(The Reverb)
The wind didn’t bite today. That was the first thing wrong.
It should’ve been sharp. Arctic deployment always was. But the breeze slipped around her like it couldn’t quite commit.
Sura stood on the outer ring of the modular base, helmet under one arm, scanner in the other. Snow crunched under her boots — but not loudly. It sounded muted, like the ground was being considerate.
No one else seemed to notice.
A recon officer passed her. Nodded. Then paused like he might say something — but didn’t. Just kept walking.
She stared at the back of his helmet a second too long.
The snow fell again. Soft. Controlled.
And wrong.
It didn’t drift. It moved on a path. Not a spiral. A vector. Like gravity had been assigned a different angle.
She turned her scanner on. Let it warm up in her palm. The boot screen loaded normally — until it didn’t.
The pulse returned. Seven seconds.
Not fast. Not loud.
Just… present.
She checked the sync logs again.
Nothing new.
That was the second thing wrong.
There was always something new. Even in dead air, the machine would find phantom waves or ambient thermal echoes. This time, it gave her nothing but a slow rhythmic flicker.
One smooth circle.
One jagged.
Still no label.
Still no cause.
Still hers.
She should’ve logged it again.
She didn’t.
—————————————
The mess tent was too bright.
LED panels hummed overhead, clean and crisp. The air recyclers buzzed evenly. Someone was heating something synthetic and meat-adjacent in the food unit.
Three soldiers played cards without talking.
A fourth sat alone at the corner table, chewing like she wasn’t sure she’d earned the rations.
Everything looked normal. Felt mechanical.
But when Sura sat down at the far end of the room, the lights above her flickered once. Then again.
Only above her.
She ate nothing.
The warmth made her fingers itch.
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—————————————
Later, in her bunk module, she ran diagnostics on her gear.
Routine. Necessary. Grounding.
Her gloves sat on the counter, folded inside out. Her rifle disassembled in practiced sequence. Each part accounted for. Each surface wiped.
She checked the scanner last.
It booted fine. No log corruption. No signal interference. No residual patterns, except—
The same one. Still embedded. Still pulsing.
She stared at it for a while. Not analyzing. Not decoding. Just watching.
Not a pattern anymore.
A sentence waiting to end.
—————————————
A new file came through her assignment feed. Low priority. Cross-site ping from a failed op near the western arc.
She opened it without thinking.
Visual log only. Static-laced. The kind you’re meant to discard.
But two frames in, her breath stopped.
Snow. Clean. Flat.
And then—
One jagged circle.
One smooth.
Drawn into the snow itself.
No human footprints nearby. No sensor beacons. No relay pings.
Just the symbol, etched perfectly, before vanishing with the next frame glitch.
The pulse inside her chest matched the timing.
Seven seconds.
Exactly.
She reached for the log flag.
Paused.
Then closed the feed.
—————————————
She walked the perimeter once before lights-out.
Routine. Always had been. She didn’t trust fixed sensors. Never did.
The outer ring was quiet. Camp walls held steady.
Then, somewhere near the last post, her comm pinged a half-tone.
Not incoming.
Just active.
No one else’s device chimed.
She tapped her side console. The ID was scrambled.
And then gone.
Static rolled through her teeth.
She didn’t say anything.
Didn’t report it.
She just stood there, in the wrong snow, listening to something that hadn’t said a word.
And let it be real.
—————————————
(The Echo)
She didn’t sleep.
Not because she couldn’t.
Because something inside her refused to let go long enough.
Sura lay on her back, boots still on, eyes tracking the seams in the ceiling. The metal above her had always been cold, dependable. Tonight, it felt like it was watching.
The hum came back.
Seven seconds apart.
No sound. Just presence. Like something breathing behind the wall of her chest.
She sat up.
Not quickly. Not dramatically. Just… done.
—————————————
The maintenance lab was empty. Lights flickered once when she entered, then stabilized. She keyed her access manually instead of logging her ID.
Her gloves still itched.
She set her scanner on the table and began a full teardown. Panel by panel. Wire by wire.
It wasn’t about the scan. It was about control.
The ritual that made the hum seem small.
Each component sat like a prayer on the sterile counter.
When she reassembled it, the screen came alive with a familiar quiet pulse.
Seven seconds.
She pressed her palm flat against the scanner.
It didn’t heat.
It didn’t respond.
It just… waited.
Like it wasn’t finished being hers yet.
—————————————
She pulled her datapad.
Loaded her incident queue.
Opened a blank log.
Then stared at it.
Her thumb hovered over the field for thirty full seconds.
Then tapped back.
No entry.
Not because she was hiding it.
Because she didn’t want anyone else interpreting it for her.
That was the line, right there.
And she stepped over it.
—————————————
Two hours before rotation, she walked the ice trench behind the main comms module.
Not a patrol. Not an order.
Just motion.
The snow crunched under her boots in a way it hadn’t before.
Not muffled.
Alive.
She passed the generator housing. Felt warmth where it should’ve been cold.
Passed the antenna rig. Saw the lines bend with no wind.
Her chest pulsed once.
And something… responded.
Not out loud. Not visible.
Just a flicker in her breath, like her lungs had been rewired for a different atmosphere.
She didn’t flinch.
She stood perfectly still.
Watched a flake of snow land on her glove—
And vanish.
Not melt.
Vanish.
She whispered to no one:
“This isn’t mine.”
And something shifted.
—————————————
In the center of her field screen, the two circles flickered once.
Jagged.
Smooth.
Then blinked off.
Her scanner returned to neutral.
Like nothing had happened.
Like it had never known her at all.
—————————————
She stepped back into the base just before first shift started.
The mess tent smelled like coffee and ration oil.
Someone laughed.
A new update pinged her queue.
She didn’t open it.
She walked to her locker. Unlatched it. Removed her coat with precision.
Everything normal.
But her skin remembered what the snow had felt like.
And something beneath her uniform throbbed once—gentle. Not a warning.
Not a promise.
Just proof.
—————————————
She didn’t log the scan.
She didn’t mention the echo.
She didn’t speak.
But when the lights above her flickered again—just for her—she looked up…
And didn’t blink.
This wasn’t a shift.
It was proof.
Sura doesn’t believe in signs.
But she can’t unfeel the hum.
If something stayed with you, don’t log it. Just linger.
