Story 1286: The Wall of Heads

The forest thinned into a stretch of blackened earth, where even rot refused to grow.

Juno stood before it with the Rustborn at her back and the feral children trailing in silence. A twisted path of ash and bone led them toward an unnatural rise in the terrain—what looked like a collapsed barricade, crusted in metal and scorched concrete.

But as they approached, the truth emerged.

It wasn’t a barricade.

It was a monument.

Dozens of decapitated heads—human, infected, and somewhere in-between—embedded into the wall like grotesque trophies. Some were fused into the steel. Others were mounted on old neural spike rods, eyes still half-lidded as if watching an eternal nightmare.

A rusty sign nearby, half-buried in soot, read:

"ZONE NULL – INGRESS TERMINATION ZONE"

AUTHORIZED EXECUTIONS ONLY.

BY ORDER OF VIREX PURGE COMMAND.

Shade muttered, “God…”

Even H-13’s voice softened. “Recognition match: 68 former personnel, 23 trial escapees, 11 unauthorized births.”