This Broken Earth

Chapter 3: The First Sky

Chapter 3: The First Sky


The gear room was colder than the rest of the bunker. The air had a faint bite to it, the kind that settled into your chest like a warning.

Lex stood still while Nate adjusted the strap on the lightweight pack she wore over her jacket. It wasn’t heavy—just some essentials and a few spare rounds—but it still felt unfamiliar. Unnatural. Like she was preparing for a version of herself she hadn’t quite grown into yet.

“Too tight?” he asked, tugging the strap.

“No. I’m good.”

Nate stepped back and gave her a quick once-over. His expression stayed neutral, but she caught the flicker of hesitation—brief, buried. Then it was gone.

He wore the same dark gear as the others—fitted shirt, canvas pants—but on him, it looked deliberate. Controlled. His dark hair fell across his brow, and his jaw was set with the kind of calm that didn’t rattle easy.

He handed her a knife with a simple grip and a holstered sidearm next. The weight of both felt wrong in her hands, like props in someone else’s story.

She adjusted the holster around her thigh, clearly uncertain but determined. Nate didn’t say anything, just watched with that unreadable expression again—like he wanted to help but knew she needed to do it herself.

After a beat, he asked. “You know the basics?”

“Point and shoot,” she said, more dryly than confidently.

“Preferably not at me,” Nate muttered, just loud enough for her to catch it.

She smirked despite the nerves. “No promises.”

Across from them, the other three members of the recon team prepped in silence. Lex didn’t know all their names—just faces she’d passed in the hall. One was tall and wiry, with pale eyes and a scar across the back of his hand. Another was broader, with a thick neck and the word LATCH stenciled across his vest.

The third was older—Elias, if she remembered right. He looked to be in his early fifties, with a gray-streaked beard and a quiet, rugged ease that didn’t ask for attention. He held his firearm like it was second nature—steady, practiced.

She wanted to ask what they’d seen outside. What it felt like to walk in the open again. But the words stuck in her throat.

Instead, she followed Nate as they moved toward the checkpoint doors, where two armed guards waited.

“Check-in confirmed,” one of them said. “Recon team approved. Doors opening in ten.”

Lex’s pulse pounded. She was ready. She had to be.

The steel doors groaned and began to part, inch by inch, revealing a narrow tunnel that led up and out. It was dimly lit by flickering overhead lights. At the far end: a hatch.

Lex’s legs moved before her brain caught up. She followed Nate up the tunnel, feeling the soft thud of her boots echo in the space.

At the top, the second door opened with a sharp hiss.

And just like that—

She was outside.

The dull green of her jacket stood out against the pale gray rubble, a single muted thread in a city that had forgotten color.

The wind hit first. Cold and dry, slicing through the pale morning light and tugging at her clothes and hair. Then came the scent—smoke, ash, metal, and something faintly green beneath it, like the memory of trees.

For a heartbeat, she was ten again, staring up at clouds from her backyard. Only now the sky felt wrong—too still, too quiet. Like the world had forgotten how to be alive.

But it was still… open.

Lex’s breath caught in her throat. The sky above her. The way it moved. The space around her suddenly felt enormous and fragile all at once.

“You good?” Nate asked, watching her closely.

She blinked and nodded. “Yeah. Just—processing.”

“Stay close. We’re headed northeast, toward the old relay tower. Keep your eyes up. Drones don’t make sound until they’re close.”

Lex gripped the strap of her pack and stuck close to Nate as they began to move.

Elias fell in just behind her, his footsteps quiet and deliberate. He didn’t speak, but when Lex stumbled on a loose patch of rubble, it was his hand that caught her elbow—steady, brief, then gone like it hadn’t happened.

The surface was both familiar and alien. Buildings stood like broken teeth against the gray-blue sky, their windows shattered, walls crumbling. Vines crept along pavement, weaving through cars frozen in place. Somewhere in the distance, a sign creaked on rusted hinges.

They moved fast but careful, ducking into alleyways, avoiding wide-open streets. At each turn, Elias was the last to pass through—always watching their backs.

After about twenty minutes, Nate held up a hand.

“Stop. Hear that?”

Lex held her breath.

