(Three days after the tragic event)
Jota couldn't sleep. The rain tapped gently on the roof of the cabin, as if trying to lull him to sleep, but his mind was far from calm. Saida slept soundly, her brow relaxed. He, on the other hand, could only stare at the ceiling, his arms crossed behind his head, feeling something invisible pressing him against the mattress.
He thought of his mother, Adelise, always so attentive even when everything seemed to be falling apart. He thought of his father, Edras, with that tired but determined look in his eyes. He thought of his grandmother Rose, who told him stories while peeling potatoes at sunset. And of course, he thought of his grandfather Edeh, that serious man who sometimes seemed miles away, even when he was in the same room.
There was something strange about the way he looked, as if he were always waiting for something bad to happen. And Jota was beginning to understand why. Since that night in the forest, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it than what the adults were saying. Something that enveloped everything, like the thick fog that covered the farm before a storm.
"What is Grandpa hiding?" he thought, not daring to say it out loud. Perhaps it wasn't just fear that weighed on his chest. Perhaps it was the certainty that his family—his entire world—was no longer as safe as it seemed.
Jota sat up carefully. The blankets were still warm, and in front of him, Saida slept soundly. He didn't want to wake her. There was something about that silence that weighed heavily on his chest, as if the world were waiting to hold its breath a little longer.
He got up and went downstairs. The wood creaked softly, but without breaking the quiet atmosphere of the house. There were no doors, only open frames and curtains separating the spaces. From the middle of the stairs, he could hear soft voices coming from the kitchen.
As he peeked in, he saw his mother, Adelise, bent over the stove, feeding the embers. In front of her, sitting on a low stool, her grandmother Rose was cleaning some roots with patient hands.
"It won't boil if you keep adding wet wood," Rose commented with a half-smile.
"It was the only dry wood left this morning," replied Adelise, blowing on the fire. "It rained more than I thought last night."
"We should have covered the shed better. Edras was going to do it, but... you know."
"There's always something that gets in the way," said Adelise, almost amused.
Rose nodded, without judgement, like someone who knows someone's rhythms well but no longer tries to correct them.
"How are the boys?" she asked.
"Tired. But at least they slept peacefully," said Adelise as she stood up. "That's enough."
Rose looked up for a moment, watching the steam begin to rise from the pot.
"I'll help you with breakfast. Just let me finish this."
"Thanks, Rose."
The conversation was simple, everyday. No obvious worries. Just two women getting through the day with what they had.
Jota didn't come all the way down. He stayed a few seconds longer, watching them from the hallway. The scene had a quiet warmth to it. One he didn't want to interrupt just yet.
He descended the stairs with a calm step.
"Where could Dad and Grandpa be?" he wondered, his eyes scanning the space for any sign of them.
His father had probably already gone out to the fields. He liked to start the day early, even on weekends. Edeh, for his part, usually disappeared in the mornings, checking traps or making sure the nearby roads were clear.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Jota moved a little closer, letting the sound of voices welcome him silently. He silently appreciated the moment: the quiet house, his sister still upstairs, his mother and grandmother sharing the kitchen as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
And although he couldn't see them, he was sure that both Edras and Edeh would be back soon.
The morning air in Pondcross was saturated with wood smoke and damp earth. A lazy mist covered the streets, and although the sun tried to filter through the clouds, it barely managed to pale the grey of dawn. In the central square, the heart of the village beat with its usual market rhythm: fruit stalls, sacks of barley, buckets of fish still steaming.
Amidst the murmur of bartering and greetings, a man with a steady gait crossed the square. It was Edeh.
To most of the villagers, he was nothing more than the owner of a farm north of the village. A quiet, hard-working man, sometimes gruff, always punctual with his deliveries. No one asked him too many questions, and he didn't offer many answers either.
"Up early as usual, farmer?" asked an elderly woman from her vegetable stall, with a smile.
"The cows won't wait," replied Edeh without stopping, although with a slight gesture of greeting.
"And what are you carrying, isn't it for trading?"
"Not today. Just passing through."
Edeh kept his voice firm and friendly. And he walked on without stopping.
He couldn't alarm the village. Not yet. Not without being completely sure. If what he had found that morning in the forest was what he feared, chaos would be the least of his problems.
Torn branches, deep, inhuman zigzag tracks, and worst of all: blood. Dark, already dry, but recent. He had followed the trail until it disappeared among charred roots. And no alert. Not a single warning from the surveillance shield that protected the Red Zones.
His eyes rose to the structure that dominated the square. The village watchtower. Tall, austere, with polished metal plates. At the top flew a flag with an eight-pointed star, crossed in the centre by a black spiral: the symbol of the Agency. For most, an emblem of hope. For Edeh, a promise that could be broken if no one acted.
