The tower loomed above them like a pillar holding up the sky's corpse.
Every few seconds, its mirrored surface rippled — showing scenes that couldn't exist anymore.
Cities lit by real moonlight. Oceans that still moved. Faces staring back through the glass.
Kael watched one reflection too long and saw himself blink when he didn't.
"Okay," he muttered, "that's mildly horrifying."
Mira adjusted her rifle. "Rule one: don't touch anything that looks like you. Rule two: don't talk to anything that sounds like me."
Rae hummed under her breath as she assembled a pulse scanner. "Rule three: don't let the tower notice you're real."
"...Feeling very optimistic already," Kael said.
---
The front gate opened on its own — metal creaking like lungs filled with dust.
Inside was silence thick enough to feel like weight. The walls glowed faintly with silver veins — words written and rewritten faster than the eye could follow.
Rae's device beeped. "Resonance density's off the charts. This place isn't decaying, it's processing."
"Processing what?" Mira asked.
Rae glanced at her readout. "Us."
Kael swore softly. "Great. We're the latest software update."
---
They reached the central hall — vast, cathedral-like, with a hollow pit in the floor.
Above it floated something that looked almost human: a figure made of light and glass shards, its face blurred like a broken screen.
Ashveil hissed.
> "An Echo Sentinel. The Core's immune system."
Before anyone could respond, it moved.
No warning. No noise.
One instant it hovered above the pit — the next, it was in front of them, blade-like arms unfolding from its sides.
Kael dove sideways as its strike cut through air — and stone — leaving a trench that hissed with molten edges.
"Rae!" Mira shouted. "EMP it!"
"I'm trying!" Rae twisted a knob, the scanner whining — then exploding in her hands. "It's too synchronized — it absorbed the pulse!"
Kael raised his shard. "Then we fight the old-fashioned way!"
Ashveil's tone sharpened.
> "No, Kael — fight the real way. Use resonance properly."
---
The Sentinel's second strike came faster. Kael parried on instinct — his shard meeting its arm in a flash of light.
The impact didn't feel physical; it felt like two frequencies colliding.
He stumbled back, hearing his heartbeat echo a half-second late.
> "It's syncing to you," Ashveil warned. "Break rhythm!"
Kael forced a laugh. "Easy for a voice to say!"
He switched stance, exhaled, and struck again — this time intentionally out of sync.
His blade scraped through empty air, but the feedback from the wrong timing caused the Sentinel's body to stutter — its light flickering like a glitching video.
Mira didn't waste the opening.
"Kael — duck!"
He dropped, and a burst of gunfire shredded the Sentinel's left arm.
The creature screamed — a sound like feedback and shattering glass mixed into one.
Rae dragged Kael back. "It's reformatting! You can't kill code!"
"Then I'll crash it!" Kael said.
He leapt forward, shard glowing white-hot. The world blurred around him — sound distorting, reality bending into thin lines of light and shadow.
Ashveil whispered:
> "Resonance pulse: invert reflection."
Kael swung — not at the Sentinel, but at its reflection in the mirrored wall.
The strike connected.
A shockwave of silence exploded outward — not sound, not light, just absence. The Sentinel froze, body flickering violently, its mirrored image disintegrating into shards that floated midair.
Then both versions shattered — light bursting outward like crystal rain.
The hall fell still.
Kael panted, dropping to one knee. "Please tell me that's dead."
Ashveil's tone was smug.
> "Temporarily restructured. Enjoy the silence while it lasts."
---
They barely had time to breathe before the floor beneath them began to crack.
Lines of light spiderwebbed outward, converging into runes that pulsed faster and faster.
Rae's eyes widened. "It's activating a failsafe — the Core's defensive rewrite sequence!"
"Translation?" Mira snapped.
"The whole tower's about to reboot."
---
Kael pushed himself up. The cracks spread under his feet, each glowing brighter until he could see movement inside them — figures, faces, memories trapped in light.
People — hundreds of them — repeating the same phrase over and over:
> "Don't forget us."
Ashveil's voice dropped to a whisper.
> "Those are the city's last moments. They've been looping for decades."
Kael clenched his jaw. "Then let's end the loop."
He closed his eyes and listened — really listened. The hum of the tower wasn't random; it had rhythm. Like a song half-remembered.
He found the pulse — the same beat as the beacon. Two, one, three.
The heartbeat of the dead city.
"Alright," he said. "Let's give you a new song."
He struck the ground with his shard.
Resonance flared — not as light, but as vibration. The hum changed pitch, harmonizing instead of resisting.
The figures in the light faltered, then began to move — slowly, turning toward him.
Mira shouted, "Kael! Whatever you're doing—"
"I'm talking to it!" he yelled. "Or trying to!"
The tower groaned. The mirrored walls rippled, showing flashes of people waving, smiling, crying — moments before the moon fell.
Then everything stopped.
A voice, deep and fragmented, filled the air.
> "We remember."
The light shattered. The tower went dark.
---
When the dust cleared, Kael stood in the center of the hall, surrounded by faintly glowing glass shards.
Each one floated upward — and drifted away, dispersing into the air like embers.
Rae's scanner sparked weakly. "You just freed the entire city's Echo imprint…"
Mira holstered her rifle. "Congratulations, Vorrin. You exorcised a skyscraper."
Kael groaned. "Add that to my résumé right after 'guy who ruins everything he touches.'"
Ashveil chuckled, quiet and fond.
> "Ruins can still sing, Kael."
He looked up through the now-clear roof of the tower. Above them, the sky flickered — a faint, silver light appearing for the first time in years.
Not the moon.
Its reflection.
---