There—barely audible through the wind—a soft hum. Electric. Growing louder.

Nate seized her hand, fingers locking with hers for half a second before tugging her into the collapsed storefront. The others followed, crouching low.

Above them, something drifted by.

The drone.

Lex could only see part of it through a shattered window. Sleek. Black. Its red sensor eye sweeping the street like a lighthouse.

The hum deepened.

Nate’s voice was calm in her ear. “Don’t move. Don’t even blink.”

Lex didn’t.

The drone hovered.

Then slowly, like it had made its choice, it floated away.

The hum faded.

For a long moment, no one moved.

Then Nate straightened, eyes scanning the skyline. “It didn’t scan us. Must’ve been on a passive run.”

“Should’ve taken it down,” muttered Latch. “They’ll keep coming back.”

“We’re not here to engage,” Nate said. “Let’s move.”

They pressed on, daylight shifting above them—brighter now, but still filtered through a haze of cloud and ash.

When they reached the relay tower, it looked like a skeleton—thin metal bones rising against the sky, barely intact. Nate motioned for the others to fan out and began inspecting the area. Lex stayed near, watching him kneel beside a metal plate on the ground.

“What is that?” she asked quietly.

Nate pried it open. Beneath was a small, circular device, humming softly. A blinking green light.

“Signal booster,” he muttered. “But not ours.”

Lex stared. “Wait—then whose?”

He looked at her. “Someone else is transmitting out here. Or worse… luring us out.”

Before Lex could respond, a sharp crack echoed in the air.

Gunfire.

“Contact, west side!” Elias shouted.

“Lex—cover!” Nate grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a concrete pillar as bullets tore through the air.

But something was wrong.

The shots were scattered. Off-beat. Sloppy.

A burst smacked the ground far wide of their position. Another ricocheted off metal, nowhere near a clear shot.

“They’re not trained,” Elias growled over the comm. “Amateur angles. Poor lines.”

Still, the city exploded with sound. Muzzle flashes blinked from above, but not coordinated—more like panic fire than a plan.

Lex’s heart slammed in her chest. She ducked, breathing hard.

Then something even worse echoed through the street.

A high-pitched, rising screech.

Not human.

Not a drone, either.

Nate met her eyes. “Run.”

Lex didn’t ask questions.

She ran.

They didn’t stop until they hit cover—an overturned truck, half-sunk into the sidewalk. Lex slumped against the metal, chest heaving.

Her hands were shaking. She didn’t even notice until Nate crouched beside her, his hand closing gently over hers.

“Hey.”

She couldn’t answer. Just nodded, eyes fixed on the cracked pavement.

“You’re okay,” he said, quiet but firm. “I’m right here with you.”

Something in his voice steadied her more than the words. She looked at him then—and saw it in his face. Not just fear. Something closer. Something deeper.

Then the sound came again—closer this time.

The screech scraped across the inside of her skull. Concrete crumbled nearby. Something big was moving fast.

“Go,” Nate said, already rising. “Now.”

Her boots slapped against broken pavement as Nate pulled her down a narrow alley, low-hanging wires and vines clawing at her shoulders. Behind them, gunfire cracked through the street again—short, sharp bursts—and over it all, that sound. The inhuman screech that drilled straight into her spine.

“What was that?” she gasped.

Nate didn’t look back. “Don’t know. But it’s definitely not a drone.”

They rounded a corner, nearly barreling into a rusted-out dumpster. Nate caught her wrist and guided her into the narrow space behind it, crouching low. She dropped beside him, holding her breath, every muscle locked tight.

She could still hear the screech in the distance—metal on metal, layered with something that sounded like breathing. Wet, uneven. Something hunting.

“I thought drones were the only thing up here,” Lex whispered.

Nate’s jaw tightened. “That’s what we were told.”

“Were told?”

He didn’t answer.

Voices crackled through his earpiece. Latch shouting something about losing signal with the bunker.

“We’re scattered,” Nate muttered. “We stay here. Quiet and low.”

Lex curled into herself, breathing slow, trying not to think about the thing she’d heard. Trying not to picture it.

Then—clink.

Something metallic hit the pavement. Not far off. Close enough that it echoed.

Nate’s hand moved to his rifle.

