The fog in Sector Twelve was thinner than expected.
That alone made command nervous.
Aren stood at the edge of the transport ramp, boots already damp with mist, listening to the briefing drone on behind him. Five soldiers. A short-range scout op. Minimal contact expected.
Minimal contact never meant no casualties.
He didn't ask questions. He didn't volunteer insight. He'd learned that much by now — the more he said before things went wrong, the longer people remembered what he said afterward.
Their lead was Corporal Vane. Tall, quiet, never made eye contact. The kind of soldier Aren had once wanted to become — competent, invisible. The kind who came home whole or not at all.
They moved fast.
Two kilometers southeast, the trees thinned into salt-burnt ravines. Aren kept to the rear, marking terrain without writing it down. He already knew where the ground would collapse if pushed. He didn't know how. He didn't wonder anymore.
"Cover swap," Vane said, glancing back. "You take right."
The soldier beside Aren shrugged. "Fine by me."
They changed places.
Three minutes later, a mine — missed by every sweep — took the man's legs.
The explosion was small. Focused. Efficient.The way good traps are.
Aren didn't look away as the medics worked. He watched the way Vane's fingers trembled. How no one looked at him afterward.
Not once.
The demons came at dusk, just as predicted.
Thin silhouettes at first — shadow-limbed scouts crawling along the ridge line like vines in reverse. Aren watched them through the cracked lens of his visor, noting how they spread wide early, testing ground.
He'd seen the pattern before.
"Pull Echo squad left," he said.
Vane hesitated. "That's exposed terrain."
"They won't come from the right."
Vane didn't argue. He relayed the order. Echo shifted.
When the surge hit ten minutes later, it came from the center and left — full force, no reserve.
Aren's position held.Echo's cut across the flanks cleanly.It wasn't even close.
They returned to base with four injuries and two confirmed kills on Type VII anomalies — the kind that rarely appeared outside frontlines.
Command filed the report under Exceptional Strategic Execution.
Vane gave Aren a nod. "You see more than I do," he said. Not praise — just fact.
Someone handed out flasks that night. Even Drev sent a sealed note from headquarters:
"Reinforcements arrived late. Would've been worse without your timing. Keep it up."
Aren didn't drink. He sat under the ventilation duct and tried not to listen as soldiers argued over which part of the flank gave first, who deserved credit, who moved fastest.
At midnight, a body was found in the barracks.
Private Meera — the one who'd landed the final shot on the second demon — was face-down in her bunk. No signs of trauma. No sounds of struggle. Just gone.
The medics used words like "aneurysm," "sleep apnea," and "underlying condition."
Aren didn't say a word.But that night, he added another ring to the chart in his journal.
The supply dock reeked of rust and salt.
Aren was checking the requisition logs — part of his new responsibilities, or maybe just an excuse to avoid the barracks — when someone stepped into the doorway.
She wasn't military. Her coat was civilian, faded blue, sleeves rolled too high. Grease smudged across one hand, bandage on the other.
"You're Aren Valen," she said.
He turned slowly. "I am."
She didn't smile. "My cousin was Private Meera."
Aren said nothing.
"I'm not here for revenge," she added. "I just want you to hear it once, from someone who isn't afraid to say it."
She stepped forward, voice quiet but steady.
"Everywhere you go, people vanish. Units fail. Friends break down or go missing. And you stay upright."
Her hands trembled, just slightly.
"We call it luck," she said. "Like that makes it easier. Like it means there's no one to blame."
She looked at him then — not angry. Just tired.
"But if it is luck… then someone's paying for it. Aren't they?"
The wind outside shifted. A door creaked two buildings away.
Aren opened his mouth. Closed it again.
"I don't care what you are," she said. "Just don't pretend you don't see it."
Then she walked past him, slow and quiet, as if any faster might snap something.
The mission was routine on paper.A mop-up detail. Confirmed residuals. No elite classes reported in the region.
Which is why Aren knew something was wrong.
He didn't say it aloud. Not this time. He'd stopped voicing instinct. It always felt like pulling a trigger someone else had to suffer for.
The squad advanced slowly — standard sweep pattern, flares every fifteen meters, sensor flags planted at intervals.
Then the signals vanished.Not jammed. Not delayed. Just… ceased.
Aren adjusted his earpiece. "We're not alone."
Vane nodded. "Fall back?"
"No." Aren's voice was too calm. "Split."
They did. Three left, three right, Aren in the middle. He wasn't sure why. The air felt wrong — thicker, like the fog had grown nerves.
Then the demons emerged. But only on the flanks.
Two flanking squads were hit hard — not overwhelmed, but diverted. The enemy moved around them, never pushing forward. Avoiding the center entirely.
Avoiding Aren.
The demons passed within twenty meters of him.None turned their heads.
Vane's voice cracked in the comms: "They're… ignoring center. Adjusting path around your quadrant."
Aren stood still. Watched their limbs flicker past like shadows beneath ice.
When the attack ended, casualties were minimal. The data said success.
But in the post-op room, a transmission came through from the forward analysts.
It wasn't a report. Just a flag.Intercepted demon relay. Language partial. The signal translated one phrase:
"Do not touch the fulcrum."
Below that, one identifier in demon glyphs. Analyst notes confirmed the name.
Commander Seirath — a sentient-class demon, known for tactical recursion and probability distortion.
Aren felt the heat leave his hands.
The demon hadn't just avoided him.
It had identified him.
Night again. The barracks breathed slow in their sleep — distant coughs, metal settling, wind slipping between wall slats like a voice too soft to hear clearly.
Aren sat at his desk, the light dim enough not to wake anyone. His journal lay open. Most pages were filled now — circles, trajectories, death markers. Some names. Not all.
He flipped to a blank page.Not because he needed space. Because the others felt too full. Too honest.
This time, he didn't draw circles.
He drew a single vertical line, then another, crossing it near the top.
An eye. Or a fulcrum. Or a coin standing on edge.
He stared at it a long time.
Then he wrote beneath it, in careful block script:
Luck
He let the ink dry fully before closing the book.
Not hidden. Not discarded. Just closed.