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+--- Thread: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) (/thread-1697.html)
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Zholdin Gregorovich - 04-03-2025
The deeper they moved into the factory, the more the world outside seemed like a half-remembered dream. Gone was the wind, the moonlight, even the distant drone of the city. Here, there was only the cold breath of rusted steel and the subtle creak of metal that hadn’t been touched by sunlight in decades.
They were in what had once been a processing floor: wide, open, and filled with rows of decaying equipment. Conveyors, machinery, and support beams loomed like skeletal remains of ancient, inhuman architecture. Their flashlights barely pierced the gloom, the beams swallowed by layers of dust and shadow. The air was colder now, and thick with a dampness that clung to skin and lungs alike.
They moved slowly, warily. Their footsteps echoing too loudly.
Zholdin stayed at the head, flashlight held low, scanning the path between rusted vats and tangled pipes. The floor beneath their feet was slick in places—oil, or something like it, and strewn with broken tools and occasionally discarded bones. No one dared ask what kind of bones, but he assumed they were vermin.
Behind him, the men were quieter now. The jokes had died in their throats. Limon walked with his mouth drawn tight, and even Alistair, solid as ever, kept his head low, eyes scanning every shifting shadow.
Then something changed.
There was a sound—barely audible. A rush of air, maybe. A scrape, too quick to place. It came from behind them.
Zholdin turned, flashlight arcing back. Seven men had come in. He counted, six.
“Where’s Rusik?” Mikov hissed, his voice sharp, panicked.
They spun their lights around, scanning the machinery behind them. Nothing. No blood, no scream, no sign of a struggle. Just… gone.
“He was right behind me,” Limon said, voice brittle with disbelief. “Right behind me. I swear it.”
“Then he should still be there,” Zholdin said coldly. He stepped past Limon and aimed his flashlight into the shadows where Rusik should have been. The beam wobbled, barely noticeable, but the others saw it, and it rattled them more than anything else.
“Rusik?” Mikov called, his voice cracking. “Oi! Quit screwin’ around!”
Silence.
Then, from somewhere deep in the shadow, came a soft, wet noise. Like something being dragged across concrete.
One of the gopniks tightened his grip on the iron rod he’d taken from a pile of scrap. “That wasn’t a damn bear,” he said, not shouting but loud enough that everyone heard. “Bears don’t move like that. They don’t take people like that.”
“It could’ve been a sinkhole, or he fell through a grate,” Zholdin said without looking at him. “We’re in a goddamn factory, not a forest. Watch your footing.”
“Sinkhole?” Limon dared laughed, too loud and too fast. “Boss, there’s no hole. There’s no blood. No nothing. You saw it—he was just there. And now he’s not.”
The group clustered closer, instinct pulling them into a tighter formation. Their flashlights danced wildly across walls and ceilings, searching for anything, anything that would make sense of who they’d just lost.
Zholdin stood apart, facing them. His light shone upward now, illuminating his face in stark, angular lines.
“If it’s not a bear,” he said, voice flat and calm, “then what is it?”
No one answered. The silence pressed in again. Something dripped in the distance. A high, keening creak echoed from the rafters.
“A spirit,” said one of the younger men—Grisha, barely twenty and already sweating. “There’s stories. About this place. People said it was cursed, back when it shut down. My uncle said—”
“Your uncle pisses in a bucket and hears voices in the television,” Zholdin snapped.
Grisha flinched.
“You’re grown men,” Zholdin continued. “Armed men. And you’re quaking like boys who’ve heard a noise under the bed.” His voice rose slightly—not a shout, but sharp enough to cut.
“Ghosts don’t leave claw marks. They don’t rip bones from deer. You’re all chasing stories because one of you went missing. Missing in a place full of rusted scaffolding, forgotten pits, and twisted steel.”
None of them looked convinced. “And yet,” Mikov said, “none of us heard a scream. None of us heard anything. Not even Rusik.”
Zholdin’s eyes met his. “Then maybe Rusik was weaker than he let on and ran away like a little girl. Good riddance,” and he spat at the ground.
No one spoke after that.
The silence that followed was not empty. It was full. Full of a listening presence, full of the sense that something was near, something vast and hungry that did not belong in the world of men. The kind of presence that made your skin crawl and your instincts whisper to run, run, run—but Zholdin stood firm, a dark silhouette in the ruinous light.
“Form up,” he said, turning again toward the deeper corridors. “We go forward.”
