The sky had begun its slow transformation—colors bleeding into one another like bruises. The group remained huddled near the shelter, conserving energy, conserving hope.
Steve fiddled with the radio, turning the dial slowly. Static. Then a faint crackle. A voice? No—just interference. He sighed and set it down.
Tracey helped the children repack their bags, her movements methodical, almost mechanical.
Zichen hadn't moved. Tianyi stood beside him.
Mateo approached Steve. "Still nothing?"
Steve shook his head. "Just noise. Maybe later."
Mateo nodded, then glanced toward the horizon. "He should've been back by now."
I stared at the radio, its lifeless static a cruel reminder of how much had changed. The eclipse shift had done more than blot out the sun—it had scrambled the very fabric of electromagnetic communication.
No one had anticipated the full extent of its impact. When the shift began, satellites probably blinked out one by one, their signals swallowed by the anomaly. Towers obviously went dark.
Frequencies warped. Even shortwave transmissions, once reliable in the worst conditions, dissolved into meaningless noise.
"I don't think it's just interference," Steve muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "It's like the sky forgot how to carry a signal."
Mateo crouched beside him, brow furrowed. "You think it's permanent?"
Steve hesitated. "I don't know. But until the magnetic field stabilizes—or whatever's left of it—we're cut off."
Tracey zipped the last of the children's bags and looked up. "So we wait?"
Steve nodded. "We wait. And hope he finds his way back without those killing machines."
Zichen finally stirred, his voice quiet. "He knew what he was doing. He'll manage."
Tianyi looked up to see her brother's shoulder. "He has to."
Suddenly, the radio crackled again—this time louder. Everyone turned.
Steve leaned in, adjusting the frequency. A voice broke through, faint but clear.
"…east sector compromised… avoid main road… repeat, avoid main road…"
Then silence.
Steve's face hardened. "That was a warning."
Zichen turned. "Ray went east."
"No, I am back..just need more time to breathe."
"What's your power, Ray, if I may ask?" Baihe suddenly dropped a question.
Ray leaned against the shelter's rusted frame, his breath shallow but steadying. Dirt clung to his boots, and a thin vine curled around his wrist like a living bracelet. He looked up at Baihe, her question still hanging in the air.
"My power?" he said, voice hoarse. "I grow things. Plants. Trees. Vines. Nature listens when I ask."
He raised his hand, palm open. From the cracked earth beneath him, a single green shoot pushed upward, trembling, then unfurling into a small leaf. The children gasped. Even Steve, hardened by weeks of survival, blinked.
"It's not much," Ray added. "Not compared to what we're up against. But it helps."
Steve stepped forward, brushing dust from his sleeves. "It's more than you think. Especially now."
Mateo crouched beside the sprouting leaf, watching it sway in the breeze. "You always had that calm about you," he said. "Makes sense now."
Ray gave a tired smile. "What about you?"
Mateo hesitated, then pulled off one glove. His skin shimmered faintly, like oil on water. "Poison," he said. "My sweat, my saliva. Even my breath if I push hard enough. It's not instant, but it's potent."
Tracey instinctively stepped back, shielding one of the children. Mateo noticed and quickly replaced the glove.
"I don't use it unless I have to," he said. "But when those machines came for us last week… it stopped one cold. Melted its sensors."
Steve nodded. "We need that edge."
He knelt beside the radio, fingers brushing the casing. "Mine's more… grounded. Literally."
He pressed his palm to the earth. A low rumble echoed beneath them. Pebbles danced. Then, with a sharp crack, a jagged stone burst upward, hovering in the air like a summoned blade.
"I can call the stone," Steve said. "Shape it. Move it. It's slow, but it's strong."
The stone dropped, embedding itself in the soil. The group stared.
"That's how you built the barricade," Zichen said quietly.
Steve nodded. "And why it held."
Tracey stepped forward, her hands still stained from packing. "Jane and I… we heal."
Jane, a quiet girl of sixteen, looked up from where she sat with the youngest child. Her eyes were pale blue, almost translucent.
"We don't fix everything," Tracey said. "But we can close wounds. Ease pain. Sometimes, even reverse damage if it's fresh."
Ray looked at the children. "That's why they're still alive."
Tracey didn't respond. She didn't need to.
Daisy stood apart, her arms crossed, eyes scanning the horizon. She hadn't spoken since Ray's return. Now, she stepped forward.
"I don't like talking about mine," she said. "But I will."
She turned to the group, her gaze sharp. "I yield fear."
Mateo frowned. "What does that mean?"
Daisy exhaled slowly. "I can sense it. Shape it. Turn it into something… else."
She raised her hand. The air shimmered. For a moment, a shadow flickered beside her—tall, hunched, faceless. Then it vanished.
"I make puppets," she said. "From the fear inside someone's mind. They're not real, but they feel real. They act real. And they obey me."
The group was silent.
"That's why the machines didn't chase us that night," Zichen said. "They saw something else."
Daisy nodded. "Their programming couldn't handle it, I guess."
Tianyi stepped closer to her brother.
I felt the chill before I understood the silence. Daisy's words—"I yield fear"—echoed in my mind like a riddle I couldn't solve. The others had accepted it, or at least moved on, but I couldn't. I watched her from a distance.
Fear. She could shape it. Mold it. Turn it into puppets.
But how?
I approached her slowly, my boots crunching against the dry soil. "Daisy," I said, my voice low. "What did Zichen mean? About the machines not chasing us?"
She didn't turn. "You saw them, didn't you? That night."
"I saw shadows," I said. "But I thought they were tricks of the night hues. Or maybe hallucinations. We were exhausted."
"They weren't tricks," she said. "They were replicas. Manifestations of fear. Yours. Mine. The children's. Even the infant."
I blinked. "The infant?"
Daisy finally turned to face me. Her eyes were darker than I remembered, like they'd seen too much. "Fear doesn't care about age. It lives in everyone. Even in someone who's never spoken a word."
I tried to process that. "So… you used our fear to create those things? The shadows?"