He approached the tower calmly. No one seemed to pay him much attention.
When he arrived, he placed his palm on the security reader. For a second, under his sleeve, a black swirl tattooed on his wrist was visible, from which thin green lines emanated and glowed briefly. A buzz confirmed access.
The door opened.
The interior was cold and silent, lit by emergency lights. He climbed the spiral staircase, alert, without making any unnecessary noise. Each level he ascended seemed quieter than the last. The murmur of the market below had faded completely.
On the top level, the observatory door was ajar.
Edeh pushed gently. The room smelled of static electricity and something else... something older.
Monitors were on, maps lay on tables, empty cups still bore lip marks. Everything seemed in order, except for one thing.
In front of the window, with his back turned, sitting in a swivel chair, was the hero of the people.
Motionless.
Edeh didn't enter completely. He only took one step inside.
"I've come because something happened in the forest," he said in a low voice. "There's no alert, I know. But I found traces. Blood. Too much."
Silence.
"I need you to check the shield data. Something got through, and if you haven't detected it, we have a bigger problem."
Nothing.
The figure remained motionless. As if listening. Or as if it could no longer hear.
Edeh frowned.
Something was left unsaid. Something was deeply wrong.
And he knew it.
Edeh took another step forward. His instincts pushed him forward, but every fibre of his body screamed that something was wrong.
The hero remained with his back turned, motionless. His silhouette against the window seemed perfect... too perfect.
"Are you listening to me?" Edeh said, louder this time, his footsteps echoing on the metal floor.
Not a blink. Not even a slight turn of the head.
The farmer frowned even more. His eyes moved from the figure to the details: the chair wasn't rocking, the torso wasn't moving as he breathed, and there was a slight puddle underneath... not water. It was thick. Dark.
Blood.
Edeh clenched his teeth and approached decisively. He was no longer looking for an answer; now he was looking for confirmation.
He reached the chair and placed a hand on the backrest. He turned it slowly.
The body moved with it... lifeless.
The hero of Pondcross had his eyes open, fixed on a point beyond time. His face was livid, his mouth half open as if he had wanted to say something at the end. A thin line of blood ran from his left ear to his neck, and his clothes, impeccable from the front, were torn at the back. As if something had pierced him from within.
There was no scream. There was no shock. Only a silence deeper than before.
Edeh took a step back. His fingers trembled slightly before closing into a fist. The same black tattoo glowed, the green lines pulsing like a heartbeat.
"This has happened before..." he murmured.
He walked over to the monitors, quickly checking the security logs. There were no alerts. No traces. Everything had been blank for at least twelve hours.
As if someone—or something—had erased all evidence.
The system didn't fail by accident. The Shield didn't fall on its own.
"So this was deliberate?"
He whispered the question, as if uttering it could materialise an invisible threat.
He turned his gaze back to the corpse. The hero, the hope of the people, had fallen without anyone knowing.
"Damn it."
He closed his eyes for a second. Then, with a firm movement, he turned off the monitors.
For now, no one should know. The people weren't ready.
He looked at the hero's lifeless hands. Just a few weeks ago, he had seen him stride confidently through the market, carrying a child wounded in an attack on the outskirts on his shoulder. He was the kind of figure who gave the town an illusion of invulnerability. More of a symbol than a man.
And now, that symbol was dead. Without a fight. Without a sound. Without even a warning sign.
"How could this happen...?" thought Edeh, his jaw tense.
His eyes returned to the pool of blood and the tear in the back of the uniform. It didn't look like a wound made by a conventional weapon. It was more like... as if something had penetrated him from the inside out, as if he had exploded.
And it wasn't the first time Edeh had seen something like this.
The weight of the years came down on him like a shroud. Images from the past—the war, the bodies, the experiments—crept in like echoes, like old bones creaking in his memory.
Then a soft click broke the silence.
A faint buzzing sound came from the desk communicator. The red lights flashed.
Edeh turned immediately, instinct tensing his body like a steel cord.
The name on the identifier was distorted. The letters flickered, incomplete. But the channel was open.
A voice emerged. Amidst interference. Damaged. Painful.
"Anyone...? We lost contact... something... is wrong... don't trust..."
Static.
Then one last burst of sound. Brief. Like a whisper just before everything fell silent:
"...it's already inside."
The communicator turned itself off. Without Edeh touching it.
Cold sweat ran down his neck.
It was no longer just a trail in the forest.
This was a hunt.
And he didn't know if he was the hunter...
...or the prey.
