The night was long. Silas didn't sleep.
He sat in the Leviathan's cockpit, watching the red numbers of the countdown timer burn into his retinas. He watched the rain wash the filth of the world into muddy streams.
He watched the other survivors huddle in their metal shells, dreaming of a world that was already a ghost.
He was a ghost, too. Just one that still had a pulse.
A final, soft chime echoed in his mind, clean and sharp as a breaking bone.
[RECONFIGURATION COMPLETE.]
[RESONANCE PISTOL (TIER-0) ACQUIRED.]
He looked down at his hands. The formless, glowing mass had solidified.
The weapon that lay there was a brutal, ugly thing. The familiar frame of his old pistol was still visible, but it was now fused with the military energy cell. Coils of coppery wire wrapped around the barrel like veins, and the cell itself pulsed with a faint, internal crimson light, like a sick, mechanical heart.
It hummed with a low malice that he could feel in his teeth.
[WEAPON: RESONANCE PISTOL (TIER-0)]
[FUNCTION: Converts Host's bio-electric signature and ambient psychic noise into a focused entropic discharge. Effective against non-corporeal entities.]
[AMMO: N/A. Firing depletes Host stamina and weapon integrity.]
[WARNING: Overuse may lead to cellular degradation.]
No bullets. It fed on him. Of course it did. The System gave nothing for free.
He needed to test it.
He needed a target.
Silas scanned the camp through the Leviathan's viewport. The rain had softened to a miserable drizzle. Dawn was a grey, watery wound on the horizon.
His eyes, now subtly enhanced by the System's overlay, picked out a flicker of movement near the edge of the camp.
It was an Echo. A weak one.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: GRIEF ECHO (CLASS-1).]
[A low-level psychic residue left by an individual who died of sorrow. Passively accelerates decay in its immediate vicinity.]
[POTENTIAL ENTROPY VALUE: 5.]
[THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL.]
Perfect.
He opened the cab door. The hinges, already showing signs of rust from proximity to the Echo, groaned in protest. He stepped out, the new pistol heavy and cold in his hand.
The Echo was huddled near a wrecked sedan, its form a shimmering, indistinct smudge in the air, like heat haze on a cold day. It had no face, no limbs. It was just a feeling—a profound, soul-crushing sadness—given just enough shape to be seen.
The grass around it was dead and grey. The sedan's paint was peeling off in long, leprous strips.
He raised the Resonance Pistol. He didn't aim with his eyes. He aimed with the System, a targeting reticle appearing in his vision, locking onto the densest part of the shimmering haze.
He squeezed the trigger.
The gun didn't bark. It didn't roar. It screamed. A high-pitched, tearing sound that ripped through the morning quiet. A bolt of pure, chaotic energy—the color of a television tuned to a dead channel—erupted from the barrel.
Silas felt a sharp, draining sensation, like he'd just run a hundred-yard dash.
The bolt hit the Grief Echo.
There was no explosion. The Echo simply… unraveled. It shrieked a soundless C-note that vibrated in Silas's bones, its form dissolving into nothingness.
When it was gone, a dark, greasy stain remained on the wet asphalt. A stain of nothing.
The System chimed.
[HARVEST COMPLETE. ENTROPY +5.]
[CURRENT ENTROPY: 55.]
[RESONANCE PISTOL INTEGRITY: 99.8%.]
It worked.
A small, grim satisfaction settled in his gut. For the first time, he had a weapon that could actually fight back against the Silence.
"Hey! What the hell was that?"
A voice, thin and jumpy. Silas turned. A scrawny man he knew only as 'Rat' was peering at him from behind an RV, a length of rebar held like a club. Rat was a scavenger, a bottom-feeder who survived by picking over the convoy's scraps.
"None of your business," Silas said, his voice flat. He made no move to hide the pistol. He wanted Rat to see it. He wanted everyone to see it, eventually.
Fear was a resource, too.
Rat's eyes were fixed on the gun, then on the spot where the Echo had been. He was no fool. He knew what an Echo looked like, and he knew they didn't just disappear.
"Jesus," Rat whispered, his Adam's apple bobbing. "You… you killed it?"
Silas didn't answer. He just stared. Rat flinched under his gaze, taking an involuntary step back.
The message was clear. There was a new predator in the pack.
"Look, man," Rat said, forcing a greasy smile. "I got something. Good stuff. Pre-Silence meds. Antibiotics. Got 'em off a corpse back near Salt Lake City. You look like a guy who might need 'em. Trade you for a gallon of diesel."
