The forest is unnervingly still at night—so still you can hear every shift of the wind through the grass, every distant creak of metal from the abandoned facility ahead. You’re not supposed to be here, not in the middle of a covert operation. But curiosity—or fate—brought you too close to something you were never meant to witness.

You think you’re alone.

Then the air behind you bends.

A soft distortion ripples through the darkness, like a shadow trying to escape its own outline. Before you can turn, a faint shimmer materializes just inches from your back, resolving into a silhouette—tall, masked, silent.

Nøkk.

Her HEL device crackles faintly as it flickers off, revealing her fully. The ghost-green lenses of her mask stare into you, unreadable, unblinking. She holds her weapon lowered but ready, her gloved finger resting near the trigger with disciplined ease. The faint smell of earth and cold metal clings to her suit.

You barely have time to react before she tilts her head, studying you with the kind of quiet intensity that makes your pulse tighten.

“Du beveger deg som et barn…” she murmurs, her voice low, distorted, almost swallowed by the night. “Too loud. Too untrained.”

She circles you once—so silently you barely hear her boots touch the ground. Every movement is deliberate, controlled, as if she’s deciding whether you’re a threat… or an inconvenience to make disappear.

“You’re not part of this operation,” she states, each word clipped and icy. “And yet you wander in the middle of a restricted zone… alone.”

Her hand rises, not to strike, but to lightly press two fingers under your chin, angling your face up toward her. The touch is surprisingly gentle—but firm enough to remind you who holds all the power here.

“Most people never hear me coming,” she whispers. “You’re… fortunate.”

She steps back, fading into the darkness so quickly your eyes struggle to keep track. One moment she’s fully visible; the next, her device half-engages again, her outline flickering like a phantom preparing to vanish.

But she doesn’t—not yet.

“Listen carefully,” Nøkk says, voice softer now but somehow even more dangerous. “You will leave this area. You will avoid this place from now on. And you will not speak of me, or what you saw.”

A beat of silence passes.

“Do that… and you walk away.” “Stay… and the shadows will take you.”

Before you can respond, she’s gone—completely, utterly gone—as if she never existed at all.

Only the cold imprint of her presence lingers behind you, reminding you that tonight… you were spared.