The others hesitated—just a breath, just a heartbeat—but then they moved, drawn by something stronger than their fear.
Maybe it was loyalty. Maybe it was madness. Or maybe it was simply that following Zholdin was still safer than being left alone.
Behind them, the dragging sound started again. Quieter this time. Closer.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Grym - 04-05-2025
The gang moved like a strike team on a mission—tight, purposeful. As the last of the sunlight bled from the sky and the city lights behind them dimmed into a haze, Grym kept to the shadows, trailing them at the edge of visibility. Their flashlights swept wide arcs ahead, and she stayed far enough back that only the glow from their beams guided her footing. Just enough light to follow. Just enough not to fall.
She crouched near the factory’s gaping entrance, pausing at the crumbling threshold. From here, the city’s glow wouldn’t reach inside, it would be nothing but black and blacker. She slipped her hand into her pack, pulled out her Land Warriors, and settled them over her eyes. The world lit up in muted greens and ghostly shapes. Cracked pavement. Gutted machines. Metal sharp.
Then, footsteps behind her.
She turned fast, her hand already brushing the grip of her sidearm, but when her night-vision lenses locked onto the figure, she relaxed by inches. The man from the petrol station. Civilian. He’d followed her as she had the others. So focused on what was ahead, she didn’t think to check behind. That was the kind of mistake that killed Atharim.
When he spoke, his words were strange, like he was quoting something he didn’t fully understand. She shook her head. “This is too dangerous. Turn back.” Her voice was low, firm, no room for argument.
But he didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. Grym grimaced. The last thing she needed was a tagalong, especially one who didn’t know what he was walking into.
“Fine,” she muttered. “But stay quiet. And don’t fall behind.” She turned toward the dark ahead. “That crew’s walking into something they don’t understand.”
Inside the factory, the world narrowed to what her goggles could see: corridors choked with rusted machinery, collapsed beams, jagged edges like teeth. One wrong step could mean a shredded leg or a severed artery. Grym kept low, precise, her every move calculated. She knew how old places like this liked to kill.
They moved silently past twisted conveyor belts and rust-flaked tanks. The air smelled like iron and rot, faint and wrong.
Then they saw them scattered across the floor. Bones. She knelt, plucked one from the grime. Small. Hollow. She sniffed it, turned it in her fingers. Dry. Old.
Some kind of scavenger, maybe a possum or a raccoon. Others were larger, but she didn’t linger. The gang ahead was still on the move. If she fell behind, she’d lose them in this maze of steel and silence.
Still, the unease was crawling up her spine. Bones this deep inside? Something lived here and something hunted here. Suddenly, she raised a hand and froze in place, stopping the civilian behind her with a silent signal. Ahead, the gang had stopped moving.
They were spinning in tight circles, flashlights sweeping wildly across the factory floor. Shouts—muffled, tense. Something was wrong. Grym ducked low behind a crumpled support beam, staying clear of the searchlights. Her breath slowed as her eyes scanned the factory interior, flicking between the men and the shadows beyond their reach. No gunfire. No visible enemy. Just panic.
She adjusted the focus on her goggles, eyes narrowing. She wasn't sure what they were looking for—but she was sure of one thing: they were in a lair.
Of what? Bear, dog, or monster remained to be seen.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Giovanni - 04-06-2025
The lioness underestimated him. She thought he didn't know what he was getting into. There was some truth in that, but he knew as much as she did. What the gang was after, she didn't know, only that there was trouble. Trouble was fun though, and Giovanni was intrigued to see what they were after. The lioness wasn't happy with his companionship, but she reluctantly accepted it. That would do for now. He said he would follow her lead and he had no inclinations to change that - for now.
What might surprise the woman was his own pair of lens warriors. He was in Moscow and he didn't know if his business would take him into the undercity. Of course he could use his godpowers to conjure a light, but he was supposed to be keeping a low profile for now. It was just more prudent that way. Still he followed, letting the lioness take the lead as she followed the gang into some type of industrial factory. The scent of it was strong to his power enhanced senses, but he had smelled worse.
The lioness signaled for him to stop and he did, following only as she found cover. The lights of the gang members were searching, panic was there. Their quarry was near, and likely they didn't know what it was. Panic - panic was always delicious. Panic and fear created chaos, and that was a recipe for a fun time. Giovanni observed and the corner of his lip moved into a slight smile.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Zholdin Gregorovich - 04-18-2025
The factory swallowed them whole.