Edeh stood next to the switched-off communicator, breathing deeply as his mind processed everything he had seen and heard.
"This can't have been a technical error," he thought clearly. "There's no sign that the shield went down on its own. There are no traces or alerts."
His eyes scanned the hero's lifeless body, the gash in his back, the dried blood on the floor.
"This wasn't a random attack... This was planned. Precise. Silent."
He approached the monitors and mentally reviewed the permitted accesses.
"Who has access to these systems? Only a few: the hero, the tower technicians like me, perhaps some Agency agents... but even they couldn't delete records without leaving traces."
His gaze fixed on the window, watching the town slowly wake up.
"So... if no Devourer could get in undetected, and yet someone was attacked and the shield deactivated... there's only one explanation."
He paused, breathing tensely.
"Someone inside. Someone infiltrated who knows how to manipulate the system... A human who is helping the Devourers."
His fingers clenched into a fist.
"This changes everything. It's no longer just an external threat. It's internal treachery."
He turned his gaze back to the hero's body.
"That's why there were no screams, no alarm, no defence. They took him out before he could react."
His voice became little more than a whisper to himself:
"We were wrong to think that these monsters have no human allies."
And then, when the silence seemed absolute, the communicator on the desk suddenly turned on. A red light, a deep, clear voice echoed through the room:
"Edeh."
The farmer tensed, not taking his eyes off the device.
"Auxiliary unit 28-2-991, identify yourself. We have detected an anomaly in Tower 9."
"They detected my identity? It must have been the scanner... Well, it will be easier to talk to them if they know I'm a former guardian," thought Edeh.
The communicator stabilised. Edeh immediately recognised that it was not a signal from the Hero Agency. There was no triple seal or coded voice protocol. It was something more structural. More bureaucratic.
"AZSC... the Zonal Civil Security Authority," he muttered. "So even they don't know what happened here."
He pressed the channel.
"This is Edeh. Confirming identity. Tower 9, Pondcross. Red Zone. Found local hero dead. Internal sabotage system."
A brief silence.
"Can you confirm that this is Agent Hero No. 699?"
"Yes. Confirmed. Anomalous cause. No signs of defence. No traces of spiritual energy. The shield was deliberately deactivated."
"By external forces?"
"No. From within. The system was altered from the main console. There are deleted files. The only possible access is internal."
The voice on the other end changed slightly.
"Do you suspect a human collaborator?"
"I can confirm it. This was the work of someone who knew exactly how to dismantle the tower and avoid setting off the alarm. But that's not the worst of it."
"What else is there?"
"Traces. In the forest. Dried blood. Zigzagging movements. Something crawled here. It got in. And killed the hero. Without being detected."
"A Devourer?"
"It's no longer a possibility. It's a fact."
Edeh turned towards the window. His voice sounded firm, definitive.
"The Devourers are already inside Pondcross. They didn't stay on the edge. It wasn't an isolated incursion. They crossed the line. And they have help."
"Understood, Edeh. This information will be relayed to Central Containment Command. But we don't have immediate availability to send response units. The southern zones are collapsing."
Edeh slammed his fist on the edge of the desk.
"Then I'll repeat: the Devourers have entered. The breach is no longer a risk, it's a fact. If you don't send reinforcements to Pondcross, the next Red Zone will fall in less than a week. And then the Yellow Zone will follow."
The channel went silent for a few seconds.
Finally, a new voice joined in. Firm, authoritative.
"This is Colonel Tyr Renholt, AZSC regional supervisor. Edeh, your statements are classified under Theta level. From this moment on, you have temporary authority over Tower 9. You are granted control code Nebula-3."
"Understood, Colonel."
"Our nearest containment team will arrive in 72 hours."
"That's not enough."
"That's all we have."
Edeh clenched his teeth. Despite everything, he did not raise his voice.
"Then I hope you at least come armed for what you don't understand."
"And what is it that we don't understand, Edeh?"
"That you're not just fighting the Devourers. You're fighting an enemy who already knows our protocols, our maps... and our weaknesses. One who can use our own people as a gateway."
The transmission cut off.
Edeh was left alone.
But now he knew for certain that the enemy was not at the border.
It was inside.
He stopped thinking and turned his gaze back to the fallen hero.
"Forgive me, but I have to hide your body... Leave the people of Pondcross to me instead," Edeh murmured, crouching down in front of him.
The silence in the tower seemed absolute, as if even the air had stopped moving. Carefully, Edeh closed the hero's eyes with two trembling fingers, in a brief, respectful gesture. There was no time for mourning, no time for honours. Only the urgency of duty.
