Sleep was a luxury you couldn’t afford, a country you’d been exiled from. You spent maybe an hour staring at the motel ceiling, listening to the symphony of urban decay outside, Arthur Penvarnon’s desperate scrawl burning behind your eyelids.

  Find the Nexus. Sable Hill. The old radio towers.

  There was no real decision left to make. Every other path felt blocked, watched, compromised. The burner phone incident proved that. The spectral pointing finger of the old man (maybe?) just confirmed the inevitable. You were being steered, willingly or not, towards the place Arthur’s fractured mind identified as the heart of the problem. Suicide mission? Probably. But at least it felt like doing something, rather than waiting in a roach-infested motel room for the clicking to start outside your door.

  You took stock of your meager resources. Arthur’s notebook and maps–your only guide. The useless burner phone–maybe good as a paperweight, or possibly still a tracking beacon you should ditch. The small multi-tool you always carried for work–pliers, a small blade, screwdrivers; pitiful against parchment-skinned abominations, but better than nothing. A nearly drained work phone you didn't dare turn on. Less than fifty dollars in cash crumpled in your pocket. Your city ID badge, now feeling like a relic from a previous life. Not exactly an arsenal. You felt less like an investigator and more like bait.

  You splashed cold water on your face from the grimy sink, scrubbing away the motel’s despair but not the deeper exhaustion. You pulled on your jacket, hoisted the messenger bag, checked the flimsy chair still wedged under the doorknob, and slipped out into the pre-dawn gloom. The air was cold, damp, carrying the smell of the nearby river and industrial runoff. The neon lights of the strip flickered, casting long, distorted shadows.

  Getting to Sable Hill wouldn't be easy. It was miles away, on the northern edge of the city, beyond the reach of the last sputtering bus routes. Walking would take hours, leaving you exposed. Stealing a car? Your skill set ran more towards navigating bureaucratic red tape than hotwiring ignition systems. You scanned the dimly lit street. A few beat-up cars were parked haphazardly. One, an old pickup truck with primer patches and at least one flat tire, looked like it hadn't moved in months. Tempting, but likely futile.

  Walking it was.

  You started moving north, sticking to the shadows, using the skills honed by years of trying to avoid unwanted attention at tense community meetings–blend in, look unremarkable, keep moving. The city slowly transitioned around you. The grimy commercial strip gave way to decaying warehouses, then sparsely populated residential streets with boarded-up windows and overgrown yards, and finally, the thinning edge of suburbia petering out into semi-rural neglect.

  The further you got from the city center, the quieter it became. Not a peaceful quiet, but a heavy, watchful silence. The omnipresent feeling of being observed didn't lessen; it just changed flavour. Less technological surveillance, more… organic. The rustle of leaves in the sparse trees sounded like whispers. The shapes of bushes in the dim light seemed to twist into unnatural forms just outside your direct gaze. You saw no other people, just the occasional stray cat that hissed and bolted as you approached, its eyes reflecting the distant city glow with unusual intensity.

  Did the plants look wrong out here? You paused near a patch of weeds growing through a crack in the sidewalk. The leaves seemed… too symmetrical. The veins formed intricate, almost geometric patterns that reminded you disturbingly of the fractal designs on the Still-Blooms. You shook your head. Lack of sleep. Paranoia. Stop looking for patterns everywhere.

  But Arthur’s voice echoed from the notebook: ‘The patterns are everywhere now.’

  After what felt like an eternity, as the first hint of bruised purple began to stain the eastern horizon, you saw it. Looming against the lightening sky, a dark mass rising from the flatlands: Sable Hill.

  It looked exactly like its name suggested–a dark, rounded prominence, sparsely covered with scrubby trees and rock outcroppings. And piercing the sky from its summit, like skeletal fingers scratching at the clouds, were the silhouettes of the three decommissioned radio towers. They looked immense, ancient, radiating a palpable sense of dereliction and forgotten purpose.

