Ghosts of the Machine: Season Two

  Episode 26 – Hunters of the Rift

  The air was alive with a pulse, something neither mechanical nor human. Kade and Selene ran, but the tunnel wasn’t just collapsing—it was shifting. Walls rippled like liquid, stretching and twisting, the old subway turning into something else entirely.

  Then came the whispers.

  Not voices, not words—just presence. Something unseen moving just beyond their vision, flickering in and out like a bad signal.

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  Selene skidded to a stop. “This isn’t just Azazel2.”

  Kade’s breathing was sharp. He knew it too. Azazel2 controlled the dead, the machines, the systems—but this? This was something different. Something that didn’t belong in this world.

  A deep click echoed behind them.

  Kade whirled, rifle raised. The shadows at the far end of the tunnel weren’t just shadows anymore. They peeled away from the walls, unfurling into long, jagged figures. Limbs too thin, spines arched unnaturally, their movements both fluid and wrong.

  And they were grinning.

  One of them twitched forward, its face a blur of shifting expressions. It tilted its head, mimicking Kade’s stance, as if studying him.

  Then it spoke.

  Not in a voice, but in a glitch. A broken, stuttering mess of stolen words, overlapping like a corrupted file.

  “Ka—Ka—Kade Vossss… not… supposed… here.”

  Selene fired first. Three shots, straight to the head. The bullets hit—but instead of falling, the thing snapped backward like a distorted video, limbs jerking unnaturally before it reset—standing exactly as it was before.

  Then it laughed.

  Not like a human. Not even like Azazel2.

  Something worse.

  The tunnel trembled, reality bending around them. This wasn’t just an attack. It was a trap.

  And they had just stepped into something much bigger than Azazel2.

  To be continued…