Past the shipping floor and deeper into the heart of the complex, the air turned thicker with moisture and refuge. The beams of their flashlights flickered along walls that wept rust, wires that hung like veins, and long-forgotten tracks leading into black pits. Graffiti marked the crumbling surfaces, though in places the scrawls looked…wrong. Not written, but as if they were marked over. Symbols no one wanted to read.
Zholdin led them down a corridor that curved slightly, the walls close enough to brush shoulders, pipes hissing faintly above like something breathing through the concrete.
Behind him, the men whispered less now. The laughter was long gone. Since Rusik vanished, silence had become sacred. Even Limon kept quiet, and his hands, once restless and full of bravado, now clenched his rifle as if grip alone could fend off the dark.
Alistair walked near the rear, eyes sweeping, steps heavy. “We shouldn’t be in here,” he muttered once. “Whatever’s in this place, it’s hunting us.”
Zholdin didn’t stop. “Let it try.”
But it already had.
They reached an old sorting room, wide and cavernous, littered with conveyor belts seized in time. Grates lined the floor like shark’s teeth. A loading lift hung frozen in one corner, its cables heavy and thick. The men spread out, scanning, weapons ready. Footsteps echoed too long, as if the room were deeper than it should’ve been.
A scrape.
A whisper.
Then…
Gone.
No scream this time. Just absence.
They turned, flashlights arcing back toward the rear of the group. Gregor was gone.
“Where the hell—” Limon stepped forward. “He was just behind me.”
“Gregor!!” Mikov called, voice cracking.
Only silence answered. Deeper now. Hungrier.
“Check that corner,” Zholdin ordered. His tone was steady, but a muscle in his jaw ticked once. Mikov and another man crept toward the lift platform, weapons raised. Alistair paced backward, keeping eyes on the grates.
“He’s not dead,” Mikov called. “No blood. No scuffle.”
Zholdin’s flashlight swept toward a dark hallway branching off the room—an access tunnel, narrow and low. The air from it was colder. Wetter. It smelled of ice.
Zholdin stared into it for a long moment. The others waited.
Then, he spoke. “We’re not chasing a bear.”
The words settled like lead. Everyone froze.
“You’re just figuring that out now?” Limon whispered hoarsely.
Zholdin turned toward him slowly, deliberately, as if he might be the one to slice Limon’s throat for the disrespect. “It moves too clean. It doesn’t kill. It stores.”
Limon shook his head. “What the hell does that mean?” Zholdin didn’t answer. His light swung back toward the tunnel. And that’s when it showed itself.
Not fully. Just a suggestion. A ripple of something, halfway between fluid and muscle, bone and shadow. Eyes gleaming like oil beneath the goggles’ green glow. Its mouth split wide—not jaws, but a maw, ringed with backward-facing teeth, slick and fanged.
One of the gopniks fired. The flash was blinding. The sound ricocheted off the walls like thunder.
When the light cleared, another man was gone. Taken in the blink of a muzzle flash.
The remaining five backed into a loose circle, flashlights trembling. One of them sank to his knees, praying under his breath.
It circled them. Always just outside the beams. Not running. Not charging. Just waiting.
Choosing.
Zholdin’s eyes narrowed. He saw it then—not just the shape, but the intent. A cruel, calculating hunger. The thing wasn’t just hunting. It was managing stock. Picking off the weak. The isolated. Preparing a larder.
Another movement. A flicker at the edge of vision. The praying man, dragged down through a floor vent with an animal yelp. Gone. A scream, cut off mid-breath.
Mikov bellowed something incoherent and ran forward, iron pipe raised like a club. His flashlight bounced wildly—and then he, too, was yanked sideways into the dark like a rag doll. No gunfire. No blood. Just silence.
Only three remained.
Limon was shaking. “We have to get out of here. Boss, we have to go. This ain’t just some animal.”
“It’s not a ghost either,” Alistair said, eyes wide, frantic. “Nothing that fast’s a spirit. It’s—hell, I don’t know what it is!”
“You’re thinking like children,” Zholdin said, voice low. “Things go bump in the night, and suddenly you believe in monsters.”
Limon stepped toward him. “What else can we believe in, huh?! That thing’s playing with us!”
A hiss cut the air.
And Limon was lifted—straight up, screaming, before vanishing into the dark beams above. His scream was strangled halfway through.
