Jack moved low through the trees, rifle at the ready, every step silent, deliberate. He didn't know where he was—but that didn't change the fundamentals.
Stay alert. Check your angles. Don't skyline.
The forest was wrong. Too quiet. Trees bloated and cracked, as if scorched from the inside. The dirt underfoot was dark, rich, soft—like ash after a burn. Every instinct told him: bad ground.
He swept a 360 scan, knelt by a half-rotted stump, and checked his rifle.
Mag seated. Bolt good. Chambered.
110 rounds left. Three mags in pouches, one in the rifle.
He didn't know what that thing was back there—the one he dropped with the failure-to-stop. But he knew how it moved. How it hunted. The eyes. The body language. It wasn't a dumb animal.
And it wasn't alone.
He moved on.
Then—gunfire.
Sharp. Isolated. Distant.
Crack. Crack-crack. Pause. Screaming.
Bolt-action rhythm. Not M4s. Not even AKs. Sounded like old rifles—maybe pre-WWII.
He crouched and adjusted direction, cutting southeast.
Through the trees, smoke bled into the canopy. He crept forward, muzzle sweeping.
He came over a rise and went prone.
Contact.
Below: a trench, dug in black soil, rimmed with wire and sandbags. Men in patchwork gear, bolt rifles, some with strange circular masks over their mouths. Desperate fire into the tree line.
Target area: a swarm of humanoid creatures advancing from the far side. Pale, long-limbed, fast—clearly hostile.
He picked a runner. Breath in. Sight picture steady.
Tap-tap. Chest. One more. Head. Failure to stop.
Target dropped.
Next one—climbing over a log. Tap-tap. Head. Dropped.
Third—advancing fast toward trench edge. One to pelvis. One to head. Dropped.
He moved like a machine. Controlled. Efficient. Minimal ammo burn.
Nine rounds. Four kills.
Down below, the defenders hesitated. One soldier shouted something—words Jack didn't know. They turned, saw him on the ridge.
Someone screamed in panic. Fingers pointed.
Then a voice behind him roared: "DOWN!"
Jack pivoted, too late.
A heavy net, thick with rope and weights, slammed across his shoulders. He dropped hard, twisting. His rifle was ripped from his hands. Boots rushed in. A stun-stick cracked against his shoulder—burned through his body like raw voltage.
Voices yelled.
Hands grabbed his plates, forced him down.
A helmeted figure shouted in a rough accent, eyes wild: "Machine-man! Is it alive?!"
Jack didn't understand—but the answer came in a second blow.
Then black.