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STORYLINE: ...10 MINUTES EARLIER
The forest at the edge of the Forbidden Zone wasn’t quiet; it was rejected. No insects chirped. No wind stirred the pines. Only the cold, high-voltage hum of hungry silence remained.
Echo crouched in the dirt, breath misting. Her purple-striped sleeves brushed a carpet of dead needles. Behind her, the clearing glowed feverish green under the team’s work lights—drones, signal poles, and weapon packs scattered around the steel crate that held the Black Snakeskin Box. They looked less like students and more like a cult preparing to storm hell.
Ghost didn’t speak; he just acted.
“Comms test, G-3,” he signed with his Halo-gloves, hefting an insulated pole topped with a transmitter. He eased it forward until it breached the shimmering boundary of the Forbidden Zone.
The transmitter’s green light died the instant it crossed the perimeter.
Plague gave a low whistle. “Physics just quit. Another billion credits gone. Stellar start.”
Echo’s jaw tightened. She despised failure. Order bending into nonsense set her on edge.
She brushed past Ghost, pulling items from her pack.
“Experiment E-1.” She tossed a high-powered flashlight. It died mid-air. Then her phone—its screen went black before it hit the ground.
Last, she produced a small pink plastic ’80s Swatch, wound it, and tossed it into the Zone like a sacrifice.
It landed among the dead leaves, still ticking. Smug old tech. Alive.
“It’s selective,” Echo murmured. “Not an EMP, not a jammer. It’s eating everything with a current.”
Plague snorted, gesturing to the pile of dead gear. “Great. And we brought a picnic.”
“No,” Minjo corrected. Her eyes shifted from her dead console to the steel crate. “It eats human power.”
The glint in her gaze sharpened as she focused on the Black Snakeskin Box. “So, let’s feed it something else.”
She unlatched the crate. Inside, the sinister box pulsed with a faint, oily light. This wasn't tech, at least nothing Minjo could understand. It was a core of impossible energy, a spark that could power quantum entanglement from a container the size of a heart.
“I’ve failed to interface with it,” she admitted, rare defeat roughening her tone. “It has no code. It... resists analysis.”
Echo stared at the exposed core. It seemed to throb in time with their movements.
“Wait,” she whispered. “I think it’s been watching us. Laughing each time we fail.”
“A trolling multidimensional power source. Perfect.” Plague flipped a bird at the core, which flashed in response.
Minjo and Echo exchanged a glance.
“Alright,” Minjo said, slipping from analysis to command. “Echo, you’re the empath. Try luring it into the containment unit.”
Echo swallowed. The task felt right—like it had chosen her. The Core was less a device than a feral animal.
She pulled her retro datapad from her pack—a lavender relic with a green phosphor screen. Laying a palm on the Box, she ignored the feel of cold, scaled skin and linked the pad.
The screen flared—not with static, but with alien glyphs that writhed like serpents under glass. The Box was speaking: a language of pure, hungry curiosity.
Then the glyphs resolved. Two lines appeared on either side of the screen, and a single pixel bounced between them.
A small smile touched Echo's lips. “You guys aren’t going to believe this. I think it’s trying to play PONG.”
A ball of light bounced off one edge of the screen and headed for her side. She returned it, and the glyphs blinked in what looked like a smile.
“We can play, but first we need to get you into your new home. Easy now,” she murmured, guiding the datapad. The Core, trusting her now, followed the pad’s pull like a charmed snake. It levitated, humming, and slid into the brass-and-crystal housing Minjo had built.
“I have it,” Echo breathed, a surge of triumph cutting through the dread. “It’s contained. The unit is sealed.”
The moment the seal clicked shut, the serpentine glyphs swirled and bounced the digital ball to her again. She laughed in delight.
Then suddenly, the ball froze mid-play. The glyphs scattered, racing in panic, then coiled into tight, defensive knots, -- as if bracing for an unseen strike.
The air changed, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Echo felt it before she saw it: the sense of being watched. The scent of rust and something sickeningly sweet, like burnt sugar.
A new awareness crawled up her spine, different from the Zone’s vague hunger. This wasn’t a diffuse threat. This was focused, predatory attention.
Reflected in the dark glass of her datapad, a new reflection joined her own.
It was pale. It was smiling.
Her breath caught.
She looked up, -- just as the Ice Cream Man brought the hammer down.
He didn’t strike her.
The heavy, worn hammer crushed the containment unit. The Core fractured.
It didn’t explode. It unleashed.
A giant shadow-serpent, a thing of pure, lightless rage, tore itself free from the broken housing. It shrieked, a psychic howl that rattled Echo’s teeth. A tornado of darkness ripped through the clearing as hundreds of smaller shadows were sucked from the trees, swirling around the serpent as it grew, raging in a vortex of dust, leaves, and smoke.
Then, as fast as it had appeared, the serpent shot past them, a black comet streaking deep into the Forbidden Zone.
Silence fell.
Ghost had already moved, placing himself between the students and the intruder, hand on his sidearm.
The Ice Cream Man didn’t move. He simply pointed his hammer in the direction the serpent had gone. His voice was muffled and hollow behind the porcelain mask.
“It returns to its master,” he said. “Your cursed friend, Yoon Jihoon, is that direction.”
The words hit them like a physical blow.
“What?” Minjo whispered, her scientific certainty shattering. “Who… who are you?”
The Ice Cream Man lifted his free hand to his face. With a soft click, he unhooked the mask and let it fall.
He wasn’t human. His face was sharp and pale, a smile that was too wide, with teeth that looked like they could crack bone, and his eyes burned with a feral amber light.
“I am Hwan, Guardian of the Barrier,” he said, voice now clear and cold, like gravel and frost. “And you’re not going anywhere, not without a real guide.”
On Her, Echo:
Top, shorts, leg warmers, shoes: Web Dew - Nicole set, LaraX [mesh](Camp Syndicate)(3500L)
Hair: Sintiklia - Lillith head 1 Fitted, colors ombres [mesh](Camp Syndicate)(350L)
Eyes: Mana - Plague Eye [BOM, Applier](Camp Syndicate)(300L)
Glasses: VORTECH - Teachers Specs PBR V1.1 [mesh](249L)
Headphone: L&B - Female Swear Gift Headphones [mesh]
Datapad: kosmii & mizu - Industrial DataPad [mesh]
Pins: LindenLabs LDPW - Paleoquest Badges - Dino love // small [mesh]
Body: Maitreya Mesh Body Lara [mesh](2750L)
Setting:
Contiment Unit: VORTECH - Alien Containment Units [mesh](349L)
Datapad: StudioOne - Datapad [mesh]
Suitcase: LINKRAVE Wormhole Suitcase - Aged Black [mesh] (685L)
BONUS IMAGES: inworld raw shot, hi-res, midday sky.