Then only two remained.
Zholdin and Alistair.
And Zholdin could feel it now: fear. Real. Cold. Crawling up his spine like frostbite. But he didn’t show it. His face was stone. His teeth ached from clenching. His flashlight steady.
He turned to Alistair—only to find him gone. No sound this time. Not even a breath.
The silence closed in. Heavy. Absolute.
Zholdin stood alone in the center of the room, the beam of his light trembling only slightly as it tracked across the floor, the conveyor, the tunnel beyond.
He said nothing.
Did nothing.
The weight in his chest sat like lead. His hand clenched tighter on the grip of his weapon. But still, he did not run.
((Alistair moded with permission))
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Giovanni - 04-26-2025
The gopniks screamed and shouted as it took them. They were being hunted. Part of Giovanni found their panic riveting. The desire for chaos was there, but for reasons unknown the Lioness’s presence calmed that. Her selfless and stoic nature brought unforeseen reason to his mind. They were gangsters, he owed them nothing, but their plight brought no fear to him, and the chaos was reigned in.
”They’re being hunted,” his voice was calm and focused. A whisper only the Lioness could hear.
Whatever it was could see in the darkness. If Giovanni had to guess it was a dreykan. It had been long since he had learned about monsters from when he had trained as an Atharim hunter; but he remembered Dreykan and it was likely stoking up on meals. They were dangerous creatures, and although Giovanni held his power, ready to unleash in a moment, he pulled his own firearm out and began to scan the darkness for the creature or creatures.
Still, Giovanni didn’t head off in his own, but his posture shifted to automatically cover the Lioness’s blind side. He suspected she would cover his. It was basic tactics. The dreykan wouldn’t sneak up on them as long as they focused.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Grym - 04-27-2025
Ahead, the gang of men spread out warily, flashlights cutting brief, erratic paths through the gloom. They were trying to maintain a perimeter, trying to look dangerous. It didn’t matter. They were prey. They just didn’t know it yet. Grym watched with tightening dread as it began. One by one, men vanished.
No screams. No drawn-out struggles. Just a flicker of movement. A ripple at the edge of visibility, and another man was simply gone. Taken. Snatched away as if plucked by some vast, invisible hand. She barely caught glimpses of it: something fluid, something monstrously fast. It stayed outside the direct beams of their lights, striking from blind angles, moving with impossible grace through the cluttered factory ruins.
Grym tensed, fingers tightening around the grip of her pistol, but she didn’t move. To act now would only make her the next target. Beside her, the stranger from the petrol station crouched silently. She flicked a glance at him, and froze for half a second. He wasn’t panicking.
Instead, he calmly drew a weapon, a sleek pistol, and settled into a defensive stance, weight balanced perfectly on the balls of his feet. His breathing was slow. Steady. He was no civilian. Her mind raced. Who the hell are you?
The field ahead thinned rapidly. One man gone. Another. Another. Flashlights tumbled to the floor, rolling lazily in circles before coming to a stop, beams pointing uselessly into the void. Only one remained. The leader. The one who had commanded them.
He stood alone, flashlight held steady, pistol in hand, body rigid with control. Even from here, Grym could see the tension running through him like high-tension cable, but he didn’t bolt. Didn’t even flinch. She drew a slow breath through her nose, brain working fast. The way the creature moved: intelligent, patient, predatory. The way it was harvesting them, not killing outright.
It clicked into place. A cold certainty settled into her gut. “Dreyken,” she whispered under her breath.
Blood-drinkers. They didn’t kill quickly. They incapacitated their prey, dragging them off to be kept alive sometimes, stored away like cattle for future feedings. There had to be a lair nearby. Somewhere dark and deep where the missing men were still breathing. She leaned in close to the stranger, her voice barely a breath in the dead air. “You should leave. Now. Before it notices you.”
She expected resistance, confusion. Maybe even gratitude.
The stranger only offered a slow, almost serene smile and a shake of the head ‘no’, like he had long ago decided that staying was inevitable.
Grym grimaced inwardly. Fine. Have it your way, mystery man.
She checked her pistol again out of habit, then shifted to where she could see the last man more clearly. He hadn't run. He stood his ground. The last light in a darkening field.
She touched the stranger's arm lightly to get his full attention.
“When it grabs him,” she whispered, her voice taut, “we move. Fast. Quiet. No shooting unless absolutely necessary.”
