SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 214: Red Echo

The hum was gone.

So was the light.

But the silence it left behind was louder than anything I’d heard all day.

I stood at the edge of the camp, the fire behind me, the jungle ahead. The last traces of twilight faded into blue-black shadows that tangled between the trees like smoke. My ribs ached, my legs trembled from the effort of staying upright, but I didn’t move. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel-com

The air felt... charged. Like something was waiting. Like the breath the island had been holding all day had finally been exhaled into this moment.

Sienna returned with Evelyn not long after. They came fast—Sienna half-running, Evelyn pacing behind her with her staff gripped tight in one hand and her eyes avoiding mine and instead scanning the tree line.

"What did you see?" Evelyn asked immediately as she put her blindfold back on.

"There was a light," I said, still watching the trees. "Red. Small. Blinking. Like a beacon. And a sound—mechanical. A kind of low hum, almost like a generator, but... wrong. It sounded old to say the least."

She nodded slowly, not dismissing it. "Direction?"

I pointed. "2 o’clock. Just behind that split in the ridge, twenty meters out."

"Duration?"

"Ten seconds. Maybe twelve. Then it cut out."

"Movement?"

"No. Just... presence."

Sienna stood beside me, glancing toward the trees. "I heard and saw something, but are we sure we aren’t hallucinating or something? We haven’t eaten or drank much since we crash landed."

I hesitated. The doubt itched at the back of my mind. The exhaustion. The hallucinations that sometimes came with System related activities and without it I felt even more lost. But I knew what I saw.

"I’m sure."

Evelyn was already crouching, brushing her fingers through the soil and leaves near where I’d been standing. She reached out and pointed to a shallow impression in the ground—almost nothing, but not quite.

It was a partial bootprint.

Faint. Fresh.

She rose and wiped her hands. "We can’t scout it tonight. Not with this light. Not without backup."

I nodded reluctantly.

"Instead, we trap the perimeter," she said. "Quietly. I have some ideas."

The three of us worked fast.

Or rather—Evelyn worked with cold, tactical grace. Sienna worked with practiced steadiness. I struggled and limped behind them, doing what I could without drawing too much of their concern.

We strung tension lines from salvaged vines and fishing wire. Shell pieces were tied at the ends with bits of broken electronics scavenged from the lens, each one rigged to rattle if touched. The lines crisscrossed the most vulnerable areas of the camp—through shrubs, between trees, even low along the sand near the lean-to.

As we worked, Sienna slid in close beside me and pressed a small cloth into my palm.

"What’s this?" I asked, breath shallow.

"Poultice. I gave Alexis a dose earlier before she left. It’s made from some of the dried root herbs I found earlier. Smells like a rotting potato, but it’ll numb the inflammation."

"You made it?"

"I crushed and soaked it. Alexis helped me test it earlier." She gave me a small smile. "I’m not useless either."

I let the words sit between us as I smeared it across the worst of the scratches on my ribs. It stung like hell. Then... eased. Like the fire behind my skin had been dunked in cold water.

"You shouldn’t be doing this much," she added. "You’re not recovered."

"I can’t sit still."

"So why can’t you relax for a bit longer?" she asked. "We need you to be at your best when you recover."

"I know."

But I didn’t stop.

Together, we finished fortifying the lean-to. We reinforced the support structure with driftwood and scavenged metal rods from what might’ve once been part of a plane frame. The tarp was weighted with stones at the edges and coated with layers of palm leaves to soften its profile. From a distance, it looked less like a shelter and more like a bump in the land. That was the point.

Finally, we returned to the clearing near the fire. Evelyn adjusted the last tripwire and tied it around a thin branch tipped with a reflective shard of glass.

"There," she said. "If anyone shines a light, we’ll see the flash."

Sienna sat beside me again as I dropped into the blanket nest.

"What time is it?" she asked.

I glanced up at the sky, then to the fire. "Maybe seven?"

"Still no return flash."

"Nothing from Alexis or Camille."

We both fell silent.

