Because I already know where this leads.
The outer corridor opens ahead, and the air shifts again as the static from the border field bleeds into the environment, raising the fine hairs along my arms. I slow just enough to orient, my gaze sweeping the exit point, the barrier, the open stretch beyond.
“You don’t do this,” I mutter, the words quieter now but heavier.
Because this isn’t protocol.
This isn’t controlled.
This is walking out.
“You stay in line,” I add, the old rule surfacing automatically.
“You follow command.”
Command just buried her.
The thought lands hard, cutting clean through whatever hesitation still lingers.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice dropping. “That line’s already gone.”
I turn.
And I walk out.
The transition into the Deadlands hits all at once, the controlled environment dropping away behind me as heat slams into my skin like a physical force. The air dries instantly, pulling moisture from my mouth and throat, and the ground shifts under my boots, loose sand grinding against fractured rock as each step sinks slightly before stabilizing.
The horizon stretches wide, warped by heat distortion that bends the distance into something unstable, and the wind carries fine grit that stings against my face and settles into the fabric of my clothes.
“Yeah,” I mutter, scanning the terrain as I adjust my pace. “Perfect place to disappear something.”
Or someone.
I move forward, lowering my center of gravity slightly as I read the ground, letting my eyes track disruption insteadof surface detail. The wind has already started smoothing the terrain, dragging thin layers of sand across anything that doesn’t belong, but it hasn’t erased everything yet.
Not this fast.
“There,” I say quietly, dropping into a crouch as I reach a disturbed patch.
The sand feels different under my hand, denser, compressed in a way the surrounding terrain isn’t, and I brush my fingers across it, feeling the uneven texture where something impacted hard enough to shift the layers beneath.
“That’s not natural,” I murmur, tracing the edge of the disturbance.
The pattern spreads outward in a rough arc, the direction cutting against the wind’s movement, and I stand slowly, letting my eyes widen the search radius.
Impact zone.
My pulse picks up.
“You didn’t just vanish,” I say, scanning outward.
A faint line cuts across the sand a few meters out, barely visible where the wind has started to reclaim it, but still there if you know what you’re looking for.
I move toward it, crouching again as I follow the line with my hand, feeling the shallow groove where something—or someone—dragged across the surface.
“You moved,” I say, my voice lower now.
The track stutters, disappears, then reappears further along, interrupted but consistent enough to follow, and I rise, adjusting my direction as I pick up the trail again.