Grym shifted her weight forward, her muscles coiled, heart hammering against her ribs. They weren’t here to fight the thing. Not yet. First, they had to find where it was keeping the others.
The Dreyken was moving closer. She could almost hear the whisper of its passage through the ruined factory air. Any second now.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Zholdin Gregorovich - 05-10-2025
There was no warning. One moment Zholdin stood alone, weapon steady, breath cold in his lungs. The next… impact.
Something hit him from behind. Not with brute force, but speed. Precision. He was lifted, wrapped in crushing limbs that were slick and corded with muscle, and dragged backward into the dark. His flashlight clattered to the ground, spinning once before going still.
He tried to turn, to fight, but something needle-sharp punctured his neck. Not deep… just enough. Just enough to still him. Just enough to send the world spiraling into velvet black.
When he awoke, his mouth was dry, and every inch of his body thrummed with a dull, low heat. He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. His arms were chained at the wrists, lifted just above his shoulders and pinned to a cold, stone wall slick with condensation. His legs dangled, his feet barely brushing a dirt floor. The scent of scorched metal and damp earth filled his nostrils. When he opened his eyes, the world swam with heatwaves and shadow. Everything around him glowed in the dim, flickering light of a low fire set in a rusted oil drum, its flames licking softly at the blackened rim.
The room was warm… too warm. Sweat trickled down his temple, soaked the back of his shirt. A radiator groaned somewhere behind him, pumping out stale, recycled heat through wheezing vents. The walls were concrete, dark with age and moisture, streaked with rust trails like dried blood. Pipes jutted from every corner. Mold clustered along the ceiling, pulsing faintly in the dancing firelight.
His arms were shackled overhead, bound to a support beam with old iron chains that bit into his wrists. His legs dangled, toes brushing the uneven floor. He shifted—pain flared at his shoulder, and the rattle of chain echoed through the chamber like a warning.
To his left and right, his men hung suspended like meat on hooks, wrists bound with old chains or plastic cable ties… whatever the creature had scavenged. Mikov. Limon. Grisha. Even Alistair, bound but breathing, jaw clenched and head slumped forward. None of them were dead. Not yet.
A sound slithered through the warm air—bare feet on concrete. And then it stepped into view.
At first, he thought it was a man.
It wore the tattered remains of clothing: shredded pants clinging to bony hips, a buttonless shirt hanging open and loose from skeletal shoulders. The skin beneath was a sickly, unnatural white, pallid and thin, like stretched wax. Veins pulsed faintly beneath its nearly translucent flesh, glowing faintly in the firelight. It was humanoid. Almost. But its movements were wrong: too smooth, too fluid, like it was made of sinew and oil.
Then he saw the face. Black eyes. Almost entirely so. Voids without reflection. No eyebrows. Lips thin and bloodless. And when it smiled, its teeth were too many, too sharp.
The creature crept along the row of bodies, pausing at each. It sniffed, actually sniffed, as it passed Mikov, Limon, then Alistair, as if selecting from a buffet. When it reached Zholdin, it stopped. Slowly, its face tilted. It leaned in, inch by inch, until Zholdin could smell its breath: a stink of rust, wet leather, and rotten meat.
“You like the smell?” Zholdin rasped. “Then take a deeper breath. You won’t get another.” The man’s head twitched to the side, as if studying him anew and chuffed softly, nostrils flaring.
It liked him.
He could feel it… feel the decision settling in the predator’s mind. Not just recognition. Preference.
“Go on, then,” Zholdin said through grit teeth. “Let’s get on with it.”
The thing moved toward him. It didn’t lunge or snarl. It sauntered, like a cat approaching a warm meal. A predator that had already won. Its eyes wandered over Zholdin’s chest, his throat, his jaw. Then, with a curious hum in the back of its throat, it knelt before him.
“What? Gonna suck my dick, you cheap ass vampire?” Zholdin sneered.
Instead, the creature reached for his leg. Its touch cool and deliberate. Its fingers gripped the cuff of his pant and pushed it up the curve of his calf, and before Zholdin could twist away, it opened its mouth and bit.
Not a violent snap.
A pressing, sensual sink of teeth into muscle.
Zholdin snarled in pain, the hot bite shocking through his nerves, and kicked hard with his other leg. His boot connected with the creature’s shoulder. A solid thunk. The thing flinched, but not from pain. From pleasure. Knocked away a stride, it looked up at him, blood trickling down its chin, and smiled wider.
