CHAPTER 65: THE ANNOUNCEMENT

"Approach window opens in thirty minutes".

"Mark your cohorts. Move on the horn. Clear lanes will be maintained. If you can hear us, we can see you."

The loudspeaker clicked off.

Travis broke the silence first. "Well," he said, voice dry as cracked leather. "That’s encouraging".

"It starts in thirty minute," he chuckled humorlessly. "That’s twenty minutes to run through hell. No pressure at all".

Jonas pushed himself upright. "We go now," his fists clenched, thick veins corded under his skin. "I’m not crouching in this dirty any longer".

Kara shook her head, spear balanced across her thighs. "We’re not ready. We’ve marched, fought, and bled. Run out there half-dead and we won’t even make a hundred meters".

Jonas glared. "And if waiting costs us the chance?"

Mira’s quiet voice threaded between them. "Haste kills more than hesitation".

Her hair shifted in faint currents only she felt. "The road is a graveyard. If we trip, if we stumble, if exhaustion catches, monsters won’t care that the wall’s clearing lanes. They’ll eat us where we fall".

"We have to absolutely follow instructions if we want to survive".

Kara’s chin dipped in agreement. After what they just witnessed through the night and since coming here, they all knew that Mira was right.

Jonas cursed under his breath.

The quarantine zone was right in front of them. Safety had never been as close, and yet, it had also never felt as far.

Reid sat silent the longest. His rifle lay across his knees, his hands calm on the stock. When he finally spoke, it was with the steadiness that cut through arguments like a knife through cloth.

"They said thirty minutes, "he said. "It’s not a long time, we’ve waited so long, what’s a further wait of thirty minutes".

"We wait for the next window," he looked into the horizon, his face unreadable. "We need precision, not panic".

Ethan barely heard them.

His eyes were fixed on the Kill Road. The Wheel pulsed faintly behind his vision, not spinning, not drawing, just watching... and waiting.

The road stretched like a scar; cracked asphalt, burned husks of cars, ribs of collapsed barriers jutting like bones. It led straight to the wall, straight through the kill zone where turrets and Awakened cut swaths through the horde.

He traced the lanes with his gaze, imagining the timing. ’Twenty minutes of breathing room, no more’.

’Enough to run. Enough to fight only what slipped through’.

His chest tightened.

’We’ve survived the Ashroad, survived Pike, survived the Behemoth. But this? This is the gauntlet designed to break the desperate’.

And in his mind, Pike’s laughter echoed. ’You’ll all turn into me... killers, tyrants. Strength is the only rule’.

Ethan clenched his jaw. No, not Pike’s way, not yet.

This wasn’t about drops. This was not about survival of one at the expense of many. No matter how dangerous crossing the Kill Road was going to get, Ethan was determined to get to the other side with his full group intact.

He was ready to sweat for it, he was ready to bleed for it.

And heck, sometime ago he would have never thought like this, but now, he was ready to die for it if that was required to bring the whole group across.

Like he thought, this was not about survival of one at the expense of many. It was about all of them getting inside together.

He subtly threw a glance at the others; Travis who was trying to distract himself from his gnawing anxiety, Jonas who seemed ready to take on the world, Kara’s quiet resolve, Holt’s grim resolve, and Reid’s calmness that told tales of desperate moments just like this that he had survived.

Ethan exhaled.

He flexed his hand, and the Exo-Spike Gauntlet flickered into existence, jagged spines glowing faintly.

Then he dismissed it again. He didn’t need its weight now; he needed clarity.

The argument circled like vultures still. Jonas kept on growling about wasting time. Having died once already, and now with the quarantine zone so close, Jonas’s anxiety was clearly getting to him though he would never admit it.

Kara was adamant, refusing to gamble exhaustion, while Travis offered his own share of sarcasm in place of compromise.

Ethan’s voice cut across them, steady and low.

"We don’t run blind".

As soon as he spoke, silence reigned as all eyes turned towards him.

It was only now that they realized that he was the only one who didn’t take part in the conversation while they argued. They listened.

Ethan maintained eye contact with all of them without flinching. "We take the next window," he said without any compromise in his voice. "We’re rested, we’re ready, we just have to be mentally prepared for it".

He looked across into the Kill Road. "We have only one chance," he said solemnly. "We have to use it right".

The Wheel pulsed once, as if affirming him.

Reid gave a short nod. "Agreed".

Kara exhaled sharply, but accepted with a roll of her shoulders. Jonas muttered curses but he didn’t push harder after Ethan said his piece.

Mira closed her eyes, calm rippling through her like wind over still water. Having dealt with most of her insecurities, though partially, it was progress and her mind was clearer than ever to face the challenge in front of them.

Travis? He saluted lazily with two fingers. "Fine," he said. "But if I get eaten, I’m haunting all of you".

No one smiled.

They moved like a unit, each settling into the ritual of survival.

Kara sharpened her spear until sparks spit from the edge. Jonas tested his fists against stone, ignoring the winces as pain rippled through his ribs.

Holt drew arcs in the dirt, mapping lanes, murmuring distances like equations. Reid cleaned his rifle with hands too steady for the weight they carried.

Mira sat cross-legged, palms open, drawing small circles of wind to keep her focus. Travis wrapped his kit tighter, muttering about apocalypse first aid stations and cursing the lack of anesthesia.

Ethan double-checked his pack, counted Rift shards, then stood apart and summoned his gauntlet again.

The spikes glimmered, jagged and lethal.

With his other hand, he felt the whisper of Shadowstep, that tug at the edge of reality promising a slip into silence. Both answered him; both were ready.

The Wheel pulsed again, slow and heavy.

The fortress exhaled fire once more. Turrets raked the Kill Road in overlapping curtains of death. Awakened atop the walls flung lightning, fire, gales, and Rift energy.

Monsters screamed, bodies blackened, and ash gusted skyward.

Then, the loudspeakers flared to life again.

"Survivors, approach window is fifteen minutes".

"Make your run, make it count".

The wall thundered with gunfire. The horde shrieked and broke.

Ethan rose from the scrub. His legs trembled, not from weakness, but from the sheer gravity of the choice. He looked at the others... bloodied, scarred, stubborn, but alive.

"We make ours count," he said.

No one argued.

They stepped onto the Kill Road, and the world roared to meet them.