It took Theo and Mira roughly forty minutes to haul Yuwon's unconscious body to the car and come back. By then, the storm outside had eased, but inside the old radio tower, the air felt heavier — like the calm before a collapse.
We stood in front of the control center's cracked glass window. Beyond it, the forest swayed under a pale, dying moonlight. Then, we turned toward the rusted metal staircase spiraling down into the dark.
The path to the anomaly's heart.
I exhaled slowly. "Listen up," I began, my voice steadier than I felt. "Unlike us, Yuwon's condition doesn't reset when the loop starts over. If anything, it's getting worse. We've got two hours until sunrise — and when the sun rises, time resets automatically. If that happens…"
I paused. Mira's eyes darted toward the floor; Theo clenched his jaw, waiting for me to finish.
"…then that'll be Yuwon's death certificate."
The words hung there, heavier than any thunder that could've rolled outside.
Mira's lips trembled, but her voice was steady when she finally spoke. "Then let's do this. Let's return his favor."
"Yeah," Theo said, cracking his knuckles, a weak grin tugging at his mouth. "Let's kick that thing's ass for him."
"Move out," I ordered.
And together, we descended.
The stairs groaned with every step, the air thick with rust and dust. Beneath us, the tunnels spread out like arteries — twisting, endless, swallowing the beam of our flashlights.
Once we reached the lowest level, I realized just how massive it was. Corridors branched off in every direction, walls covered with pulsating veins of black residue — the same kind that had appeared when the anomaly first infected the forest.
"Not exactly a maze," I muttered, "but if we take too long, we won't make it before sunrise."
We ran through one tunnel, then another, each one echoing with the rhythmic clatter of boots and the low hum of something alive.
"Silva," Mira said, breathless as she ran beside me, "isn't it weird how quiet it's been? The anomaly hasn't said a word since we entered."
Theo chimed in, panting, "Yeah. Shouldn't it be trying to mess with us by now? Voices, illusions — anything?"
I didn't respond immediately. Instead, I listened. There was something — a distant mechanical thrum, almost like breathing.
"…Or," Theo continued, voice dropping, "is it the part of Yuwon that's holding it off? The version that merged with it?"
I slowed slightly, eyes narrowing. "Maybe. But that means he's fighting it right now — from the inside."
Silence fell again, except for the sound of our steps and the low metallic wail of the tunnels.
'Hold on, Yuwon,' I thought. 'We're almost there.'
Then, up ahead, a faint red glow illuminated the end of the passageway — pulsing like a heartbeat.
The faint red glow faded as quickly as it appeared, swallowed by the dark.
We slowed down, exchanging uncertain looks.
"Was that—?" Mira started.
"Gone," Theo muttered, scanning the tunnel with his flashlight. The beam danced over corroded pipes and dripping concrete, illuminating nothing but shadows that twitched when we weren't looking directly at them.
"We keep moving," I said. "If the anomaly's hiding, it's afraid. That's good news."
"Or it's waiting," Mira countered quietly.
No one responded to that.
The deeper we went, the more wrong everything felt. The air smelled faintly of static, like burnt ozone. Every now and then, the floor trembled — not enough to knock us off balance, but enough to make us stop and listen.
It wasn't the ground shifting. It was the tunnels themselves breathing.
We reached a junction: three branching corridors. Each one looked identical — same cracked concrete, same faint mist drifting through.
Theo scratched his head, frowning. "Didn't we pass this part already? I swear that pipe there was leaking before."
"No," Mira said, uncertain. "No, it… it was. I saw it too."
I checked the map we'd drawn by hand — a useless mess of crossed lines and annotations. The tunnels refused to obey geometry.
'Spatial looping,' I thought grimly. 'The anomaly's trying to slow us down.'
"Alright," I said, forcing calm. "We stick to the left-hand rule. Always take the left path, no matter what."
We turned left and pressed on.
The lights above flickered — faint bulbs from another century that hummed and popped one by one. Their light stuttered like a heartbeat trying to fail.
And then, faintly, we heard something.
A voice.
It wasn't coming from ahead or behind, but from the walls themselves.
[Yuwon.]
All three of us froze.
"Silva…" Theo whispered. "You heard that, right?"
"Keep walking," I said quickly. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. "Don't listen to it."
The voice came again, fragmented and distorted — deeper this time.
[Yuwon… is… st—]
[sto—p]
[le—ave]
It wasn't a warning. It was pleading.
Mira stopped in her tracks. "It's him," she said, trembling. "It sounds like him. It is him, isn't it?"