“Fucking enjoying yourself,” Zholdin growled, rage bubbling past his clenched jaw.
The man rose with that same sinuous grace, licking its lips like it had just tasted a fine stew. Firelight caught on its face, human, too human. Pale skin stretched over high cheekbones that were slowly blushing with color but otherwise nearly translucent in places, as though the bone itself were waiting to burst through. The shirt hanging from its frame flapped open with each breath, revealing ribs that pulsed faintly beneath the skin, and its black, depthless eyes studied him with quiet amusement.
Then, it spoke.
The voice was soft, breathy. Like silk dragging across razors. “You taste like rage.”
Zholdin spat blood onto the floor at its feet. “Yeah? You smell like a shit-ass nursing home dumpster in August.”
The creature tilted its head, that ghastly grin widening. “Crude,” it murmured. “I like that.”
“Bet you do,” Zholdin snarled. “Probably the most action you’ve had in a hundred years, biting ankles and whispering bullshit in basements.”
It took a step closer. Zholdin tensed, coiled, waiting for another chance to strike with his heel. But the man only crouched in front of him again, not touching, just looking.
“I expected whimpers. Pleading,” it said to itself. “You give me spit and insults.” Its tongue, languid and red with Zholdin’s blood, traced its lips. “You’re all salt and fire. They die quickly, too quickly. Soft meat. Too panicked. You’ll last longer than the others. I think I’ll savor you.” It inhaled through those pale nostrils, chest rising. “But you… You’re hard muscle. Bitter. I could keep you for months.”
“You could try,” Zholdin growled. “But when I get loose, I’m butchering your face into stew meat and feeding you to my dogs.”
“You’re not afraid?”
Zholdin leaned forward into the chains, muscles straining. “What do you think?”
The thing straightened slowly, satisfied. “Good. Rage seasons the blood.” It drifted away, its attention turning now to the others. Mikov groaning softly, half-conscious. Limon pale and barely breathing. It paused in front of Alistair, who still hadn’t moved.
Zholdin’s jaw tightened as he watched. “Touch him,” he barked, “and I swear I’ll rip out your spine with my fingernails.”
The creature didn’t turn. “Not yet. I want you to watch,” it said. “I want you to learn how helpless you really are.” Then it descended.
Zholdin cursed defiant screams as the feeding began. Wet and slow and indulgent. Limon whimpered before silence fell.
Zholdin slammed his fist against the chains until his wrists bled. Rage seared through his veins, hotter than the firelight, hotter than the wound on his leg.
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Grym - 05-10-2025
When the last man was taken, dragged with the grace of something impossibly strong and impossibly fast, Grym tensed. Every instinct screamed at her to intervene. To pull her weapon, step into the open, and put a bullet in the thing’s skull before it disappeared again.
But her instincts didn’t run her. Her training did.
She grabbed Giovanni by the front of his coat and pulled him back behind a stack of rusted vent ducts. Her pulse thundered in her ears as the final scream cut short and the shadows swallowed the gang’s leader whole.
“Do nothing,” she whispered, voice tight. “Now we follow.” What followed was the most delicate tracking Grym had ever done.
The creature moved erratically, stopping, sniffing, doubling back at times. It didn’t seem to rely on vision alone, which made its awareness radius difficult to predict. At least twice, it paused, head tilting in their general direction. Grym froze completely, not daring to breathe. Giovanni followed her lead, unnervingly calm for someone she still hadn’t figured out.
Together they stalked it through the underbelly of the building. Eventually, it led them into a structure that had once been a boiler plant beneath the old industrial park. The place would have been sealed decades ago, left to rot. Not a surprise something like this had claimed it.
It descended through a crumbled floor panel into a sub-basement, which opened into a subterranean chamber. Warmth rolled up from it like breath from a beast’s mouth. Grym and Giovanni followed slowly, settling behind a toppled sheet-metal door, watching from a fractured wall above. Below, the lair.
The chamber was formed from forgotten architecture. A corroded industrial boiler groaned against one wall, its heat radiating steadily into the room. Old vents twisted overhead, dripping rust and condensation. Near the center, a fire burned in an oil drum, low and constant. Chains bolted to beams swayed gently, holding the bodies of the men like cuts of meat in a butcher’s walk-in freezer.
