadow Mercenaries Base," he said. "Don't touch anything until I say it's okay."
And then he disappeared into the building.
Ellie and Kian stood at the door—still, stretched tight, and wondering if they'd just stepped into a sanctuary… or something else.
Ellie entered first, Kian close behind.
Again, within Hollow Base was dim, the suspended lights gently swaying from metal beams. Gun oil, grime, and the smell of something mechanical hung in the air. It wasn't clean or gleaming—it was raw. Occupied. It was like every inch of it had a tale to tell.
Steel and concrete walls were painted in patches with welded scrap. Flags of earlier wars adorned the space alongside new signs of mercenary war. Lines of antique rifles in one corridor, another filled with odd curved swords, as if produced secretly. Equipment here—radios, screens, throbbing sensors—but not new. Salvaged items patched back together out of necessity.
Ellie's eyes fell on a black flag draped near a table strewn with maps and pinpoint markers. The emblem on it was familiar: a broken sword cutting through a white mask.
She shivered.
"Not exactly welcoming," she grumbled.
"Good," Vance said beside a roughly hewn door. "It's not meant to be.".
He opened it and led them into a side room—smaller, warmer, with a table, a few chairs, and a stocked shelf of canned food and water. There were medical supplies stacked in a corner, and the window had thick curtains drawn tightly shut.
"Stay here for the night," he said. "You'll be safe."
Ellie stepped forward. "What is this place, really? A mercenary base?"
Used to be a forward ops base," Vance stated. "Now one of the only places we base out of—anymore—for those of us still trying to fight back."
"Fight what?"
Vance glared at her with a deadpan face.
"The Wraiths. And the things that prey on them."
He moved away again, but Ellie caught him, "You said something was wrong… after you killed that Wraith. What did you mean?"
Vance hesitated.
"That wasn't a stray," he told her. "It was tagged. Someone released it… to test something."
Kian's tired eyes flew all the way open. "You mean someone used it?"
Vance didn't answer that. Instead, he replied, "Rest. Tomorrow, I'll take you somewhere that might help answer your questions. But I'm warning you—truth's never free."
Then he shut the door behind him, leaving them alone in the room.
Ellie sat alongside Kian, her thoughts reeling.
They were safe, for the first time in weeks.
But it didn't taste like safety.
It tasted like the silence that precedes something a great deal worse.
Morning sunlight filtered through the mist like a blade slicing the sky open.
They walked in silence.
Kian's legs ached. Ellie stayed on guard, eyes roving over every individual surrounding them. The yard they entered was full of noise and flesh — soldiers and mercenaries training, fighting, surviving.
Gunfire cracked to the left. Grunts and snarls sliced through the air.
Two fighters battled bare-chested beside a wrinkled cage, blood splatters on the earth. Others battled with knives and old guns, and a woman yelled orders at a young recruit. All of these individuals were bred to fight — and all of them turned to look.
At them.
The strangers.
Ellie crept in closer to her little brother.
"They don't like us," she growled.
"They don't like anyone," Vance said without turning. "But they know better than to touch what's mine."
A mercenary, a sputter of derision on his lips, strolled past. Another spat. One more leaned against a pole and growled, a sort of thing, to another soldier.
Then—
"Vance," a grizzled woman bellowed. Short silver hair, jagged scar down one cheek, a blade as tall as a kid strapped to her back. "You collecting kids now?"
Vance halted. He turned towards her — and that warm, easy smile he'd bestowed upon her in the woods vanished. Replace it with a hard, icy calm.
"They're not kids," he said, his voice sounding like steel scratching against bone. "They're bait."
Ellie froze.
Kian blinked. "What."
But Vance was already in motion.
Neither of them said anything after that.
They pushed him through past the open yard, past the sandbag checkpoint and gun-turret emplacements. Ahead of them stretched the main base — a ramshackle citadel constructed from concrete, scrap metal, and the wrecks of ancient military technology. Barbed wire. Antennas still receiving echoes from dead satellites.
The gate hissed open.
Within, the earth vibrated with clandestine planning — engineers firing weapons, mercs poring over maps, scouts returning in dirt-smeared debriefs. It was more than a camp. It was a living organism.
"Where are we?" Ellie grumbled to herself.
Vance said nothing.
They moved deeper until they reached a sealed building with reinforced walls and yellowed warning placards of a war so long past. Faded symbols of peace, security… all ironic today.
Vance swept his hand over a hidden reader. The doors opened.
Within: silence. Screens glowed with data. Red dots beat on maps, marking movement, disappearances, Wraith activity. Files stacked like the weight of a thousand secrets. Medical records. Mutation files. Schematics of Wraith internals.
"This is where I work," Vance said. "Where we track what the rest of the world doesn't want to see happens."
He removed a file from a drawer. Slammed it onto the table.
Two names stamped in red:
Ellie Falaen
Kian Falaen
Ellie's mouth went dry.
"You recognized us even before you saw us?" she asked.
"I recognized someone would survive," Vance said. "I didn't know it'd be you two."
Got it — I've removed that foreshadowing sentence. Here's the revised ending of that scene, keeping the tension and intrigue but without revealing that the Wraith had wanted Kian:
He looked at them now — really looked. Not as strangers. But as pawns on a board.
"Why are we included in that file?" Kian demanded.
Vance folded his arms. "Because you were doing something you shouldn't have been."
That was all he said.
And then he strode away, talking into a small comm device clipped to his wrist. The overhead lights extinguished, replaced by a dim red light. Alarms did not scream this station did not panic. It prepared.
Ellie glanced over at Kian. Her expression was determined, but her hand trembled infinitesimally as she reached out for him.
They were safe.
But they weren't free