Then Sienna leaned into my side again, and I let my body relax against hers.

Somewhere Inland...

Moonlight spilled through the canopy in narrow slits, slashing silver patterns across Camille’s face as she crouched low behind a broad fern, its fronds bigger than her outstretched arms. Her breath came out quiet but sharp, fogging briefly in the cooler air beneath the trees.

"I’m telling you," she whispered, barely moving her lips, "this is 100% not a natural formation."

Alexis stood just behind her, knees slightly bent, gaze fixed on the structure half-sunken into the earth. "Concrete. Poured. Reinforced. Probably part of a larger installation. And it hasn’t been here long enough to erode like this unless something covered it deliberately."

The outcropping looked like a piece of a building torn loose and buried in time. Its walls were choked with moss, vines coiling tightly around the upper edge like nature trying to hide its presence. But the shape was unmistakable—angles too sharp, lines too deliberate. A metallic vent slat jutted from one side, stained but intact.

Camille moved toward it and laid her fingers across the slat. Her hand flinched. "Cold."

She turned toward Alexis. "Whatever this is... it’s still slightly functional, I think."

Then they heard it.

A sound—low and grinding, like machinery struggling to come back to life. Not rhythmic like a generator. Not clean. It was old, labored, the echo of a system failing and trying again. The noise pulsed through the ground more than the air, subtle but deep, like something was shifting far beneath their feet.

Alexis reached out immediately, gripping Camille’s sleeve. "We shouldn’t linger."

Camille’s brow furrowed. "We’ve already lost the sun. If we wait, it’ll be harder to find this place again."

Alexis’s voice was calm, but firm. "If we go in blind, we could walk into a sealed trap. We don’t know if it’s stable. If there’s power, there could be security measures still running. Or something worse."

Camille glanced around. Every tree, every vine felt like it was listening. Watching. "But what if we get lost? It’s nighttime and sleeping the night in is the smarter move. We can go back to camp during the morning. Not to mention, what if it has a working radio? Or any other important tools for that matter?"

"We mark it," Alexis said again, slower this time. "We come back at first light. We’re not equipped to map underground spaces in the dark."

Back at camp

The night was cooling.

The jungle no longer felt like it was holding its breath. It had exhaled—and now it was listening.

I sat beside the dying fire, one hand resting lightly over my chest. I could feel the faint echo of the burn beneath the poultice, the way my body ached not just from injury but from something deeper. A kind of fatigue that couldn’t be healed with rest. The fatigue of being human again.

Sienna lay curled a few feet away, eyes closed but not sleeping.

Evelyn stood watch with the mirror in hand, flashing it again into the trees.

No reply.

Nothing moved.

Nothing flashed back.

Then—just as she began to lower it—

A jingle.

Soft.

Metal tapping stone.

We all froze.

Evelyn dropped into a crouch. Sienna shot upright, already holding a plank of wood—hers was crude, sharpened from a bone.

I grabbed the closest thing I could—a splintered length of branch, about the size of a forearm. The knife was still there taken by Camille and Alexis, said they’d use it to cut down plants that got in their way.

We moved toward the edge of the perimeter. Slowly. Careful.

Another jingle. Then the faintest rustle of undergrowth disturbed.

We reached the trigger site.

It was snapped.

The vine trap had been tripped—and whatever had done it was gone.

But not completely.

A footprint.

Human.

Barefoot.

The print was deep in the damp soil, heel first, toes splayed like someone had paused, maybe turned.

Evelyn crouched low. "Fresh."

Then we heard it.

Running.

Not toward us.

Away.

The rhythm of someone crashing through the brush, heavy footfalls muffled by moss but impossible to miss now that we were listening for it.

We didn’t chase.

We couldn’t.

I stared into the dark beyond the vines, the trees, the tripwires.

And I knew.

It wasn’t just wildlife.

It wasn’t just leftover machines or abandoned shelters.

Someone was here, on this island with us. Someone who was alive, experienced and watchful.

And worst of all....they knew where we were.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is free(w)𝒆bnov(𝒆)l