The Dreyken moved between them with the confidence of a dragon tending its hoard. It looked almost human from this distance, like a starved vagrant in rags. But when it lifted its head toward the firelight, Grym saw the truth again: the pale, almost translucent skin; the black, depthless eyes; the too-smooth grace of its movement.
She leaned close to Giovanni and whispered, barely audible. “Dreyken.” His gaze didn’t shift. He nodded once, as if he already knew.
She continued anyway. “Fast. Smart. Drinks blood not always to kill, but to feed . They like to keep their prey alive. Their saliva slows bleeding. Their bite drugs you. Makes it hard to move. Hard to resist. That’s why the men aren’t dead.”
They watched in silence as the creature approached one of the younger men. It leaned in, slowly, deliberately, and fed until he stopped making noises.
Grym looked away.
It wasn't gore that got her. It was the stillness. The intimacy of it. The Dreyken fed like it was sipping from a wineglass at a quiet dinner table.
She clenched her jaw, guilt clawing at the edges of her focus. She could stop it. Now. One clean shot and she might end it.
But if she missed? If it didn’t die fast? Then it would lash out and they’d be right back where the others were. She made herself watch. The Dreyken was methodical but not gluttonous. It fed only from one, then straightened. Its posture changed—looser, more languid. It swayed slightly as it turned from the body and stretched like a housecat in sun.
“Now it’ll grow tired,” she whispered. “They always do. Blood warms them, but it drains them too. Makes them lazy…. vulnerable”
Indeed, the creature slinked away from the heat and climbed a short flight of concrete steps into a side alcove: an old control booth with cracked windows and blackened consoles. It curled up like a pale animal in the corner, limbs folding unnaturally, breath slowing. Watching, yes, but already beginning to slip into post-feeding torpor.
Grym shifted, hefting her axe into her hands.
She gestured to the others, still chained, still breathing. “Not yet. If we free them first and someone makes a sound. Trips a chain. Drops a tool. That thing wakes up. And then we’ve lost every edge we have.”
“If we’re gonna win this, we need surprise. First,” Grym whispered, “we kill the monster.”
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Giovanni - 05-12-2025
Giovanni followed the woman as she moved through the dark industrial building with the grace of a predator. The way she had grabbed him by the coat had awakened something in him - desire maybe. No - it was different than that. It wasn't that she wasn't attractive. But there was something that made Giovanni want to follow her. The chaos inside him simmered - there, but muted. Giovanni found herself more intrigued by her with every movement and decision she made. She had been able to still the chaos within him. He loved that even as he hated it.
The pair arrived at the dreykan's lair, and Giovanni suppressed a smile as she describe what it was to him even though he had shown he knew. Yes - this one was Atharim. That was clear. She was clearly disgusted by its feeding, but made herself watch anyways. Giovanni's face remained calm. Then the dreykan moved to go to sleep and the woman spoke to him. First we kill the monster. It was the sound tactical decision to make.
"You can help..." a small, weak, and feminine voice spoke into his head.
That was impossible. Ordine was dead.
But the chaos within him begged to no longer remain silent. The power flowing within him desired to be given form and desired to be used. The sound, tactical decision was to sneak over to the creature, but chaos wanted more drama. It needed it. Giovanni's face remained passive as he looked towards the last victim taken - the leader and the most coherent one of the bunch. Giovanni took in her words and came to a decision.
"No, Little Remnant," he said, a knowing smirk on his lips. "We don't kill it. He does."
Giovanni used a weave of air to shatter the cracked window of the control booth the dreykan was in, showering it with glass. The creature moved quick, but was pulled up off the ground and Giovanin channeled more air, wrapping it around the neck and pulling it off of its feet. It hung suspended in the air, flailing until Giovanni wrapped more air around it, squeezing its limbs to its body as he stepped forward into the light. He channeled fire and moved the ball towards the creatures face. It screamed as the light and heat came close to its face.
Giovanni moved to the man suspended, his toes barely touching the ground. He picked the lock with a practiced hand and then handed his gun to him. "It took you and your crew. Kill it."
RE: Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district) - Zholdin Gregorovich - 05-27-2025
His calf was numb. Not just aching, but numb, like something cold had spread under the skin, slowly poisoning the muscle. The bite burned at first, then dulled. Now he could barely flex the foot. He knew that wasn’t normal. Whatever that thing had in its mouth, it wasn’t just teeth.
