A Snowy Grave

Time Keeper Calys adjusted her scarf against the biting wind, snow crunching underfoot as she approached the crumbling stone workshop hidden in the shadow of the wintery mountains. A faint hum of dormant tech resonated from within, the kind she’d dismantled a hundred times before. This one belonged to the Coalition.

Inside, frost crept over the walls like a silent thief. The workbenches were littered with half-finished devices, their purposes unknown but unnervingly sinister. The hum deepened as she approached a central console. Activating it, she found a single log file.

"Subject unstable. Facility compromised. Disposed of test results. Proceed to evacuation phase."

Her stomach twisted. “Disposed of?” she muttered. The answer came in the form of deep gouges on the floor—claw marks leading to a sealed chamber.

Against her better judgment, she pried it open. Inside lay a cavernous void, a makeshift pit carved into the mountain rock. Darkened, but alive with faint growls that sent ice down her spine. The Coalition hadn’t abandoned this place out of failure. They’d left behind something.

A shadow moved. Her pulse raced.

The creature lunged—a hulking mass of jagged frost and sinew. Calys dove, pulling a time anchor from her pack. The device activated, slowing everything but her. She scrambled for the exit, setting the workshop to self-destruct as the beast thrashed against the frozen seconds binding it.

Snow and ash erupted behind her as she stumbled into the open air. The mountain swallowed the workshop and its horrors whole. Calys didn’t look back.

The Coalition's ambitions had grown darker than she’d feared. And she knew she’d only seen the edge of it.

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