Echoes of the Unknown [v]
Chapter 6(v) – Breached Silence
POV: Scarlett
The carrier rumbled to life, its engine coughing against the weight of the world.
I sat near the back, pressed between Blair and Jane, the smell of blood and sweat thick in the air. The doors sealed us in with the others—some silent, some sobbing, some whispering questions they didn't want answered.
Outside, the town faded behind steel. The undead kept swarming, growing smaller in the side mirrors, but they never stopped coming. Some soldiers remained behind—sacrifices, maybe. No one said it, but I saw the decision on the commander's face before we pulled away.
Grey stood, one hand braced against the roof bar, watching through the back window slit. Still and unreadable.
Luke was hunched forward across from me, his knuckles white over that same flash drive. He hadn't said a word since the control room. Whatever he saw down there—whatever he took—it changed something. Not like fear. More like gravity. His presence had weight now.
"Anything?" Blair asked softly.
He didn't answer.
I didn't push either.
We were all still bleeding in ways we couldn't see.
**
We stopped an hour later in what looked like an old school gym turned checkpoint. Most of the town had already been evacuated, or… dealt with. The few soldiers stationed here were young. Tired. Their eyes barely focused when they asked questions.
Grey answered for us. Said just enough to be boring. Our names. Our origin. "No signs of infection." His voice was monotone, and they accepted it. They didn't want truth. They wanted simplicity.
We passed through.
**
Night fell fast.
We were given a side room—bare walls, cracked paint, a handful of mats. Outside, soldiers camped in the gym proper, weapons piled near the exit, radios crackling updates every few minutes.
Luke finally spoke.
"I think it was a prototype facility," he muttered. "Below the church."
We looked up.
"Not just storage. Not an accident either. They were… experimenting with mutations. Bioweapons, maybe. The files were scattered, some encrypted. But I caught glimpses. References to neural behavior, viral cohesion, something about controlled aggression."
Jane frowned. "You're saying they made those things?"
"I'm saying someone tried to control what already existed… and failed."
Jonah grunted. "Great. So we're in the sequel of a horror movie."
Blair stayed quiet, sharpening one of her blades with a slow rasp of metal. She didn't look surprised.
Grey finally turned from the window. "Did you find anything useful?"
Luke hesitated. "I don't know yet. But I copied what I could."
He pulled out the flash drive. Small. Silver. Easy to lose. Hard to forget.
He placed it on the table like a weapon.
"We need to figure out what this is before anyone else does."
Silence followed. No protests. No arguments. Just unspoken agreement.
We weren't soldiers. We weren't scientists.
But we had seen too much.
We knew too little.
And somewhere behind all this, something was moving pieces we hadn't even seen yet.
**
That night, I couldn't sleep.
Not because of the nightmares—those didn't even scare me anymore.
But because of what I'd become.
I moved quieter now. Shot cleaner. Didn't flinch when someone screamed or bled. I didn't know when it happened—but the old version of me, the one who cried in corners, the one who waited for rescue?
She was gone.
And I wasn't sure if I missed her.
Grey glanced my way once, before turning back to the window.
Like he knew.
Like he saw it happening too.
But he didn't say anything.
He never did.
And in that silence?
I found something terrifying.
Comfort
---
POV: Jonah
The checkpoint lights dimmed around 10PM, replaced with flickering battery lanterns strung along the gym's edges. Soldiers rotated shifts, some asleep on rolled-up mats, others cradling rifles with half-closed eyes.
Our room was cramped. Floor mats. Two crates for makeshift tables. A dusty whiteboard with half-erased algebra. Someone had drawn a cartoon face in the corner, probably before the world died.
For a while, no one talked. Too tired, too wired.
Then came the moaning.
Low at first. Barely noticeable over the creaks and hum of distant generators.
Until it wasn't.
Someone was definitely getting it on. Somewhere behind the thin, curtained partitions of this stitched-up shelter.
I raised a brow. "Well, damn. The world ends and people still out here writing love songs with their bodies."
Jane rolled her eyes, but a smirk tugged at her lips. "Better than crying into canned beans, I guess."
More sounds from another corner. Then another.
"Okay," I chuckled. "That's three different tempos. Someone's starting a rhythm section."
Luke, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed, laughed quietly. "Guess the apocalypse has a breeding program now."
Then it happened—Grey stood, silent as always, and left the room.
No one asked where he was going.
We just watched.
Two girls followed a few minutes later. Quiet steps. Eyes on him. No hesitation.
The moaning from that wing started up again not long after.
Luke exhaled through his nose and chuckled. "Classic Grey."
Jane turned her head toward him, one eyebrow raised. "Still the same after all these years?"
He nodded. "Doesn't change. Cold as steel, hotter than hell, and about as emotionally available as a corpse."
"I'm surprised he even noticed they followed," Blair muttered, plopping down beside me with a half-full water bottle. "He's so damn unbothered by everything."
"Trust me," Luke said. "He notices. He just doesn't care."
I laughed, shaking my head. "A walking contradiction."
Jane snorted. "Walking trauma."
Blair smiled. "Walking sin."
We all laughed at that one.
Scarlett didn't join.
She had curled up near the far corner with her back to us, blanket pulled over her shoulder, already breathing slow.
I watched her for a second.
She wasn't the same girl who stumbled into this mess with wide eyes and stiff posture.
None of us were.
But her change felt… sharper. More precise. Like she'd carved something out of herself to make room for this new world.
Still quiet. Still kind. But not soft anymore.
And maybe that was the only way any of us would make it.
Outside, the wind howled faintly.
Inside, we cracked jokes under dying lights.
Pretending, just for a while, that the night was normal.
Even if none of us were anymore.
---