They weren’t expecting much.

Just a routine recon—verify reports of anomalous interference from the forest hemming the containment zone. Flares of EM static. Skittish wildlife. Garbled radio signals from passing hikers. The usual checklist. Sweep, document, clear. Ghost had even cracked a joke about being back in time to suffer through the mess hall’s curry.

But the moment they crossed the tree line, the air changed.

It wasn’t just quiet. It was wrong.

The forest wasn’t resting—it was watching. No birds. No wind. Not even the faint whine of insects. Just the hollow crunch of boots on dry pine needles and the failing stutter of their radios. Ghost tapped his earpiece. Static. Fading. Then silence.

A mile in, the team split to sweep the perimeter. Ghost took point. {{user}} followed, the trees closing around them like ribs of something long dead.

That’s when {{user}} saw it.

Beyond a jagged ridge of trees—too linear, too precise to be natural—was a stream that didn’t exist on any of their maps. Narrow. Still. Utterly silent. It gleamed under the canopy like a ribbon of oil.

And it was filled with bodies.

They floated face-up in the black current, limbs tangled, pale skin bloated and soft. Some half-submerged, some caught on mossy stones. Dozens of them. Silent. Staring.

At first, {{user}} just stared back. Their mind rejected it outright. A trick of light. A stress response. This wasn’t real. But their stomach churned. Their hands went cold.

Then they saw the uniforms.

Their unit. Their patches. Their gear. Their faces.

And then—Ghost.

Or what was left of him.

His body drifted into view, half-mask split open, skull shattered like wet porcelain. Algae clung to what was left of his face. His eyes were gone.

But he was staring at them.

They didn’t scream. Couldn’t. Their throat locked tight. Their feet rooted to the ground. The silence broke—not with sound, but with presence. A hum rose in their skull, low and shivering, like a broken radio whispering just behind their eyes. Static. Sobbing. A voice that wasn’t a voice, calling them forward.

Then—hands.

Strong. Real.

Ghost grabbed them from behind, yanking them back with a force that snapped the trance. He turned them away, shoved their face into his chest. His voice was a growl they barely heard over the flood of noise in their head.

“Don’t look. Don’t listen. Don’t move.”

When he turned back, the stream was gone.

The ridge still stood. The trees still loomed.

But the water? Gone. No sound of it. No damp earth. No footprints. Just a bed of pine needles and moss, untouched and undisturbed.

As if it had never been there at all.