For a while, no one said anything.
Footsteps echoed across the platform, muffled by the distant dripping and the rustling of tarps behind us — that was all there was.
I could still feel those people's eyes burning into my back as we disappeared into the dimness.
I couldn't stop thinking about their faces.
Their bodies were too thin, the skin grayish, and their eyes… their eyes were empty. As if something had sucked out every last bit of will to keep breathing.
They lived by inertia.
Stopping looked like it would take more effort than going on.
But the children…
The little ones still laughed… even weakly, playing with scattered rocks and strings like they were in a playground.
As if the world outside still existed. Maybe…
Maybe they were the last ones who remembered what being human felt like.
The captain walked ahead in silence, her face hidden by the shadows.
"What was that place?"
The question slipped out before I could hold it back.
Steps stopped for a second, and I felt their eyes fall on me — heavy with a very clear "what a stupid question."
What's the harm in answering…
But no one answered. Soon the boots resumed hitting the concrete, and everyone pretended I hadn't said a word.
When I'd already decided none of them would speak, the woman beside me murmured:
"Condemned."
That seemed to poke something in the man on her other side, because he made a disgusted face and spat on the floor.
No one cared.
The thin old man approached, staring at me with those hollow eyes. He looked like someone who had seen everything terrible this world had to offer — and then some.
"You're not seriously telling me you don't know that type?" he asked. "Especially you people from the church."
Why do they keep insisting I'm from there?
"I'm not from that church. I didn't even know any of this existed until today…"
My voice came out louder than I meant, but no one seemed to care.
Shit hole of a place…
We reached an improvised staircase made of chains, wood, and metal pieces welded together with pure rage, and went down one by one.
Compared to what I'd seen out there, down here I almost felt… less threatened.
Not exactly safe, but the fear felt at least organized.
The old man behind me scoffed.
"You don't know? How long do you think you can keep pretending?"
The anger of being accused of something I didn't even understand was enough to unlock my mouth.
"I'm not lying… I… I don't even know how I got here. A light came… ripped me out of that old church, and suddenly I was on that street. Then you found me, but before that I just… woke up there. I just woke up in that place. I don't know where it is, I don't know how I got there. I just… was there."
The words came rushing out, tripping over each other, like I was trying to vomit everything at once just to see if the panic would leave with it.
When I finished, I was out of breath.
I looked at them — and it felt like punching cotton.
Nothing.
Blank, apathetic, almost bored expressions.
The man beside me laughed, amused.
"Ohh… the church crazies are getting more creative every day."
"But it's true, I swear…"
The urgency in my voice bordered on pathetic.
"And I'm not from any church."
I was almost begging now.
Shit! Is it really that hard to believe?
Didn't matter.
In their minds I was already stamped with a big "church fanatic" label.
The captain, ahead, slowed and glanced over her shoulder with a neutral face.
"Enough. We'll know soon enough if it's true. Move."
The shove I got right after made it very clear how much they trusted me.
"We should just kill him and burn the body."
No one replied, but the silence agreed for them.
They're not actually going to do that… right?
A cold shiver raced up my spine.
I'd lowered my guard because I didn't see any monsters here anymore — but hearing that was the moment reality slapped me in the face.
This place… these people… were not exactly the safest option.
When my feet hit the tracks, cold seeped through the sole of my boots and climbed straight up my legs.
The tunnel ahead looked endless.
A corridor of darkness broken only by emergency lights flickering in long, slow intervals… almost like heartbeats.
With each flash, the group turned into a sequence of broken shadows against walls covered in roots and vines hanging from the ceiling.
It didn't look like a subway tunnel anymore, but an old forgotten cave swallowed by time and vegetation.
Even with the scarce light, I saw markings on the walls.
Scratches and burned symbols carved into the concrete. They looked like they were painted with dark-red ink, almost brown.
I hoped it was ink.
The farther we went, the more the unease grew inside me.
Something…
Something disgusting felt like it was watching me over my shoulder.
I lifted my head — and that's when I saw it.
Something stuck to the ceiling.
At first, it looked like a dark, motionless lump, but as I strained my eyes… it looked like it was breathing.
Is that… alive?
A shiver slid down my spine like ice water.
With each flicker of the light, I saw the thing contract and expand again in a slow, rhythmic pattern… like a giant lung.
The blood drained from my face.
I looked away, heart hammering in my chest, and sped up.
