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Chapter - 23
Waiting hour
The lights at the checkpoint had started to dim, their harsh white turning to a dull orange hum. The air was cold now — the kind of cold that crept in once the noise stopped and people started realizing how long they'd been waiting.
Carter sat on the ground, knees pulled up, his back against a plastic crate. His legs felt heavy, but he didn't want to move. His mother stood a few feet ahead, arms folded tight, eyes fixed on the same gate for what felt like hours. Every few minutes, she'd take a step forward as another group was waved through. Then she'd stop, realizing it wasn't him.
Ben was sitting a little off to the side, rubbing his palms together for warmth. Leah had found a discarded blanket somewhere and wrapped it around them both. None of them said much — there wasn't anything left to say.
Somewhere down the line, a man was arguing with a soldier. Carter couldn't make out what about. The soldier didn't raise his voice, just repeated the same thing over and over until the man gave up. He walked back to his family, head low. They didn't speak, either.
After a while, Carter's mother turned toward a soldier walking past.
"Excuse me," she said, stepping closer. "My husband came through earlier — Daniel Leywin. Can you tell me if he's been cleared?"
The soldier stopped. His face was shadowed beneath his helmet, but Carter caught the look — the mix of fatigue and distance that came from answering the same question a hundred times.
"Ma'am, I don't have that information," he said. "If he's still being screened, he'll be brought through once he's cleared."
"How long does that take?" she asked. "They said an hour, but it's been longer than that."
The soldier hesitated. "It depends on the group," he said finally. "It's late. You should rest. They'll make announcements if anyone's cleared tonight."
Then he walked off without waiting for her reply. She stood there a moment longer, arms hanging loosely now, before she came back to where Carter was sitting.
"He said your dad's still being screened," she said quietly.
Carter just nodded. "Right." She tried to smile at him, but it didn't hold.
Not long after, Leah let out a quiet breath.
"Hey," she murmured, nudging Ben's shoulder. "Isn't that Ms. Harrow?"
Carter turned. Down the line, one of the teachers was waving a small group forward. Leah's expression softened with relief.
"We should go with them," she whispered. "She's with the school group."
Ben nodded. "Yeah. They're setting up tents on the north side."
Leah knelt briefly beside Carter. "We'll see you in the morning, okay?"
He gave a small nod. She hesitated for a moment, like she wanted to say something else, then rose and followed Ben toward the group.
And then it was just Carter and his mother.
They waited another fifteen minutes before one of the officers at the gate started calling out names again — another small group cleared, another round of quiet relief and tired faces moving past. Carter scanned them, but none of them were familiar.
His mother looked down the line again, then back at him. Her face was pale under the lights, her voice thin. "We'll come back first thing in the morning," she said. "He'll find us."
"Yeah," Carter murmured.
They gathered their things — a few bags, a blanket, a bottle of water — and followed a soldier's directions to the far side of the camp. The ground was uneven and cold underfoot. Around them, the place had gone quiet except for the low drone of a generator somewhere near the tents.
Most of the school kids were gone. Carter spotted a few faces he recognized — teachers trying to keep small groups together, students sitting in the dirt, some crying quietly, others just staring at nothing. Emma wasn't far away. She was holding a little boy — her brother — and sobbing into his shoulder. Carter looked for Adam or Chris, but they weren't there.
They found an empty tent near the edge of the field. The fabric was stiff and smelled faintly of damp plastic. His mother sat down by the entrance first, hands clasped between her knees.
"Try to get some rest," she said softly. "It's been a long day."
Carter lay down but didn't close his eyes. He could still hear the muffled noises outside — boots on gravel, voices low and clipped, the generator coughing every few seconds. Once in a while, someone would shout a name across the field.
He turned toward the flap of the tent, where the faint orange light from the checkpoint still flickered through. Somewhere out there, beyond the lights, his father was still being "screened." And Carter wasn't sure if he wanted to know what that meant anymore.
The night had grown still. Only the distant hum of generators and the occasional barked order from a soldier broke the silence. Carter sat near the flap of their tent, knees drawn to his chest. The air smelled of wet nylon and diesel. His mother had gone quiet hours ago. Every few minutes, she'd glance toward the checkpoint, as if her husband might emerge from the darkness at any second.
He wanted to say something — to tell her everything would be okay — but the words stuck in his throat. They felt empty, like even the air around them had given up pretending.
One by one, the lights across the camp dimmed. The other students were asleep — some quietly crying, others staring at nothing. Carter lay back and pulled the thin blanket over himself. The fabric smelled faintly of bleach. He closed his eyes.
Adam and Chris are gone. The thought stabbed through the fog in his head. He wanted to believe they'd just been taken for screening — that maybe, by morning, they'd walk out smiling, annoyed at how worried he'd been.
He pressed his fists against his eyes until sparks danced in the dark. He wasn't going to cry. Not again.
If dreams were where this began, maybe they could give him answers. Maybe he could find his friends, or his father, or at least a reason for all of this. He let the thought pull him down.
At first, there was nothing — only the faint hiss of wind outside and the rhythmic pulse of his heartbeat. Then the darkness began to ripple. A voice spoke — quiet, almost amused, threading through the silence.
"You seek a key to a door that does not exist. Typical of your kind."
Carter's eyes snapped open. The tent was still, the air heavy with the smell of damp nylon and cold dirt. For a second, he thought he'd imagined it — a dream trying to cling to waking. But his chest felt hollow, like the echo had carved something out of him.
He pressed a palm against his head. That voice. He knew it. He'd heard it once before — months ago, in the middle of the night, when his reflection wasn't his own and the world outside had started to come apart. The same tone. The same weight. His throat went dry.
It couldn't be. That voice was supposed to be gone. The corruption. The thing Varka called the whisper beyond the veil. It had found him again.
He turned toward the flap of the tent, the orange glow from the checkpoint flickering faintly against the canvas. His mother was asleep. Everything looked normal. But it wasn't. The silence felt… watched.
His eyes drifted toward the far edge of the camp — past the checkpoint lights, past the scattered tents. There, half-hidden behind a wall of wire fencing and floodlights, stood one of the restricted compounds. Its metal walls gleamed faintly in the dark, like a black tooth jutting out of the earth.
The moment he focused on it, a sharp prickle crawled across his skin. His right hand twitched. Carter looked down. The small scar on the back of his hand — the one that had never fully faded — pulsed with a faint, needling heat. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make him curl his fingers into a fist.
The world outside the tent was utterly still. But he could feel it now. Something in that compound was awake.
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