"I can't let them see it like this... the symbols broken, the pillars rotten," she whispered through clenched lips. "People need to believe that we are still protected. That heroes still watch over us."
Her eyes fixed on the lifeless body for a few more seconds, and then, without thinking, she spoke to him as if he were an old comrade.
"Do you remember when we said that if one fell, the other would carry on no matter what? I never imagined that day would come like this... without warning, without goodbyes."
His voice dropped even lower.
"You were stubborn... Yaim, but fair. Brave. No one else could contain what was out there... but something got in, didn't it? Something even you couldn't stop."
He sighed, and his gaze drifted to the window, to the distant hillsides where the people he cared about most in this world lived.
"Jota... Saida... Adelise, Edras... even Rose. They can't bear this. Not yet," he said, swallowing hard. "They've already lived too long in fear. I'm not going to add despair to that."
His voice cracked slightly, as if the weight he carried was not only that of the corpse in front of him, but that of an entire necessary lie. An invisible shield to protect his loved ones from a world that was falling apart in the shadows.
He slowly stood up. Every bone that creaked was another decision he made for those he loved.
"Rest, old friend. I will carry what comes. As we always said... one falls, the other carries on."
In the thicket, behind the tower, under damp earth and dormant roots...
Edeh worked in silence. Shovel after shovel, without words, without prayers. Only the crunching of the earth, the distant chirping of the trees, and the strain of his increasingly tired muscles.
The hero's body was wrapped in a thick canvas, covered with branches and moss. It was not a burial worthy of his name, but it was the most humane thing he could offer him under the circumstances. No one would see it. No one would know what had happened.
When he placed the last layer of earth, Edeh stood for a few minutes, the shovel still in his hands. Sweat dripped from his forehead, but he didn't notice. His breathing was slow, almost measured.
"It's done," he murmured into the air. "I hid you from the world... just as I will hide the truth."
He closed his eyes, leaned the shovel against a tree trunk, and turned to leave. The forest swallowed him up little by little, as if the landscape itself were responsible for erasing any trace.
Hours later, at home...
The warm light from the kitchen gently illuminated the ceiling beams. Saida slept on the sofa, a book still open on her lap. Jota had left his backpack in the corner, the zip not properly closed. The smell of baked bread still lingered in the air.
Rose washed the dishes in silence, while Adelise cut fabric at the work table. Edras, frowning, read the agricultural newsletter, completely absorbed.
Edeh stopped at the doorway, making no sound. He stood there, motionless, watching them.
Each of them... alive, calm, oblivious to the horror he had just contained. And so it must remain.
He said nothing. He did not interrupt. He just looked at them, with a mixture of relief and pain tightening his chest.
"For you," he thought. "For this calm. For this routine that we can still call life."
No one noticed a tear rolling down his cheek. He wiped it away immediately, before taking a step back, crossing the doorway and closing it gently behind him.
Inside, he had already made a decision: to protect his family, whatever the cost. And to achieve a little peace, even if only temporary... he had to lie.
"I need to start my plan... I have to keep the casualties to a minimum," thought Edeh.
He took a deep breath, as if by doing so he could carry the weight of the world on his own shoulders without letting it touch others. The morning sun barely warmed him, but inside, his commitment burned like a blue fire.
He was no longer just another grandfather or farmer on the border.
And he couldn't fail.
The wind outside had picked up, stirring the dry leaves around the cabin. Edeh stood by the fence, his hands in his pockets, his gaze fixed on the horizon, though he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular.
He took his communicator out of his jacket's inside pocket. He hesitated for a moment. Then he dialled the private channel.
The screen flickered a couple of times until Edras' image appeared. His son's hair was tousled and his eyes were slightly swollen with fatigue.
"Dad? Did something happen?"
Edeh took a second before answering.
"I'm outside. In front of the cabin." His tone was calm, but laden with something denser, something his son recognised.
Edras frowned, now more awake.
"Is everything okay?"
"I need to talk to you," said Edeh. "In person. It's important."
Edras' image disappeared as soon as the call ended.
A minute later, the cabin door opened softly. Edras stepped out wrapped in a wool jacket, crossed the small garden, and stopped a few steps away from his father. He looked at him without saying a word. Edeh still did not look at him, as if gathering courage required avoiding eye contact.
The silence between them was brief but profound. Only the rustling of the trees filled the space.
Finally, Edeh turned his head and looked at him directly. His expression was impenetrable, as if carved from ancient wood.
Edras took a deep breath, clenched his fists, and lowered his gaze slightly.
"Father... in fact, I also wanted to tell you something important," he said, becoming serious.
The words hung between them, like an invisible current. Two generations faced with the weight of what remains unsaid.