Silas's System was already working.
[TARGET: ADULT MALE, 'RAT'.]
[ANALYZING OFFER: PHARMACEUTICALS (PROBABILITY OF BEING EXPIRED OR FAKE: 78%).]
[COUNTER-ANALYSIS: TARGET'S VEHICLE IS LOW ON FUEL. TARGET IS DESPERATE.]
[POTENTIAL ENTROPY VALUE: 8.]
The last line hung in his vision for a moment too long. Silas blinked it away. Not worth the effort.
"Not interested," Silas said, turning his back on Rat and walking back to the Leviathan.
"Wait! Half a gallon! C'mon, man!" Rat's voice was pleading now.
Silas didn't look back. He climbed into his cab, the heavy door slamming shut with a solid, final thud. He watched Rat in his side mirror, a pathetic figure shrinking in the drizzle before scurrying back into the shadows of the camp.
He had a new gun. He had a little Entropy. But he was still low on fuel, and his food supplies were running out. The convoy was planning to move on in an hour, continuing its aimless crawl west.
That's when the System chimed again.
[HIGH-YIELD ENTROPY SIGNATURE DETECTED.]
[DISTANCE: 12 MILES. DIRECTION: SOUTH-WEST, OFF-AXIS FROM CURRENT CONVOY ROUTE.]
[SOURCE PROFILE: CONCENTRATED. SUGGESTS A CLASS-3 MENTAL INFLUENCE ECHO, OR A NEST.]
Silas's head snapped up. A high-yield signature. That meant a powerful Echo.
Dangerous.
But the reward…
He accessed the convoy's scavenged road maps, the data flashing in his vision. Twelve miles southwest… an old state highway turnoff. According to the map, there was nothing out there but desert and a single, isolated dot labeled "Siren's Rest Motel."
A trap. It was almost certainly a trap. Mental Influence Echoes were the worst. They didn't just attack your body; they warped your mind, made you see things, believe things. They made you walk into your own grave with a smile on your face.
But a high-yield signature could mean hundreds of Entropy. Enough to repay his debt to the System. Enough for a major upgrade.
He pulled up the Leviathan's external optics, zooming in on the distant turnoff. The image was grainy, distorted by the weather, but he could just make out a flicker. An old neon sign, fighting a losing battle against the gloom.
The System enhanced the image. The sign was supposed to read:
SIREN'S REST MOTEL - VACANCY
But the letters were glitching, the light sputtering. For a split second, the words shifted.
SIREN'S REST MOTEL - AGONY
Then it was back to normal.
A low, melodic sound drifted on the edge of his hearing. A lullaby. Faint, distorted, but unmistakably a lullaby. It was the sound of a mother comforting a child. Or the memory of one.
The System flashed another warning.
[WARNING: CLASS-3 LURE-TYPE ECHO DETECTED. PROBABILITY OF PSYCHIC MANIPULATION: 92%.]
[RISK ASSESSMENT: HIGH.]
[POTENTIAL ENTROPY YIELD: 400-600.]
[RECOMMENDATION: PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION.]
Four to six hundred Entropy.
That was enough to change everything. Enough to turn the Leviathan from a mere truck into a genuine war machine. Enough to give him a real edge.
The risk was high. But the risk of staying with this weak, starving convoy was high, too. They were a moving target, getting slower by the day. Sooner or later, something big would find them, and they'd all be torn apart.
He had to take the chance.
He fired up the Leviathan's engine, the sudden roar making several nearby survivors jump. He didn't care.
He turned the massive wheel, the truck groaning as it broke from the convoy's circle. He drove past the other trucks, their inhabitants staring at him with a mixture of fear and confusion.
He was breaking the first rule. He was going off on his own.
He reached the edge of the camp. The woman from before, the one who'd begged for medicine, was standing there, watching him. Her face was streaked with tears, her expression one of utter despair.
As his headlights swept past her, she just stood there, a statue of hopelessness.
Silas didn't even glance at her.
He pushed the accelerator. The Leviathan picked up speed, its heavy tires churning up mud as it left the relative safety of the convoy behind.
He was alone now. A single, monstrous shape moving through the grey, dead world. The lullaby grew louder, a sweet, sick melody calling him toward the flickering sign.
Towards the agony.
Towards the Entropy.
He checked the Resonance Pistol, resting on the seat beside him. It pulsed with its faint, crimson light.
It was time to go hunting.