Chapter 4 - Whispers in the BlizzardA howling blizzard swept down from the mountains, coating the burning ruins of Ethan’s cabin in a blanket of white.
Ethan trudged through knee-deep snow, carrying a heavy burlap sack containing four newborn wolf pups across his chest. Beside him, leaning heavily against his hip, walked the weakened mother. Every step was an agony of cold and exhaustion, but stopping meant instant death.
They made it to an abandoned ranger watchtower built high up on the granite cliffs of Dead Man’s Ridge—a place so remote even the mercenaries’ drones would struggle to navigate the swirling storm.
Once inside the frozen wooden tower, Ethan built a small, smokeless fire using dry pine bark. He wrapped the pups in wool sweaters and laid them next to their mother, who immediately began licking them, her breathing slow and shallow.
Ethan pulled out the encrypted hard drive he had retrieved from the blanket.
He connected it to his ruggedized, battery-powered park service laptop. The screen flickered to life, casting a blue glow over his weathered face. A password prompt popped up on the screen:
ENTER ACCESS KEY:
Ethan stared at the cursor. What would Ava use? Dates? Names?
He looked at the silver locket. On the back, hidden under decades of dirt, was a faint engraving of coordinates and a date: 11.04.19—the day his family supposedly died.
He typed the numbers in.
The screen flashed green. ACCESS GRANTED.
Files flooded the monitor. Video logs, medical reports, and audio files. Ethan clicked on the top video file.
The video loaded, grainy and dark. A man in a pristine white lab coat stood in a subterranean room. But it wasn't a stranger.
Ethan’s heart stopped. The man on the screen was Sheriff Thomas Hayes—Ethan’s closest friend, the man who had held Ethan’s shoulder at his family’s empty funeral three years ago.
"Subject 7 is showing remarkable intelligence," Hayes’s voice echoed through the laptop speakers. "The genetic alterations are complete. But Ava Vance is refusing to cooperate. She knows we staged the fire. If her father ever finds out that Project Cerberus is operating beneath the lake, he will burn this mountain to the ground..."
Ethan’s breath hitched. His hands flew to the keyboard, opening the next file.
It was a live feed camera. Dated today.
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The camera showed a sterile, glass-walled cell deep underground. Inside the cell, sitting on a narrow cot, was a teenage girl with long, dark hair, staring directly into the camera lens.
Ava was alive.
