Livestock kicked at their stalls. The adults tried to rationalize it. Maybe a transformer had blown. Maybe some machine deep in the forest had malfunctioned. But deep down, every single one of them knew better. The sound was the same one recorded on the missing agents radio. The same one the children had hummed with eerie precision.
And now the entire town could hear it. The sheriff grabbed his keys and radio, which of course was dead, and raced toward the ridge with two deputies. They drove in silence, headlights cutting through the darkness, the hum growing louder with every passing second. When they reached the edge of the forest, the hum abruptly stopped, not faded, stop, as if someone had flipped a switch.
The silence that followed was even more unsettling than the sound. The deputies exchanged worried glances, but the sheriff stepped out of the vehicle, determined to at least reach the foot of the caves. He didn’t get far. A blinding flash erupted from deep within the ridge. It wasn’t lightning. There were no clouds. It wasn’t a flare. There was no smoke.
It was a pure white light that poured from the trees in a perfect wave, illuminating every branch, every stone, every shadow. It was brighter than anything the sheriff had ever seen. Brighter than headlights, brighter than the sun, brighter than the flash at the facility. The forest lit up as if someone had pressed paws on reality itself, freezing the world in a single impossible burst.
The sheriff shielded his eyes, but through the glare, he saw something. Three small silhouettes standing at the treeine. Children
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