Lex’s fingers tightened on the concrete beside her.

She wished she were back in the schoolroom with Wren, sprawled on the floor, half-listening to her rant about someone stealing the last packet of cocoa while they sorted puzzle pieces that didn’t match.

Then, movement.

A flicker—shadow across the alley’s mouth. Not a drone. Too low to the ground. Too fast.

The air shifted. A scent reached her nose.

Rotting.

Breathing.

Alive.

She didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

The shadow drifted past. Four limbs. Long. Jerked. Almost human in shape—until you saw the wrong angles. The sharp limbs. The impossibly thin torso. A red glint pulsed where its face should’ve been, like a scanner eye trying to smell its way through the dark.

Lex’s throat tightened.

Its head tilted—sharp, too fast. It paused for a breath, like it had recognized something.

Sniffed the air.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

Then—without warning—it screeched again and launched itself up the wall in a blur, scrabbling over bricks like a spider and disappearing over the rooftop.

Nate exhaled slowly. “Time to go.”

They moved again, faster this time, ducking through collapsed buildings and weaving between old vehicles like ghosts. Nate’s voice came through the comm.

“Fallback, point Bravo. Now.”

They all confirmed, voices clipped. Shiv was limping. Latch scanned the rooftops, rifle raised. No one mentioned the creature.

But it had shaken all of them.

By the time they reached the fallback point—a half-buried parking garage covered in ivy and broken glass—Lex was soaked in sweat and out of breath.

She leaned against a crumbling column, trying to catch her breath without looking like she was unraveling. Her hands still trembled.

Elias approached quietly and handed her a canteen. “Small sips,” he said, voice low but steady. “You’re running hot.”

She nodded, took a drink, and handed it back. “Thanks.”

He gave a small grunt, not quite a smile but something close. “You held up fine.”

Lex glanced at him. “I didn’t do anything. Just ran.”

“Exactly,” Elias said. “Sometimes that’s what keeps you breathing.” He turned, already moving toward Shiv.

Shiv sat with his back against a cracked support beam, pant leg dark with blood.

“Let me see,” Elias said. He knelt and peeled the fabric back. Shiv hissed.

“It’s a graze,” Elias confirmed. “Deep, but clean. Missed anything vital. You’ll walk on it.”

Yeah, yeah—if I have to,” Shiv grumbled.

“You have to,” Elias said simply, wrapping the wound with quick, efficient hands.

“We need to go,” Nate said. “There’s no point staying. That device was a trap.”

No one pushed back. Even Latch, jaw tight, stayed quiet.

Elias scanned the treeline, voice low. “That gunfire wasn’t a drone. Someone pulled a trigger.”

“So who the hell was shooting at us?” Latch asked, tense.

No one answered right away.

Nate’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t tactical. That was messy. Like they panicked—or didn’t know what they were doing.”

Elias shifted his weight, rifle slung back over his shoulder. “Or someone trying to keep us from finding something.”

“And that thing?” Latch grunted. “That wasn’t random.”

“It was waiting,” Nate said grimly.

Great,” Shiv muttered. “So we’ve got drones, creatures, and wild cards with guns. Just keeps getting better.”

Elias’s brow furrowed. “Could be what Dane meant—drones not just in the sky anymore. Couple nights ago, Team Two reported movement near the ridge. Said they fired on something fast. Low to the ground. It was dark. They thought it was a drone.”

He glanced at the others. “Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was one of those crawlers.”

Lex stood near the back, silent, absorbing every word. Her heart still hadn’t returned to normal. The image of the thing crawling up the wall wouldn’t leave her.

She realized something, then—something small, but sharp in her gut.

It hadn’t attacked.

It had studied her. Breathed her in like it already knew her.

Why?

“Let’s move,” Nate said. His gaze swept over Lex—slow, deliberate. His hand hovered, like he meant to steady her but pulled back at the last second, like touching her was suddenly off limits.

She nodded before she even realized.

Elias gave Shiv a shoulder to lean on without a word, then cast a long look behind them before taking the rear. If something was still out there, he’d see it first—and be the last to run.

They left in silence.

But Lex felt it.

Whatever it was—

it wasn’t done with her.