Darkness Beyond The Ice 1 (STORY)

— — The Wage Slave’s Manifesto -Volume 1 << >> Chapter 2

### **The Fractured Horizon**

Ethan Cole’s boots crunch against ice that glows faintly blue, as if lit from within. Behind him, the jagged teeth of the **Ice Wall** loom,

their peaks lost in a swirling aurora. Ahead: **Terra Infinita**, a flat expanse stretching into a horizon that bends downward like a bowl’s edge, where the sky melts into a shimmering silver veil. The air hums with a frequency that makes teeth ache.

Jax, the last of Ethan’s rebels, staggers to his side. “The compass… it’s gone,” he mutters, staring at the rusted relic dissolving into ash in his palm. The needle had led them here — to a world their Corporate overlords never dared imagine.

— -

### **The First Breath of Freedom**

For the first time in years, Ethan’s **DebtTracker** is silent. No alarms, no threats — just dead static. His lungs fill with air that tastes of iron and ozone. But freedom is fleeting.

A low growl ripples across the tundra. **Custodian drones**, sleek and insectoid,

skitter over the ice. These are not the Enforcers of New Corinth. These are older, their carapaces etched with the **serpent-and-compass** — a symbol Ethan now knows marks the Custodians’ dominion.

“Run!” Jax hisses.

They sprint toward a forest of obsidian monoliths, their surfaces carved with half-familiar constellations. The drones fire beams of golden light that sear the ice into glass. Ethan’s mind flashes to the vision of **Alden Voss** on New Eden, his body unraveling into Custodian tendrils. *They’re not just chasing us — they’re herding us.*

— -

### **The Skythians**

In the shadow of the monoliths, salvation arrives on six legs.

The **Skythians** descend like ghosts — pale riders astride shaggy, six-legged beasts with eyes like molten copper. Their leader, **Kara of the Thousand Years**, dismounts. Her face is a map of wrinkles, her hair braided with shards of Custodian metal. She presses a hand to Ethan’s chest, where his Corporate barcode once pulsed.

“Chainbreaker,” she rasps, her voice echoing as if spoken through water. “The mark is upon you. The Custodians fear what lies beyond the **Veil**.” She gestures to the shimmering horizon.

Ethan bristles. “What’s beyond it?”

Kara’s milky eyes narrow. “The end of their lie.”

— -

### **The Custodian’s Gift**

The Skythians offer shelter in tents of stitched beast hides, lit by bioluminescent fungi.

Around a fire of blackened driftwood, Kara recounts fragments of history:

- The Skythians are exiles from the **First Earth**, ancestors who rejected the Custodians’ lifespan pact.

- Their longevity comes not from science, but from drinking the blood of **“sky whales”** — leviathans that swim the auroras, invisible to Corporate sensors.

- The Veil is a barrier, but also a *bridge*. “To cross it, you must shed your **Known Earth skin**,” Kara warns.

As she speaks, Ethan notices the Skythians’ children — their eyes aged, their laughter hollow. *They’ve lived centuries, but at what cost?*

— -

### **The Vision in the Ice**

That night, Ethan dreams of **Alden Voss**. New Eden’s paradise is a gilded nightmare.

Alden kneels in a garden of screaming flowers, his body fused with Custodian machinery. Robed figures — their faces shifting between human and *something else* — pour liquid starlight into his mouth.

*“You think you’ve escaped, Cole?”* Alden’s voice is a chorus. *“Terra Infinita is just another farm. The Veil? A slaughterhouse gate.”*

Ethan wakes to a Skythian child drawing the serpent-and-compass in the frost. “They’re coming,” the girl whispers. “For you.”

— -

### **The Drone’s Warning**

At dawn, a crippled Custodian drone crashes into camp.

Its faceless head twitches, spewing black oil and a hologram of the **Custodian sigil**. A mechanized voice grates:

*“Laborer Cole. CCS: Null. You have breached Cycle 217’s parameters. Return to the Known Lands, or face THE **Yuga Protocol**.”*

Kara drives her blade into the drone’s core. “The Yuga-Sleepers,” she mutters. “Even the Custodians fear to wake them.”

— -

### **The Veil…**

Ethan stands at the Veil’s edge. The silver shimmer parts like liquid, revealing glimpses of **cities built on clouds** and **forests of crystalline trees**.

Jax grips his arm. “This is madness.”

“Madness got us here,” Ethan says, stepping forward.

The Veil consumes them.

When the light fades, they stand on a plain of iridescent grass beneath a sky choked with dying stars. In the distance: a mountain range shaped like a **serpent’s skeleton**, its ribs curving into a gateway.

Kara’s voice echoes behind them, though she’s gone: *“Beware the **Third Earth’s** shadow. It hungers.”*

— -

**Next Chapter Preview:** The City of Echoed Lives**

Ethan and Jax discover **Nammu**, a floating city of ….

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* Next Chapter in tuesday 11/3 or here.

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* This story originally posted on medium: here