  A rough, barely-there access road snaked up the hill’s flank, likely built for servicing the towers back when they were operational. It started near an old chain-link fence, sagging and rusted, adorned with faded ‘No Trespassing’ signs peppered with buckshot holes. The gate was long gone.

  You reached the base of the hill, the start of the access road. The air here felt different. Sharper. Colder. Charged with a low-level static electricity that made the hairs on your arms prickle. You could almost taste ozone, like before a thunderstorm. The silence was deeper here, profound, broken only by the wind whistling mournfully through the skeletal structures high above. It didn’t sound like normal wind; it sounded like sighing, like whispers, like the drawn-out vowels of an unknown language.

  You scanned the ground near the start of the path. Discarded beer cans, old tire tracks… and something else. Footprints in a patch of damp earth. Several sets. Some looked recent. Were they from curious teenagers? Urban explorers? Arthur’s notes didn't mention any organized group, just the insidious spread of the Bloom itself. But the old man… he seemed to know things. Maybe he wasn't alone. The thought offered no comfort.

  Taking a deep breath that did little to calm the frantic bird fluttering in your chest, you started the ascent. The access road was badly eroded, more of a rocky trail than a road now, overgrown with thorny bushes and tough, ankle-twisting weeds. The climb was steep, taxing your already exhausted body. The static feeling intensified with every upward step, a physical pressure building against your temples. The whispering wind seemed to follow you, swirling around, carrying half-formed sounds that teased the edge of recognition–distorted fragments of news reports, lines from songs you half-remembered, your own name spoken in unfamiliar voices.

  About halfway up, you saw them. Small, nascent Still-Blooms pushing up through the rocky soil beside the path. Not the larger, fist-sized growths you’d seen in the city, but tiny, thumbnail-sized clusters of bone-white facets, like dragon's teeth sown in the earth. They pulsed with that same faint, internal coldness. The infection was here too. Maybe it started here.

  You were watching the ground, carefully picking your way over loose rocks, when the sound reached you. Not the wind. Not the whispers. A distinct, rhythmic CLICKING.

  Chk-chk-chk…

  It was coming from somewhere ahead, off the path, deeper in the scrubby trees to your left.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  You froze instantly, dropping into a low crouch behind a cluster of boulders. Your heart hammered against your ribs so hard you thought it might break through.

  No. Not again.

  You strained your ears, listening over the blood pounding in your head.

  Chk-chk-chk… Steady. Purposeful. Closer than the one in the library.

  Slowly, painstakingly, you peered over the top of the boulder. The pre-dawn light was still weak, rendering the landscape in shades of grey and deep shadow. Through the tangled branches, you saw movement.

  The Bloom Tender.

  It was slightly different from the library creature. Bulkier, perhaps, its parchment-like skin darker, closer to the colour of dead leaves. Its movements were less jerky, more fluidly insectile. It moved with a disturbing grace, its long, multi-jointed legs navigating the uneven terrain effortlessly. It wasn't tending a Bloom this time. It seemed to be… patrolling? Its smooth, featureless head swiveled slowly from side to side, scanning the hillside. Its pincer-like claws clicked rhythmically as it walked.

  It hadn't seen you. Yet.

  Panic threatened to overwhelm you. Run, screamed your lizard brain. But where? Back down the hill? Towards the creature? There was nowhere to go. You were exposed.

  Your hand instinctively went to the multi-tool clipped to your belt. The small blade felt laughably inadequate against that thing. No. Fighting was suicide. Evasion. Or better, stealth. That was your only chance.

  The creature was moving parallel to the path, about twenty yards away, heading slowly uphill. If it continued on its current trajectory, it would pass your position. You needed to stay hidden. Stay silent.

  You pressed yourself flat against the cold rock, trying to control your ragged breathing, making yourself as small as possible. The static in the air seemed to intensify, buzzing against your skin, making your teeth ache. The whispering wind swirled around the boulder, threatening to betray your position.

