Radio Silence (Abandoned industrial district)

[Zholdin Gregorovich]

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.

[Grym]

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.

[Giovanni]

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.

[Zholdin Gregorovich]

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))

[Giovanni]

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.

[Grym]

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.