Long before the gunfire.
Before the spear.
Before the laughter.
It started with a flicker.
Inside Jackal, the device in Arlo's lap twitched—once, then again—static crackling like nerves.
"Shit," he muttered, popping the casing open, leaning in with hyper-focused eyes.
The others barely glanced over. They'd seen him fix worse under pressure.
But this time… something fixed him.
The signal wasn't just interference.
It was a door.
Inside the circuitry, buried between corrupted bytes and screeching white noise, something slipped in.
Purposeful.
Hungry.
The Hollowed Saint's presence leaked through Jackal's firewall like ink through damp paper—unseen, unfelt, but precise.
It didn't need to touch Arlo.
It just needed his eyes.
His ears.
His attention.
As he stared into the screen, recalibrating, the pulse of the false signal synced with the rhythm of his mind.
Subtle changes followed—blinks that lasted a heartbeat too long, breaths that slowed like he was listening to something no one else could hear.
And then… silence.
Inside his mind, something clicked.
A voice—not spoken, not heard, but felt—whispered:
"Let's play a small game."
The others never heard it.
They only saw Arlo raise his head, eyes alert, announcing a signal from the sky.
From there… the illusion built itself.
In Arlo's mind, they were ready.
They fought as a unit.
The Hollowed Saint taunted them, toyed with them, threw its spear—again and again.
But the truth?
There was no spear.
No fight.
No plan.
No claymore.
No clever trap.
There was only Arlo.
And the two people who trusted him.
Rhea had been the first.
When the illusion began, she shouted orders, raised her weapon.
In reality, she hadn't drawn her gun at all.
She'd turned toward Jackal, ready to call for backup.
But Arlo… saw her raise her rifle at him.
He saw her mouth move—but the Saint made him hear betrayal.
He pulled the trigger.
Rhea dropped instantly, a bullet through her chest.
Her last breath came with her mouth open in shock—never even knowing who fired.
Dima shouted.
Not in retaliation—
In horror.
Arlo turned.
The Saint whispered:
"He's the one. He's controlled. Stop him before he stops you."
He did.
Arlo shot twice.
Dima staggered back, clutching his abdomen.
Blood bloomed like ink on paper.
He tried to crawl—toward Rhea, not away—
But the third shot ended that.
Arlo didn't remember reloading.
In the illusion, he was still in the fight.
Still the hero.
Still buying time.
Still lining up the final shot to end the Saint.
And then the illusion broke.
The laughter returned—but it didn't echo like before.
It was sharp.
Close.
Real.
The sky dissolved.
The Hollowed Saint vanished.
And Arlo found himself kneeling on the cold, cracked road.
His gun trembled in his hand.
Rhea and Dima lay beside him—
Bullet holes torn through armor and bone.
His hands were soaked in blood.
His sidearm was still warm.
"No…" he whispered. "No, no, no…"
He looked around, heart pounding, mind unraveling.
"We… we won. We killed it—we set the trap. The spear! The—"
His voice cracked.
There had been no spear.
There had been no trap.
There had only ever been him.
He stumbled back, staring at Rhea's lifeless eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry…"
The wind picked up.
Boots crunched behind him.
The Hollowed Saint stood there again—unchanged, untouched, unbothered.
Its voice was cold and gentle:
"The game is over."
Arlo turned to run—maybe to fight.
He raised his sidearm, desperate, trembling—
But the Saint moved.
One clean, effortless motion—
The spear punched through Arlo's chest.
He gasped, blood spilling from his lips.
The weapon pinned him in place for a breathless moment…
Then the Saint pulled it free.
Arlo collapsed beside his team.
No final words.
No second chance.
Just the cruel silence of a victory that was never his.
The Hollowed Saint looked down at the carnage.
Then turned west—toward the heart of the storm.
Toward the prisoner they feared.
Toward Angelo.
The wind howled across the cracked hills, stirring dust into a dancing veil.
Twilight had begun to bleed into darkness, washing the world in faded gold.
But even before the sun dipped beneath the horizon, something unnatural stirred beneath the earth.
Three Hollowed Saints stood at the edge of a scorched field—still as statues.
They did not speak.
They had no need.
The fire spoke.
A flicker of flame burst into the sky above them—silent, but seen.
Then they heard it.
A voice not spoken, but burned into their minds.
"Capture the family. Bring them to him."
It was Vaelgor, the Burning Curse.
His command seared itself into their thoughts with the weight of law.
"He must remember what love feels like—before we tear it away again."
The Saints shifted.
The first to move was tall and jagged, its mask shaped like a cracked mirror.
This one—Mireglass—turned east, limbs twitching with anticipation.
The second floated just above the ground, trailing oily chains that never stopped writhing—Shrikecoil, a parasite-bound thing that fed on pain.
The third was smaller, leaner, cloaked in torn flags and ash. Its eyes never blinked. Its name—Thornmarch—was etched across its chest in self-inflicted scars.
Together, they began to walk.
Far ahead, at the edge of a broken town turned temporary evac camp, the soldiers didn't see them at first.
But they felt the air change.
The wind stopped.
The birds didn't flee—they froze mid-call, like time itself forgot what it was doing.
Then the ground cracked.
Shrikecoil struck first.
A chain snapped from the treeline, wrapping around a sentry's throat before he could scream.
Another chain followed, piercing through a tent wall and dragging a guard halfway across the field before crushing him into the dirt.
The alarm blared—
But it was already too late.
Thornmarch surged forward, blades erupting from its spine, leaping over the barricade like a falling star.
It tore through two soldiers before either could raise a weapon.
Mireglass, slower but deliberate, advanced with shimmering steps—each one scattering mirrored illusions of itself.
The guards aimed at the wrong target.
They always did.
One illusion shattered—so did a man's skull.
Inside the camp, panic erupted.
Sophia grabbed Emma's hand and ran toward the back transport.
Alex followed behind, clutching his sidearm, trying not to look scared.
"Move!" Sophia shouted. "Don't stop!"
Behind them, the Saints were closing in.
"Protect the civilians!" barked a squad leader—
Before Shrikecoil's chain tore him in half mid-sentence.
The few soldiers still standing opened fire.
Bullets tore the silence—
But not the Saints.
Their bodies twisted in impossible arcs, weaving between shots like water through cracks.
Thornmarch was already inside the perimeter.
Then the world stilled.
The voice returned—this time only in Shrikecoil's mind.
"No survivors, if they resist. I want them desperate. I want him to see."
Shrikecoil's chains pulsed like veins.
It turned toward the fleeing truck.
"Target acquired," it whispered.
Then—
The chain flew.