[Ava's POV]
The abandoned forestry station was a monument to entropy, a skeleton of warped timber and corroded metal clinging to a wind-lashed ridge like a bone caught in a skeletal hand.
It was a non-place, a void in the territorial map, deliberately chosen for its perfect, pathetic neutrality. The single white banner, devoid of crest or sigil, hung from a rusted nail on the porch, snapping in the gelid wind with a sound like a failing heartbeat. It was a promise written in the language of legal loopholes and cold pragmatism.
For a quarter-mile radius, the world had been unnaturally silenced. The predatory quiet was a presence itself, a vacuum that felt heavier than noise.
Into this sterile bubble they advanced on foot, having abandoned their vehicles in the tree line. Lucien, Jaxon
