The outskirts of the city felt like another world.
Broken train tracks stretched across the dirt like ribs of a dead animal. Abandoned warehouses stood in rows, their roofs collapsed, windows cracked like old scars. The sky was a dull gray, heavy and low.
Yin Lie, Chen Gu, and Thorne ran between the rusted buildings, heading toward the coordinates glowing on Chen Gu's terminal.
Thorne's breathing was uneven.
Chen Gu looked exhausted but determined.
Yin Lie… he wasn't looking at the world anymore.
He was looking inward.
Because the harmonics—the soft, sad ringing—were growing louder.
Clearer.
Like someone humming into his ear.
Suddenly, a gentle whisper brushed against his mind:
"Where… am I…?"
Yin Lie froze.
Chen Gu nearly crashed into him.
"Lie? What is it?"
Yin Lie didn't answer.
The voice came again—shaky, confused, afraid.
"It's… dark…"
He shut his eyes.
He wasn't in the wasteland anymore.
He was someplace else.
He stood in a long white hallway with no doors and no lights.
The walls stretched into darkness.
His footsteps made no sound.
It wasn't real.
It wasn't physical.
It was her dream.
A figure appeared at the far end.
Small.
Barefoot.
Wrapped in a hospital gown that fluttered like fog.
Her black hair drifted around her face as if she were underwater.
Yin Lie stepped forward, heartbeat pounding.
"Qin Mian?" he called softly.
The girl flinched.
Her head lifted slowly.
Her eyes were glowing—
not bright, not dangerous—
but soft, trembling, full of fear.
She whispered:
"…who… are you?"
Her voice was so fragile it almost broke him.
Yin Lie took another slow step.
"I'm not here to hurt you."
The dream hallway flickered.
The walls cracked like glass.
Qin Mian hugged her arms around herself.
"No… no… it hurts… it hurts to wake up…"
The cracks spread.
Pieces of the hallway floated upward like broken shards of memory.
Yin Lie reached out his hand.
"You're not alone anymore."
Her eyes widened—
as if that sentence was something she had never heard in twenty years.
The world around them shook violently.
"YIN LIE!"
Someone grabbed him.
Suddenly he was back in the real world—
stumbling as Chen Gu shook him hard.
"You went still," Chen Gu said, voice tight with worry. "We thought you passed out."
Thorne looked terrified.
"You… you froze like a statue."
Yin Lie's breath came shaky.
"I saw her," he said. "Inside her dream. She spoke to me."
Chen Gu stiffened.
"What did she say?"
"That waking up hurts."
Chen Gu's expression changed—
a mix of guilt, fear, and heartbreak.
They kept moving.
The coordinates led them to a half-buried bunker entrance.
Concrete.
Reinforced steel.
Once painted white, now cracked and eaten by time.
Above the door, faded letters spelled:
FIRST WAVE — UNIT 03
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
Thorne whispered, "This is it."
But Yin Lie was already stepping forward.
Because the harmonics filled his ears again.
And inside his mind, Qin Mian whispered:
"…don't go…"
Yin Lie froze in the doorway.
Chen Gu looked confused.
"What is it?"
But Yin Lie heard her continue:
"Don't go in… please…
It will wake me…
I don't want to hurt you…"
Her fear hit him like a wave.
Yin Lie put his hand against the cold bunker door, eyes half-closed.
"I'm coming to help you," he whispered out loud.
The bunker walls rumbled.
The air trembled.
Qin Mian gasped through the psychic link:
"No—! The more you come near, the more I—"
A sharp sound pierced both the dream and the real world—
like something inside the earth cracked open.
Chen Gu jerked back.
"What was that?!"
Thorne dropped the terminal in shock as the ground vibrated.
And Yin Lie realized what the sound meant.
Qin Mian's dream was tearing the walls of her bunker.
Her powers were responding to him.
Not gently.
Not safely.
She wasn't just waking.
She was breaking through.
Yin Lie whispered to the empty air:
"Qin Mian… I'm not leaving. No matter what."
The psychic connection tightened.
Her trembling voice echoed inside his skull:
"…then hurry…"
The ground split slightly under their feet.
"…I'm scared…"
Metal groaned from deep within the bunker.
"…please… come get me…"
Yin Lie's eyes hardened with resolve.
He turned to Chen Gu and Thorne.
"Open the bunker," he said.
"Now."
And from somewhere beneath the earth,
Qin Mian cried again—
so soft
so lonely
so human
it broke the world around her.