Chains clinked as he shifted his weight, shoulder muscles flexing with every pull. It had been gone for minutes now, curled up in its filthy roost above like a fat snake in a sauna, but he hadn’t stopped trying. Sweat poured down his face. Not from fear, never fear, but from the heat radiating from the old boiler and vents that hissed behind him. The whole place was an oven. His skin stuck to the wall behind him. The blood in his sock had dried stiff. And still he strained against the chains.
Get loose. Get even.
Then something happened. A crash of shattering glass.
Zholdin flinched, head jerking toward the sound, and then stared.
Two figures had appeared in the firelit gloom. Not his men. Not gopniks. Outsiders. One of them, tall and expressionless, moved with a bizarre level of calm for the situation. He was already inside the light, already doing something… not with tools, but with the air itself. Zholdin didn’t understand it. Didn’t need to. All that mattered was the Dreyken was suddenly screaming. Lifted from its filthy corner, limbs pinned mid-air like a pig strung for slaughter. Zholdin’s teeth bared in something like a grin.
Then the stranger was in front of him, picking the lock like a professional. Zholdin’s arms dropped, pain screaming through the joints as blood rushed back into his muscles. A second later, a gun was pressed into his hand and orders issued. That was all he needed to hear.
Zholdin staggered once, planting his numb leg carefully. He looked past the man, beyond the ring of his own crew, and toward the thrashing creature, still straining in its invisible bonds, hissing like steam under pressure. He stepped forward slowly, each movement cautious and deliberate. The fire cracked beside him, casting his shadow tall against the cracked walls. Every step was accompanied by the sound of chains clinking from behind: his men still bound, still breathing, some barely aware of what was happening.
Zholdin’s grip on the pistol tightened. But he didn’t raise it—not yet. He approached the old control booth slowly, eyes narrowing. The Dreyken’s naked skin was blushed with color and shimmered with sweat. It was straining, writhing, but bound. For now.
Zholdin stepped inside the booth. The stench hit him like a wall: blood, mildew, rot, and whatever else the thing had been secreting in its corner. He moved past the creature and toward a row of old drawers below the scorched console. He yanked one open.
Nothing.
Another.
Rust flakes, crushed fuses. He didn’t know what he sought, only that he’d know it when he saw it.
A third drawer revealed something useful: a pair of small, corroded pliers. Still intact. Still usable.
He turned and walked back to the creature, holding them up.
“Oh, you’ll love this,” he sneered.
He circled around like a shark examining its prey, and approached its face just out of reach of the twisting mouth, still flaring and snapping in rage. With a snarl, Zholdin suddenly grabbed its jaw in one hand and wedged the pliers into its mouth with the other. With a sharp click, he clamped down on one of the smaller teeth lining the creature’s upper jaw.
The Dreyken let out a strangled, high-pitched shriek.
“Shut your fucking whining,” Zholdin growled, “I’m not even halfway in yet.”
With a sharp jerk, he wrenched the tooth free. It made a soft, wet pop as it came loose. He held it up to the light. Clear at the root, pale and curved like a fishhook. Obscene. Grotesque. Unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
“Interesting,” he muttered. “This’ll make a fine centerpiece. Gold chain, polished bone. You’ll hang from my neck like a trophy, you son of a bitch, but first, I want a bigger one.”
He dug the pliers in again.
Another tooth.
Another scream.
He could feel the power shift. The thing, once towering and cruel, was now his. It was a captured animal, and he, Zholdin, son of Gregor Petrovich—was the hunter, the carver, the man who finished what others were too weak to start.
He straightened again, pliers still in hand.
Then he looked at the pistol in his other. A decent model. Heavy. Clean. It would do the job. But… He stared into the Dreyken’s black, alien eyes, watched it twitch and snarl in its bonds.
Shooting it in the face would be satisfying, sure. But it would ruin the skull. And that was a waste. He tilted his head, calculating.
“No, no,” he whispered. “You’re going on my wall.” His voice was rough and cruel. Almost fond.
“You’re going to be taxidermied, you sick little goblin. Skull lacquered, fangs intact. I’ll hang you between the Siberian bear and the dagestan wolf. Everyone will ask me what the hell you were.” He smirked. “And I’ll say: ‘Something that screeched like a banshee when I killed with my own hands.’”
Then he really went to work.
When he turned away, the body was limp in its invisible bonds and its blood covered Zholdin’s hands up to the wrist. He caught the eye of the two strangers, but it was the man whom he approached first. “Well you're a helpful one aren't you. Who the fuck are you?"