The Veil of the North

The Veil of the North

Chapter 1: Shadows in the Sky

The sky was empty — except for a single flickering red light.

Ethan Carr squinted through his kitchen window, hands paused over the greasy skillet. Outside, the Nevada desert sprawled for miles, barren and unrelenting, yet something hovered over the distant ridges near the nuclear power plant.

The flickering light blinked once, twice, and then... vanished.

Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. He waited. His gut told him it would return. It always did.

For weeks now, these strange apparitions had appeared after dark — silent, hovering, breaking every rule of physics he’d studied as an engineer. They weren’t helicopters or planes; no FAA strobes. When he tried shining his flashlight at one, it swallowed the beam like a black hole.

Tonight, though, they were closer. That didn’t feel right.

“Not tonight,” Ethan muttered, setting the skillet down. He grabbed his binoculars from the counter and stepped out onto the cracked porch. The chill in the air seemed unnatural for this time of year, like the world itself was holding its breath.

Through the lenses, he scanned the skyline, tracing the jagged horizon. The light reappeared, but now there were two. Then three. All of them moved together in perfect, coordinated silence — a precision no human pilot could ever achieve.

“What the hell are you?” he whispered.

The lights moved, and he realized they were coming closer.

Ethan’s hands trembled. In all his years working on military contracts — stealth bombers, radar-invisible tech — he had never seen anything like this. These weren’t military drones. They couldn’t be. They didn’t show up on radar, didn’t emit sound, and vanished at will.

A single word broke through his logical mind: “Unnatural.”

He stumbled back inside, locking the door, though he knew that was useless. His heart hammered as he grabbed his old shortwave radio. Maybe someone else had seen them. Maybe tonight he wouldn’t be alone.

The radio crackled to life with static. He turned the dial. At first, nothing but white noise. Then, faintly, a voice broke through. Distorted, mechanical.

“...Operation North Station... confirmation at South coordinates... nuclear assets... in position...”

Ethan froze, hands clenching the radio tighter.

“North Station? South coordinates?” he muttered. The words made no sense, but something inside him knew they were important.

A sudden, deafening hum filled the house, vibrating the walls. Ethan dropped the radio. Outside, through the window, he saw the lights.

They were hovering right above him now, close enough that his porch lights flickered erratically. He ran to the back door, fumbling for the handle, when the hum cut off abruptly, plunging the house into silence.

And then came a voice. Not through the radio. Not from outside.

It came from inside his own mind.

“We see you, Ethan.”

Chapter 2: Whispers in the Dark

Ethan bolted upright in his bed, drenched in sweat. He hadn’t slept in three nights. Every time he closed his eyes, the hum came back. The lights came back. And that voice... it echoed endlessly.

“We see you.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was worse. It was a statement of fact.

The next morning, the news blared on his old television. Footage showed similar “drone-like sightings” over nuclear power plants in New Jersey, Colorado, and Montana. The government’s mouthpiece, Admiral Kirby, addressed the nation.

“These are civilian drones. Nothing illegal. Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Ethan barked a humorless laugh. “Liar.”

His phone buzzed. It was his friend John Renner, a man Ethan trusted. Renner was a former pilot turned whistleblower who still had connections deep in the military.

“You seeing this?” Renner’s voice was low, urgent.

“I’m not just seeing it, John. They’re here. They’re close.”

“They’re not drones, Ethan. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“What are they then?”

There was silence on the other end. Finally, Renner spoke.

“You ever hear of the North Pole operations? The Nazi scientists? Paperclip?”

Ethan’s blood ran cold. “Project Paperclip? That was seventy years ago.”

“Some things don’t die, Ethan. Not when they’re this advanced.”

Ethan’s hands trembled as Renner whispered, “It’s tech beyond us. Breakaway civilization stuff. Hidden under the poles. They've been watching the nukes. Watching us. And the people at the top... the presidents, the corporations, they serve them.”

“Serve who?”

“Them, Ethan. The hybrids. The ones who’ve been here since the Flood. The fallen.”

Ethan hung up, bile rising in his throat. It couldn’t be true. But the lights outside his window said otherwise.

Chapter 3: The Processing Facility

Days passed. Then weeks. The sightings escalated. Panic spread through the world like wildfire. People started whispering about the “beast system” — the drones, the technology, the leaders rising to power overnight with impossible authority.

“Who can stand against them?” people murmured. “Who can fight the beast?”

Ethan didn’t run when the military came to his door. By then, he’d seen too much.

The FEMA facility they took him to wasn’t a shelter. It was something else entirely. Thousands of people stood in line, heads bowed, hands bound. Overhead, the drones hovered like silent sentinels.

Inside, a cold voice echoed through the loudspeakers: “Renounce your faith. Accept the mark. Serve the system.”

Ethan was dragged to a chamber where rows of guillotines gleamed under harsh fluorescent lights. A soldier stood over him, blank-faced, as if his humanity had been stripped away.

“You could have had power,” the soldier said. “But you chose death.”

Ethan’s voice was hoarse, but firm. “I choose life. Eternal life. Through Jesus Christ.”

The soldier’s expression faltered, as if something human flickered in his eyes. Then the blade fell.

And Ethan knew no more.

Epilogue

In the days that followed, the world marveled at the system. The drones multiplied, the skies filled with them. People accepted the mark eagerly, drawn in by the promise of peace, security, and power.

The news never mentioned Ethan Carr. He was labeled as “deceased,” a footnote in a world that worshipped the beast.

But somewhere, deep beneath the North Pole, in a base hidden from the world, the fallen smiled.

Their time had come.

“Who is like the beast? Who can make war against it?”