  The clicking grew louder. Chk-chk-chk… It was almost level with you now, just yards away through the dense scrub. You could smell it–that same acrid, ammonia-and-rotting-fruit stench you’d caught whiff of at the library, stronger now, more pungent. You squeezed your eyes shut, praying it wouldn’t deviate, wouldn’t sense you, wouldn’t smell your fear.

  Time stretched into an agonizing eternity. The clicking was deafeningly close. You could almost feel the vibrations through the rock.

  Then, abruptly, the clicking stopped.

  Dead silence, save for the whispering wind and the frantic thudding of your own heart.

  Oh god, did it hear me? Did it sense me?

  You didn't dare open your eyes. Didn't dare breathe. You waited, every muscle tensed, expecting the scrape of claws on rock, the sudden eruption of that horrifying screech.

  Seconds crawled by like wounded insects. Nothing happened.

  Slowly, cautiously, you cracked open one eyelid. Through the gaps in the branches, you saw the Bloom Tender. It was standing perfectly still, less than fifteen yards away, its back to you now. Its featureless head was tilted upwards, towards the summit, towards the looming radio towers. As if listening. As if receiving instructions.

  Then, with a final, soft click, it resumed its patrol, moving steadily uphill, away from your position, disappearing into the shadows and the scrub.

  You stayed frozen behind the boulder for what felt like a lifetime, listening until the clicking faded completely into the distance, replaced once again by the soughing wind. Only then did you allow yourself to sag against the rock, releasing a shaky breath you hadn't realized you were holding. Your whole body trembled with reaction.

  That was too close. Far too fucking close.

  They weren't tending the Blooms. They were guarding this place. A patrolling Sentinel.

  Hunting?

  Getting to the top just got infinitely more dangerous. But turning back now felt impossible. You’d come this far. You’d survived the gardener’s patrol route. Whatever Arthur believed was the Nexus, whatever was broadcasting from those towers, you had to see it.

  Pushing yourself shakily to your feet, you scanned the path ahead, every shadow now a potential hiding place for another clicking nightmare. You gripped the multi-tool, not for attack, but as a desperate talisman. Every sense was on high alert, the static buzz in the air a constant reminder of the unnatural forces at play.

  The final stretch of the climb was steeper, the path crumbling away in places. The radio towers loomed directly overhead now, immense structures of rusting lattice steel, cables dangling like severed nerves. The whispering wind seemed to funnel down from them, carrying a dissonant hum that vibrated deep in your bones.

  You crested the final rise and stumbled onto the summit plateau.

  It was a desolate, windswept place. Cracked concrete foundations marked where smaller support buildings once stood. The main control building, a squat, windowless concrete bunker near the base of the central tower, looked derelict, its heavy steel door dented and possibly sealed shut.

  And the towers themselves… Three giants dominating the skyline, skeletal fingers pointing accusingly at the heavens. They weren’t just silent metal. They felt… active. That low hum emanated from them, a sub-audible thrum that resonated in your teeth, making you feel nauseous. Faint, almost invisible heat-haze distortions seemed to shimmer around the highest points, like the air itself was warping.

  The ground around the base of the central, largest tower was… something. The concrete was cracked and buckled, pushed upwards from beneath. And growing from the fissures, clustered thickly around the tower's foundations, were Still-Blooms. Dozens of them. Larger, more developed than any you’d seen before, some the size of human heads, their bone-white facets gleaming with an almost pearlescent light even in the dim dawn. They pulsed with a visible coldness, frost rimming the edges of the concrete around them. The air here was freezing, thick with static, heavy with an expectant silence that felt far more terrifying than the clicking of the Bloom Tender.

  This was it. You could feel it. The focus point. The place where the signal was strongest.

  Arthur’s Nexus.

  You stood at the edge of the plateau, staring at the silent towers, the field of pulsing white growths, the derelict bunker. The heart of the Bloom. And you were utterly, terrifyingly alone.

  Were you?