Faded moonlight filtering down grimy bolted windows cast a pale glow across the abandoned safe house as Jonathan and Sarah pored through tattooed documents recovered during a resistance raid. The paltry scraps offered scant insights into the shadowy Enigma Group's activities moving troops and equipment but confirmed the rapidly growing threat they posed.
As Jon shuffled through crinkling pages filled with redaction black, a frenzied scrawl along the bottom corner of one inventory transfer sheet unexpectedly caught his eye. In faded pencil, almost illegible against years of accumulated grime, a past terrified handler penned clearly nonetheless...
"Dispatch confirms acquisition of the Reed Vessel local grid 2A5 manifesting unknown breach phenomenon. Correlate to archived Transpo Project Harvester? Possible interest state breach pending analysis..." The harried words broke off there but Jon's eyes went wide as fingers trembled gripping the page.
2A5 - that grid number oversaw the industrial warehouse block where Mikey went missing all those fateful years ago after their showdown phone call! And Project Harvester - grandfather's code name for the time machine prototype before his disastrous final experiment!
"My god Sarah, this references my brother's 'abduction in proximity to somehow...intersecting with Enigma operations manipulating chronal energies across dimensions!" Jon's voice rasped hoarsely as tremors shook limbs realizing his own experiments to save Mikey long stumbled through the very shadows holding his lost sibling captive. Blind seekers chasing esoteric power hardly understood!
Sarah gripped Jon's shoulder firmly, medical instincts stabilizing shock reaction from crashing revelations. She had noticed an increasingly fragile grip on coherent reality despite a steadfast determination to soldier on confronting unknown threats. But this psychic wound tore through scar tissue barely holding together a psyche overburdened coping measuring life's duty against endless strands of ghosts littering their path...
"We don't know the full circumstances of what darkness took Mikey that cursed night Jonathan," Sarah urged steadily. "Nor why vile powers orbit mysteries still dim beyond our sight. But where love binds light can find cracks to most hardened cells..."
She waved a cracked tablet displaying underground stronghold schematics where deeper vault levels hinted unthinkably profound Ranger secrets. "Feel this fiery hope still, Jon - your family history intertwines strangely the Enigma cabal. What strange confluence converges now may show a truer enemy wearing a familiar guise."
Hunched shoulders stiffened hearing low hoarse chuckle escape Jon's lips. Battered boots swung heavily upon a creaking table sending classified pages scattering wildly to whip past soiled rafters. Eyes-watering madness fought to overwhelm visage etched by horrors unknown breaching sane reality barriers.
"All my desperate feats chasing temporal arcana to redeem lost family led only toward deeper damnation!" Jon gasped raggedly. "What savior devolves slowly to his brother's very captor without realizing?" His fists pounded the musty oak loudly until blood trickled from split knuckles.
Pensive calm slowly returned tracing smoke plumes twisting lazily past broken windows. Somewhere souls who had passed too soon watched patiently that their sacrifices steered future hands toward compassion too easily surrendered...
With weathered bones three decades older, Jon turned slowly to meet Sarah's patient gaze showing years walking point through eternity's bleakest battlefields. A different war drew her beyond strength reckoning personal costs. What force of spirit still breathed life against deathly exhaustion to these forgotten places? Sarah clasped his soundless query gently but with immutable authority-bending fates.
"Whatever brought us three orphaned souls together tonight was not blind abandonment," she whispered through the gloom. "Mikey, you and me all court fire willingly leaping unknown yet bonded beyond chance through suffering..." She lifted the crumpled inventory sheet now doubly precious. "...and through love's longing pulling life from chaos when all landmarks fade."
YOU ARE READING
Veil Of Shadows
Science FictionDr. Jonathan Reed, a brilliant but introverted scientist who graduated from Harvard, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his brother. He carries the weight of guilt, believing he could have prevented it. Determined to unravel the truth, he...
