05-10-2025, 10:29 PM
The wind picked up as Kaelan moved past the rusting skeleton of the fallen radio tower. It whispered across the marshland in sharp, brittle gusts, carrying with it the faint tang of ozone and metal, like blood left too long on a wire. He didn’t like the quiet. Not anymore.
There were no birds. Not even the ticking of his Geiger counter offered comfort. It had gone still for the moment, like it too was holding its breath. He pressed on, boots sinking into half-frozen mud, weaving around fractured barriers and puddles sheened with oil-slicked colors. His body was tight with unease, but his mind clung to his purpose. Samples, he reminded himself. This is why you're here. One more area, then you call it a day.
He turned a corner around a collapsed service fence and stopped. His breath hitched. There, nestled in a shallow depression in the path was another rock. It was smaller than the first. Rougher, jagged along one edge, like it had been broken off something larger. It hadn't been there earlier. He would have stepped on it. Painted on its flattest face was a tiny, delicate visage in pale blue and soft black. The eyes were pinpricks, closed. The mouth, a thin line, also closed. There was something... peaceful about it. Serene. No. Sleeping. Kaelan stared, unmoving.
The rock was placed. Not tossed, not rolled down a hill. It sat upright, almost reverently angled toward the path as if waiting to be seen. He crouched to look closer, knees creaking in the cold. The paint wasn’t sloppy. It had been applied with precision and care. Not the manic smear of a deranged loner. This was intentional. Not random.
His pulse thudded in his ears. He did not pick this one up. He didn’t want to touch it. Not this time. The words of the gray-suited handler from that morning came unbidden: “Do not speak to the locals.”
At the time, he’d dismissed it as procedural nonsense. A relic of an older time. But now, staring at the sleeping face on the stone, Kaelan began to question that certainty. Was someone following him?
No, he thought. No, it’s impossible. I’d hear them. I’d see... His breath came faster now. He rose slowly, his body stiff and brittle with fear.
"Is someone there?" he called, voice sharp in the open air. It echoed strangely, as if the marshland didn’t know what to do with sound anymore.
Kaelan turned in a slow circle, scanning the area. Nothing but the marsh, the ruins, the skeletal towers—and somewhere out there, the blurred silhouette of the reactor dome, watching like a lidded eye.
There were no birds. Not even the ticking of his Geiger counter offered comfort. It had gone still for the moment, like it too was holding its breath. He pressed on, boots sinking into half-frozen mud, weaving around fractured barriers and puddles sheened with oil-slicked colors. His body was tight with unease, but his mind clung to his purpose. Samples, he reminded himself. This is why you're here. One more area, then you call it a day.
He turned a corner around a collapsed service fence and stopped. His breath hitched. There, nestled in a shallow depression in the path was another rock. It was smaller than the first. Rougher, jagged along one edge, like it had been broken off something larger. It hadn't been there earlier. He would have stepped on it. Painted on its flattest face was a tiny, delicate visage in pale blue and soft black. The eyes were pinpricks, closed. The mouth, a thin line, also closed. There was something... peaceful about it. Serene. No. Sleeping. Kaelan stared, unmoving.
The rock was placed. Not tossed, not rolled down a hill. It sat upright, almost reverently angled toward the path as if waiting to be seen. He crouched to look closer, knees creaking in the cold. The paint wasn’t sloppy. It had been applied with precision and care. Not the manic smear of a deranged loner. This was intentional. Not random.
His pulse thudded in his ears. He did not pick this one up. He didn’t want to touch it. Not this time. The words of the gray-suited handler from that morning came unbidden: “Do not speak to the locals.”
At the time, he’d dismissed it as procedural nonsense. A relic of an older time. But now, staring at the sleeping face on the stone, Kaelan began to question that certainty. Was someone following him?
No, he thought. No, it’s impossible. I’d hear them. I’d see... His breath came faster now. He rose slowly, his body stiff and brittle with fear.
"Is someone there?" he called, voice sharp in the open air. It echoed strangely, as if the marshland didn’t know what to do with sound anymore.
Kaelan turned in a slow circle, scanning the area. Nothing but the marsh, the ruins, the skeletal towers—and somewhere out there, the blurred silhouette of the reactor dome, watching like a lidded eye.
![[Image: Kaelan-Signature-1.png]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Kaelan-Signature-1.png)