"No," I snapped. "It's the anomaly mimicking him."
'But what if it's not?' a voice inside me whispered.
Theo gritted his teeth. "We can't know that for sure. If Yuwon's consciousness really is inside it—"
"Then he's fighting it right now," I cut him off. "And we're not helping him by stopping here."
The tunnel groaned again — long, metallic, like the sound of something enormous shifting in its sleep. The floor vibrated beneath us. Dust rained from the ceiling.
We ran.
For what felt like ten minutes straight, we sprinted through corridors that all looked the same, until I realized something horrifying — the junction we'd left behind was now ahead of us again.
Mira doubled over, panting. "We're going in circles. This place doesn't want us to find it."
"Then we'll force it to show itself," Theo said, slamming his boot into a rusted pipe. The clang echoed down the corridor like a warning. "How do you fight something that controls space itself?"
I didn't answer immediately. The air felt thick, humming faintly. I pressed my palm against the wall—warm concrete, pulsing beneath my hand with a slow, rhythmic vibration. Like the beat of something alive.
"By forcing its heart to react," I murmured.
"What?"
"The anomaly only has one core left," I said, glancing back at them. "It's weakened to the point it can't even calculate each of our futures. That means it can't rewind this corridor forever either."
"So we just keep sprinting?" Mira asked, voice trembling between fear and resolve.
"Yes," I said. "That thing is more exhausted—and more injured—than we are."
Theo cracked his neck, already stepping forward. "Then let's get moving!" He took off down the corridor, flashlight beam slicing through the fog.
We ran.
The tunnels stretched endlessly, but I could feel the shift. The metal overhead groaned, condensation raining down in cold droplets that hit our faces and arms like scattered needles.
Every turn looked the same, yet something subtle was changing. The layout of the walls. The cracks in them.
Theo slowed for a second. "You're seeing that too, right?"
"Yes," I said. "Keep your focus forward."
The air pressure shifted, a low, deep sound vibrating through the floor. For a heartbeat, the tunnel exhaled, and the lights flickered out completely once more.
We were plunged into blackness again.
"Flashlights—now!" I barked.
Three beams flicked on at once, cutting through the dark—but the tunnel ahead had changed. The floor sloped downward now, slick and uneven. A narrow opening waited ahead, its edges rippling faintly, like heat distortion.
"The anomaly's reacting," I said. "It's trying to divert us."
Theo grinned grimly. "Then we're close."
He was right. The deeper the distortion, the closer we were to the core. But the air around us had become heavy, charged with something that made it harder to breathe. My ears rang faintly, a high-pitched hum echoing through the corridor— almost like the sound of Yuwon's voice.
Then came the whisper.
[Sto■.]
It slithered through the static of our radios, overlapping our own breathing.
[Go b■ck.]
Theo froze mid-step. "you two heard that, right?"
"yes," I said. "It's the anomaly talking directly now."
We pushed forward. We were moving quickly, but we were also running out of time.
"Faster!" I yelled.
The tunnel curved sharply, and the moment we turned, loud static came from our earpieces.
[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■]
"We're near the core chamber," I said, my breath ragged. "That sound—it's coming from beneath us."
Theo nodded. "Then that's where we're headed."
We followed the static until we reached a heavy steel bulkhead, half-rusted and chained shut. Mira kicked at the lock. "There's no way through without explosives—"
Before I could answer, the lock clicked on its own.
The door groaned, chains falling slack, and the air that escaped smelled like ozone and burnt circuitry.
"Looks like it's inviting us in," Theo muttered.
"Or it's closing the trap," Mira whispered, voice trembling.
I said nothing. The hum of the tower pressed against my ears, a steady vibration crawling under my skin like static.
I took a step forward. "Either way," I murmured, "we finish this here."
We descended the stairs in silence. The deeper we went, the more the air thickened — heavy with heat, with something close to breath. The walls glowed faintly, veins of red light pulsating in sync with a low, uneven rhythm.
It took me a moment to realize what it was.
A heartbeat.
When the tunnel opened into a chamber, the sound grew louder — slow and labored. The walls were fractured, lines of light crawling across them like cracks in glass. The smell of metal and blood burned my throat.
And then I saw him.
Yuwon stood at the center of the room.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
He was thinner. Paler. His skin was split in several places, each fissure glowing red beneath the surface like magma. His eyes were empty, the whites tinted with static, flickering between red and gray. He looked at us — through us — and for a split second:
I saw the Yuwon I remembered.