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The police car bumped along the dark, rugged mountain road.
Ahead, the silhouette of a suspension bridge loomed in the fog like the sun-dried ribs of a giant beast, spanning a pitch-black, bottomless canyon.
"It's just up ahead."
Manuel's voice was raspy. He stepped on the brakes, and the old police car let out a long groan, finally coming to a stop dozens of meters from the bridgehead.
"Once you cross that bridge, you'll be at the village."
Noah didn't get out of the car immediately. His gaze pierced through the windshield, carefully examining the suspension bridge.
The main structure of the bridge consisted of thick steel cables, but the wooden planks laid upon them had turned a deep black from years of exposure to wind and rain, showing signs of rot and decay in many places.
The damp fog clung to the surface, reflecting the pale light of the car's headlights and making the holes and cracks look even more terrifying.
"Let's park the car here," Noah said.
Leon glanced at the bridge, which looked like it could fall apart at any moment, and immediately understood Noah's point.
"What's wrong?"
Manuel turned around from the driver's seat, a hint of confusion on his face.
"The bridge looks a bit old, but it's fine to drive across. It can handle the weight of a single police car."
His tone carried the stubborn confidence of a local on his own turf.
"I think it's better to walk over."
Noah unbuckled his seatbelt, withdrew his gaze from the bridge, and looked at Manuel.
"If it really collapses while we're in the car, none of us will escape."
The frivolous smile on Ricardo's face vanished.
He looked at the suspension bridge swaying slightly in the night wind, and his Adam's apple bobbed involuntarily.
Leon added, "Besides, the car is too loud. In a canyon like this, the engine noise travels far. We don't want to wake everyone up for a welcome party before we even enter the village."
Manuel fell silent.
He looked at Noah, then at Leon. The professional coolness on their faces completely shattered his meager confidence.
They were right.
Both from a safety perspective and a tactical one.
"Fine."
He deflated like a punctured ball, his entire posture slumping.
He started the car again and clumsily turned around on the narrow mountain road.
"Well then, goodbye, my cautious friends."
There was a hint of self-deprecation in his voice, along with a touch of relief.
Having delivered these two harbingers of death here, his task was complete.
The rest was up to them.
After the police car turned around, it didn't drive away immediately.
Ricardo leaned out of the window and shouted to the two who had already stepped out: "Hey! Good luck! I hope that pretty girl you're looking for hasn't been turned into sausage by the villagers yet!"
He finished with an exaggerated laugh, seemingly using it to mask his own inner unease.
Noah and Leon ignored his 'blessing'.
The crimson taillights flickered a few times in the thick fog and quickly vanished.
The roar of the engine also receded rapidly, finally replaced by the sound of the wind and the hollow echoes of the canyon.
The surroundings became completely silent.
Only the groaning 'creak' of the suspension bridge in the wind remained.
"That guy's mouth stinks worse than a sewer."
Leon took a magazine from his tactical vest, weighed it in his hand, and slotted it back in with a crisp click.
"At least he reminded us that the local customs here might not be very friendly."
Noah said as he unzipped his tactical backpack.
The two said no more and began their final preparations.
Leon checked his 'Matilda' pistol, skillfully racking the slide and feeling the smooth operation of the mechanism.
Then, he confirmed the position of the tactical knife on his left shoulder, as well as several flashbangs and fragmentation grenades hanging on his vest.
Noah held the silver desert eagle in his hand. The cold metallic touch allowed his heart, which had been somewhat restless from being away from his family, to find a solid anchor once more.
In his mind, the faces of Claire, Sherry, and Antirui flashed by.
That warmth was the only light guiding him through this endless darkness, and the bottom line he had to protect at all costs.
He forced those thoughts down and focused all his attention on the task at hand.
He checked that every magazine was fully loaded, confirmed the sharpness of his tactical knife, and took a small night-vision device from his backpack to hang around his neck.
Then he pulled out an energy bar, tore open the wrapper, and handed it to Leon.
"Refuel. We might not have time to eat later."
Leon took it and stuffed it into his mouth in a few bites.
Preparations complete.
The two looked at each other and nodded simultaneously.
One after the other, they stepped onto the suspension bridge leading into the unknown.
The wooden planks beneath their feet immediately let out an overburdened groan.
Some planks were rotten, feeling soft underfoot as if they would snap at any moment.
The bitter mountain wind howled up from the depths of the canyon, making the entire bridge sway left and right with alarming intensity.
Noah walked in front, keeping his center of gravity low. Every step was taken with extreme caution, choosing planks that looked relatively sturdy.
The air was thick with the smell of damp, rotting wood, mixed with a faint scent of something burnt.
Leon followed a few meters behind him, his hand resting on the pistol at his waist as he warily observed the other end of the bridge.
The fog there was even thicker, like a grayish-white cotton wall completely hiding the village.