The man behind me let out a short, contemptuous laugh when he saw me react.
"Better not look."
I swallowed hard and didn't ask anything this time.
I didn't want to know.
Sometimes I couldn't help glancing sideways at the ceiling.
The thing was still there.
Meters and meters of flesh stuck in the dark… it seemed endless.
Something is wrong.
The terror began squeezing me from the inside again.
If I could just close my eyes and not see anything…
I lost track of time. Minutes, maybe hours. The dark tunnel swallowed any sense of measurement.
Until something different appeared ahead.
A colossal iron gate, fused into the walls as if it had grown there.
It blocked everything.
Thick chains, welded plates, cables and rusted bars crisscrossed over it like an improvised metal web.
A tangle of things forced into place.
In the center, a small hatch — high enough for someone to look through without being seen.
The captain took a deep breath.
"We're here."
She stepped forward and knocked three times on the metal in a steady rhythm that echoed through the entire tunnel.
For a few seconds, nothing — then the sound of machinery. Chains clinking and a lock being pulled.
The hatch opened, and on the other side a pair of eyes appeared, lit by a bluish light.
The voice that came through was hoarse and tired:
"Who is it?"
"Mei… Line B-2," the captain answered.
So her name was Mei.
Silence.
Even with the low lighting, I saw the eyes narrow.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Change of plans."
"How many?"
"Four."
The conversation went on quietly. I couldn't make out the words, but I could feel it wasn't a pleasant exchange.
Mei gestured with her iron bar, and the man behind the hatch spoke with a tone that was both harsh and distrustful.
I tried peeking through the gaps, but only saw shadows and harsh light beyond.
Still, at some moment, I felt his eyes land on me.
My whole body stiffened.
Mei stepped forward, bringing her face closer to the hatch, and her tone sharpened.
"Malik turned into an Echo!"
The silence that followed was so absolute I could hear my own heartbeat.
The man on the other side stayed silent for a long second, then the hatch slammed shut.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the sound of chains being dragged, gears groaning, and finally — the gate began to move.
Slowly… painfully slowly.
The light that leaked through the widening gap was white and harsh. After all the darkness, it felt like it was burning my eyes.
I lifted my arm to shield myself, and the others did the same.
The brightness pushed the darkness back like a living thing.
When I finally managed to open my eyes, the air left my lungs…
The tunnel ended in a place that made no sense.
A gigantic cavern.
But not made of stone.
The walls…
The walls had the texture of flesh. Smooth, with bluish veins and bulges like muscles beneath the surface.
Spread across them — like infections or fungus — were wires and cables embedded in the flesh, burrowing into it, vanishing and reappearing.
Artificial lights hung from the ceiling, attached to metallic structures that were themselves fused into that living tissue.
Generator noises buzzed and vibrated, but the strangest thing was the floor trembling slightly… like the entire place was breathing.
People walked between metal and glass structures scattered along the sides — actual "rooms" carved into openings in the fleshy walls, like sliced arteries.
There were all kinds of people.
Some looked… normal, at least at first glance.
Others had metal plates fused to their skin. Arms replaced with mechanical extensions connected by tubes. Some had artificial eyes, tubes coming out of their necks… prosthetics merging with flesh so naturally it was impossible to tell where body ended and machine began.
I couldn't tell if I was in a city or inside a diseased organism.
The smell in the air was a mix of oil, blood, iron, and formaldehyde… I could almost taste it.
In the center of the cavern, something glowed under the bright lights.
A transparent sphere suspended by thick cables — and inside it, something floated.
Was that… a body?
I couldn't tell if it was a man, a woman… or even human. Tubes ran across the cavern, connecting everything to the sphere.
I knew I had never been here — but when I looked at it… something inside me reacted.
Like the outline of a memory, there one moment and gone the next.
Still, I took a step forward, hypnotized.
The captain's hand landed firmly on my shoulder.
"Welcome to the East Side Final Line," she said quietly.
Her eyes shone with something that, anywhere else, I would've called nostalgia.
"The last city of the Order of the Three Fears."
I didn't even have time to process it, because that's when the screen appeared again.
Purple…
But this time with a reddish hue pulsing underneath, as if it were… infected.
Letters appeared, trembling, glitching like a system suffering a short circuit:
NEW MISSION…
The line below took a bit longer.
SAVE THE STORY MODE
And all I could think was:
What the hell...