Chapter 2325: Story 2326: Road to Site Zero

The truck sped north through a dying world.

Rain hammered the windshield while lightning flashed endlessly across the storm-choked sky. Far behind them, the military checkpoint burned beneath rising silver growth as the Collector disappeared into the darkness like a nightmare returning to the earth.

But Maya could still feel it.

Watching.

Searching.

“They know where we are now,” Selena said quietly.

No one disagreed.

Ethan sat trembling in the back seat beneath a bloodstained blanket. The silver veins beneath his skin glowed faintly in the dark cabin, pulsing whenever thunder rolled overhead.

Maya kept glancing at him.

The change spreading through him no longer resembled the infection beneath BLACKTHORN.

This was something newer.

Something cleaner.

Almost technological.

Ethan noticed her staring.

“I’m still me,” he whispered weakly.

“For how long?” Selena asked before she could stop herself.

Silence filled the truck immediately.

Outside, abandoned towns passed like ghosts beneath the storm. Buildings stood empty. Cars littered the roadsides. In some places entire neighborhoods had become covered in strange silver fungal growth that climbed walls and telephone poles in branching spiral patterns.

The invasion was spreading fast.

Maya opened another PROJECT GATEWAY file beneath the flickering dashboard light. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Most of the pages were damaged, but one photograph remained clear.

A massive crater buried deep in frozen mountains.

At the center stood a BLACKTHORN excavation facility built directly into the ice.

SITE ZERO.

Below the image, someone had handwritten a warning:

DO NOT RESPOND TO SIGNALS FROM BELOW LEVEL 6.

Maya frowned.

“What happened there?”

Selena kept her eyes on the road.

“I don’t know everything,” she admitted. “BLACKTHORN separated divisions from each other intentionally. Gateway was hidden even from senior researchers.”

Ethan suddenly looked up sharply.

“It’s near.”

Maya turned toward him.

“What is?”

“The signal source.”

His white-and-silver eyes stared through the roof of the truck toward the storm above.

“It’s getting stronger the farther north we go.”

A deafening boom interrupted him.

The truck shook violently.

Ahead of them, another pod crashed into the forest beside the highway, flattening entire rows of trees in an eruption of silver fire.

Selena swore and slammed the brakes.

The burning pod twitched inside the crater.

Moving.

Then the shell split open slowly down the center.

Something inside began crawling out.

Maya grabbed her revolver instantly.

“Drive!”

Too late.

Long silver tendrils shot across the road and wrapped around the truck’s front axle. Metal screamed as the vehicle jerked sideways violently into the ditch.

Everyone slammed against the interior.

The engine died.

For one terrible second—

Only rain remained.

Then came the sound.

Clicking.

Wet.

Fast.

The thing from the pod moved through the trees toward them.

Maya climbed from the wreckage with her revolver raised while Selena dragged Ethan out the opposite side.

Lightning flashed.

The creature became visible between the trees.

Smaller than the Collector.

But worse somehow.

Its body resembled a human stretched onto six insect-like limbs. Smooth silver skin covered its twitching frame while clusters of human eyes blinked randomly across its torso.

And its mouth—

Its mouth opened vertically.

Inside were human hands pressing outward from its throat.

Selena backed away slowly.

“What the hell are these things?”

The creature tilted its head toward Maya.

Then every human eye across its body focused directly on her.

“Bridge identified,” it whispered.

More clicking sounds echoed from the forest behind it.

Not one creature.

Many.

Maya’s grip tightened around the revolver.

The storm above thundered louder.

And somewhere beyond the dark northern horizon—

Site Zero was calling to them.