Only some black silhouettes of buildings, resembling tombstones, could be vaguely seen.
The suspension bridge was long, at least a hundred meters.
They were like walking on a tightrope to Hell, with a vast abyss below and endless darkness and mist all around... On the other side.
In the returning police car, the atmosphere was even more oppressive than before.
Ricardo wasn't joking anymore, and Manuel said nothing, his eyes fixed forward.
He couldn't stop thinking about that feeling of being watched when he had relieved himself in the woods earlier.
It wasn't an illusion.
It was a cold, emotionless gaze, like a predator locking onto its prey.
Now, he just wanted to leave this godforsaken place as quickly as possible, go back to the town bar, and burn tonight's memories away with a glass of the strongest tequila.
Perhaps due to nerves, his palms were sweating, making the steering wheel slippery.
He kept checking the rearview mirror, feeling like something was following them in the impenetrable fog.
"What are you looking at? Focus on driving!"
Ricardo finally couldn't take it anymore and shouted impatiently.
"Don't you feel... like there's something behind us?"
Manuel's voice was trembling.
"There's nothing!"
Ricardo cursed, "It's just fog! Are you fucking scared stupid by those two Americans?"
Just then, a dark shadow suddenly darted out from the woods by the road!
"Watch out!"
Ricardo's pupils shrank as he yelled.
Manuel was scared out of his wits by the sudden turn of events, and he instinctively jerked the steering wheel!
The screech of tires pierced the night sky.
The police car careened out of control toward the roadside.
Boom!
A loud crash.
The front of the car slammed hard into a large protruding rock.
The massive impact threw their bodies forward before they were jerked back by their seatbelts.
Manuel's forehead hit the steering wheel, and blood immediately began to flow.
Ricardo was also dazed, seeing stars before his eyes.
Inside the car, the mournful folk song came to an abrupt halt.
The engine let out an unwilling roar and then died completely.
Only the smashed radiator hissed with white steam. Oil and antifreeze mixed together, gurgling out from under the broken engine and forming a dirty puddle on the ground.
"Shit!"
Ricardo reacted first. He unbuckled his seatbelt, pushed open the door, and cursed at the dazed Manuel in the driver's seat.
"Are you fucking drunk or blind! Look at what you've done!"
Manuel also stumbled out of the car. He wiped the blood from his face and looked at the totaled front end with a look of despair.
"I... I saw something run across..."
He tried to defend himself, but his voice was weak and powerless.
"I don't care what you saw! We're stranded here now!"
Ricardo angrily kicked the dented car door with a loud 'clack'.
He paced irritably for a few moments, then suddenly pulled the door open and grabbed the car radio.
"Calling HQ! Calling HQ! This is Manuel and Ricardo! We've had an accident on Mountain Route 17 near the abandoned suspension bridge! Requesting backup! Repeat! Requesting backup!"
He shouted into the radio.
The only response was a series of harsh static noises.
"Bzzzt... bzzzt... this is... bzzzt... signal... interference... bzzzt..."
Intermittent, blurry voices came from the radio before it went completely dead.
"Damn it!"
Ricardo slammed the radio onto the ground.
The two looked at each other, seeing unprecedented fear in each other's eyes.
They were trapped.
In this cursed mountain region, completely isolated from the world.
And the thick fog that had just swallowed the police car's taillights was now, like a living creature, slowly wrapping around them from the road they had come from... Noah and Leon finally finished crossing that long suspension bridge that seemed to have no end.
When their feet touched solid ground, both let out a sigh of relief.
Looking back, the entrance to the bridge was completely submerged in thick fog, as if they had just emerged from nothingness.
Ahead, the silhouette of the village gradually became clear in the mist.
It was an extremely unsettling sight.
The buildings here were almost entirely made of rough stone and blackened wood, crowded together haphazardly like a gray fungal colony growing from rotting soil.
Many of the house windows were boarded up, looking like closed eyes.
The few that were open were just dark voids; looking inside, one could see nothing.
The entire village was deathly still—no human voices, no roosters crowing, no dogs barking.
Only the sound of the wind whistling through the gaps in the buildings, sounding like weeping.
Amidst this oppressive silence, a light was on in a two-story wooden house ahead.
The light shone through the dirty windows, casting a dim, eerie yellow glow that stood out sharply in the darkness.
Noah and Leon exchanged a look. No words were needed; they understood each other perfectly.
The two immediately split up, one to the left and one to the right, using abandoned wooden carts, woodpiles, and the shadows of buildings as cover to silently flank the lit house.
Their movements were light and swift, like leopards merging into the night.
Soon, they reached the side of the wooden house and crouched beneath a dusty window.
The light from inside cast long shadows of the two on the window.
Noah gently pressed his ear against the cold, damp wooden wall, listening intently to the sounds inside...
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