SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 213: Signal Drift

The twilight settled fast.

One moment, the world was draped in that amber hush of early evening, long gold bars filtering through the canopy like the last breath of something old. The next, those beams began to die—cooling into deep blue shadows and threads of gray that pooled beneath every leaf and stone. The forest was retreating from the sun, and I could feel the shift like a drop in pressure behind my ears.

I sat upright now, though only barely, my back propped against a makeshift mound of blankets and vine padding. Sienna had helped me adjust earlier, her movements quick and practiced, but gentler than they needed to be. Her warmth still lingered on my shoulder where she’d pressed down to stabilize me.

Across the camp, Evelyn was bent low over the eastern perimeter. Her hands moved in tight, efficient circles as she tied a snare line between two warped roots. Pieces of broken driftwood were being turned into sharpened stakes. Strips of fabric—cut from the leopard’s remains—were dyed in ash and tied as markers to show where not to step.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t hum. Just worked.

Sienna had gone to help her, leaving me for a few quiet minutes with only the fire for company.

Or what was left of it.

I looked toward the flames—or rather, the bed of low coals. They pulsed slowly, red and rhythmic, a flickering heartbeat buried beneath ash. The jungle around us was still again, but not in a comforting way. The kind of stillness that felt... wrong.

Too quiet.

No birdsong. No insect chirps. No rustle in the brush. Just wind—and even that came in cautious, broken sighs through the trees. Though I honestly could’ve just been more paranoid after the leopard attacked us.

I leaned forward slightly, wincing as pain flared across my side. Every muscle complained like it had been repurposed for someone else’s skeleton. But I didn’t stop. I tilted my head, listened harder.

Still nothing.

That was when the unease really started to creep in.

Camille & Alexis – Inland

Camille adjusted the strap of her satchel made of leaves and thin ropes for the third time and pushed a low-hanging vine out of the way.

"You know," she said, her voice louder than the surrounding quiet, "this would’ve been a romantic holiday with Reynard if we weren’t actively hunting for signs of barbed wire and mysterious island death shelters."

Alexis didn’t laugh. She kept walking, her eyes tracking something between the path and the tree trunks ahead. Every few steps, she’d crouch slightly, touch the moss, or inspect the bark.

Camille tried again. "Jungle date with a side of survival horror. I’d swipe right."

Still nothing.

"You really know how to charm a girl," she muttered to herself, then finally fell into silence.

Alexis’s system flickered just inside her peripheral vision, a dull blue glow outlining her skills. She used Biometric Insight—heart rate elevated, muscle tension spiked. Camille was hiding anxiety behind the jokes. She was good at that.

Alexis, on the other hand, wasn’t in the mood to pretend.

The clues were adding up. Subtle. Sparse. But definite.

Tree bark peeled back in narrow vertical strips—not from animals, but from blades. Some of the groundcover was flattened, but not in a natural pattern. Like something had been dragged, or moved with deliberate spacing. A trail of indentations in the moss led them toward a narrow ravine—one Camille might’ve missed if she hadn’t stopped to tie her bootlace.

"Hold on," Alexis said, raising her hand.

Camille froze. "What is it?"

"Something metallic," Alexis murmured. She knelt beside a root system and brushed away the soil.

There it was.

Half-buried in mud, a torn segment of something thin and mechanical. Wires. Burnt. Possibly charred in a fire. She pulled it gently, exposing a flattened disc—maybe the housing of a drone lens, though the casing was shattered.

Camille peered over her shoulder. "Please tell me that’s an old garden sprinkler."

"Surveillance drone. Civilian made. Maybe defense-adapted."

Camille grimaced. "So... what, someone was watching us?"

"Or something else," Alexis said. "But yeah. This wasn’t just lost here."

A few paces further, Camille brushed her fingers against one of the long vines hanging low from a crooked branch.

It twitched.

She flinched back instinctively.

Then, with a hiss like static, the vine sparked—a faint electrical flicker where her skin had brushed its surface. Her hand recoiled.

"That," she said, "was not a normal plant."

Alexis stepped closer and frowned.

The vine wasn’t a vine at all. It was cable. Thin, coated, and interwoven into the surrounding flora like it had been there for years. But someone had laid it. And it was still live.

They exchanged a look.

Camille’s voice was low now. "Definitely man-made."

Back at Camp –

I managed to stand.

Sort of.

It wasn’t graceful. More of a slow crawl to my feet using the firepit’s stone edge like a walker. But I got there. One breath at a time.

The effort nearly sent my vision spinning again. My ribs screamed. My legs weren’t convinced they were part of the same plan. But I didn’t stop.

I made it down the short incline toward the beach, sand soft and unsteady beneath my feet. The water lapped at the shore, gentle and even—almost insultingly peaceful.

I crouched at the edge and rinsed my hands, scrubbing at the blood and ash that clung to my knuckles. The saltwater stung the tiny abrasions I hadn’t noticed before.

Then I saw it.

A glint.

Something sticking half-buried in the wet sand, maybe six inches from the tide line. I reached out, brushing away the grit and lifting the object free.

It was glass.

A broken lens fragment—smooth on one side, cracked and scorched on the other. Embedded in the edge was a piece of housing and a thin metal filament. Definitely not natural. Definitely not driftwood.

I turned toward the camp and called out, "Evelyn!"

She jogged down moments later, staff still in hand. Her gaze shifted from me to the object in my hand.

"You shouldn’t be walking," she said first.

I handed her the lens. "Found this."

She examined it quickly, holding it up to catch the light. "Scorched. Wiring exposed. Could be from a drone. Maybe surveillance."

"You think it’s related to the barbed wire?"

"Maybe. Tech that runs perimeter surveillance. Or something guarding a shelter." She knelt and turned the lens over. "This isn’t new. But it’s not ancient either. Maybe five years at most. Probably less."

Sienna came storming down a moment later, her eyes flashing. "Rey. What did I say?"

"Worth it," I said.

She looked ready to argue, but stopped when she saw what Evelyn was holding.

"What is that?"

"Proof," Evelyn said. "That this island was used for something more than nature walks."

We all stood there, quiet for a beat.

Then Sienna sighed and pointed back toward the camp. "Up. You’ve earned yourself another twenty minutes of doing absolutely nothing."

"Bossy," I muttered.

"Alive," she countered.

I couldn’t really argue, but I was slowly feeling better. And surely moving a bit every hour or so isn’t the worst. Though I was still worried....after all, not only did I receive confirmation that animals like leopards are on the island, but also there is likely man-made objects on the island too. In the worse case scenario, a stranger is on the island.

Evelyn had finished the trap perimeter an hour later, just as the sky shifted toward full dusk. She returned to camp and picked up the polished signal mirror they’d made, checking the reflection with a careful eye.

"I want to try this before we lose light," she said.

She climbed the small ridge just east of the lean-to and held the mirror at an angle, flashing light toward the trees—toward the path Alexis and Camille had taken.

We waited.

Five minutes passed. Then ten.

Nothing.

Sienna watched the horizon with a crease in her brow. I leaned forward, eyes scanning the tree line like I could will someone to appear.

Fifteen minutes.

Still no return flash.

I was about to suggest we try again when I heard it.

A low hum.

It didn’t come from the sky. It wasn’t a bug. It was mechanical—barely audible, but unmistakable. A pulsing, electrical sound that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

Sienna straightened. "Did you hear—?"

I was already standing, ignoring the pain.

Then, deeper in the jungle, a red light blinked.

Just once.

Then again. Steady. Soft. Hidden between tree trunks so thick you had to squint to see it.

Sienna stepped closer to me, voice barely above a whisper. "What is that?"

I didn’t answer.

The hum stuttered.

Then it cut off.

And the light disappeared.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

"Go get Evelyn," I said, quietly but firmly.

Sienna hesitated for half a second.

"Now."

She turned and ran.

And I stood there alone, staring at the space where the light had been.

Wondering who—or what—had just seen us first.

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