The screaming black didn't stay black for long. It cracked. It was like someone took a cosmic ice pick. went to the darkness, and stabbed it. Hard. White fissures split across the void, and each one was jagged, and violent, and far too bright. As it faded, sound rushed back in chunks — metal groaning, my own heartbeat slamming, Eliana shouting something I couldn't hear due to the rising static in my skull. Then the world reattached itself. Although, badly.
I was on all fours. The chamber looked wrong. It looked stretched, and softened at the edges, like someone smeared Vaseline over reality. A cable above, sparked, flickering between real and not-real. The floor shimmered under my palms.
"Eliana?!" I croaked.
She didn't answer. She was several feet away, but she wasn't facing me. She stood rigid, staring at the far wall as if the wall were staring back. Her aura which was usually calm, bluish, and cool had exploded outward into some jagged silver flames.
I tried again. "Eliana!" And immediately, "Don't move," she breathed.
Then, without looking at me, she said:
"It's here."
Immediately, a chill clawed its way up my spine with what seemed like very long, very bony fingers.
The wall didn't break. It… peeled.
Like paint curling off an old porch, but instead of wood behind it, there was just… absence. The space beyond wasn't dark. Darkness has depth. Shadows has shape. This had none of that. It was more like the universe, but without a texture, like, the creator forgot to load it.
Something pressed against that un-rendered space. Something huge, really huge. Something with weight. And, the whisper that had followed me since the tunnel returned, but now it wasn't a whisper. It was breath on my neck.
Milano.
My lungs seized. "Nah. Nah. Nah. Hell nah! Eliana—"
She sliced her arm through the air and a flare of blue slammed into me like a shove, pinning me against the console. "Stay behind me."
"I can't exactly go anywhere!" I responded.
"Good."
The wall bulged inward, denting like a giant thumb pressed into some cheap plastic, and cracks spidered outward. The floor vibrated in a low, nauseating rhythm. And somewhere above us, the Veil groaned like an animal being woken up in the worst possible mood.
"Eliana," I whispered, "what in God's name is that?"
Her voice was thin. Not weak, thin, like everything in her was redirected to holding the line.
"An Echo Ancient," she said.
"Oh okay. Yeah. New question. What the hell is an Echo Ancient?"
"A memory that refuses to stay dead."
"Cool. Super cool, huh?"
The dent deepened, and something scraped against the other side. A talon? A bone? A limb with joints in all the freaking wrong places? Couldn't tell. Of course, didn't want to tell. The air thickened until breathing felt like drinking tar, and my chest burned again, that same humming engine under my ribs revving like it wanted to tear a hole through me and sprint into the void.
"Eliana," I rasped, "I um… I think it's, it's reacting—"
"Keep it contained!"
"Cont—I don't know how!"
"Then learn!"
"Oh Go—"
The wall burst. A shockwave hit us, and dust blasted out in a choking cloud. I threw my arms up to cover my face just as something slid through the hole.
At first, all I saw were fingers. They were long, pale, jointed too many times, and each one ending in a faint glow, like some bioluminescent fungus.
Then the hand came through. Then the arm. Then the rest of it.
It wasn't shaped like a human. Not really. But parts of it pretended to be. It had limbs that bent almost correctly, torso drifting in a time-lapse shudder, face—
God. The face. It changed every second, flickering through silhouettes of different people, and emotions — old, young, male, female, laughing, screaming, snarling — all overlapping like a glitching slideshow.
But no eyes. Just hollows. Deep, endless, bottomless hollows. And yet I felt it staring at me.
"Milano," it said again. Not with sound this time, but inside my bones. "Little conduit."
Eliana stepped between us, with her silver-light blades flaring from her hands. She held her ground even though the thing was over a full meter over her.
"You don't belong here," she hissed.
The Ancient tilted its shifting head. "You smell… afraid, Guardian," sniffling.
"I am many things," she said, "but afraid of you, is definitely not one of them."
"You should be." It lunged.
Eliana moved faster than I'd ever seen. All I could see was a streak of silver. She slashed the creature's arm and it recoiled, shrieking in a reverb that rattled my teeth, as blue sparks scattered like fireflies. But the wound knitted itself instantly.
"Eliana!" I shouted. "I think it's regenerating!"
"Then I'll cut faster!"
The next moment was chaos. She struck, a flurry of hits so quick, that the air snapped. The Ancient swiped, a blur of elongated limbs slicing through consoles, walls, and even the floor itself. Metal shrieked, and sparks fell like burning snow.
I tried to stay back. I really did. But the humming in my chest swelled into something painful. Something violent. Like a pressure cooker that was about to blow its lid off. My vision tunneled, my hands tingled, and my breath came shallow and rapid.
In a flick of an eye, the Ancient's head snapped toward me, mid-fight.
"There you are." It said, and then vanished. Just gone. Then it reappeared—
Behind me.
"Eliana!" I screamed.
I was too late. Its hand wrapped around my throat. It was cold, impossibly cold, and the world ripped sideways.
I was nowhere.
No, not nowhere. I was inside the Veil. Inside it.
The space became a jagged dreamscape: floating shards of city streets, upside-down doorways, memory-smoke drifting like fog. The Ancient filled all of it. A massive, skeletal silhouette, stretching across a horizon that didn't exist.
Chosen conduit.
Marked conduit.
Breakable conduit.
"Get out of my head!" I choked.
The creature leaned close, and its shifting, eyeless face was just centimeters away from mine.
We saw your spark.
Before you were born.
Before language.
We have waited.
"I DON'T WANT TO BE WAITED FOR!" I screamed.
It smiled. At least, its version of smiling: a split across its flickering face that opened far too wide.
You will.
As it said that, something tore. A thread deep inside me snapped so loudly, it felt audible. Then, power surged out. Not soft, not steady. Wild, volcanic. And the Veil around us shook like a sheet being whipped by wind.
The Ancient recoiled, hissing.
Unstable.
Fractured.
Useless—unless molded.
Its hands reached for my chest. I braced for agony, and just then, Eliana's voice ripped through the void like a detonation.
"GET! OFF! HIM!"
Light exploded, the dreamscape shattered, and I slammed back into my body, gasping, choking, and coughing as if I'd been drowning.
The Ancient still held me, but now Eliana was behind it, with both her hands pressed to its spine, and silver light pouring out of her in a torrent.
"MOVE!" she screamed.
I didn't question it. Instinct… or panic, or something deeper yanked power from my chest up through my arms, and my palms ignited with blue-white fire. I shoved both hands against the Ancient's face. And the world went supernova.
A shockwave blasted outward, throwing all three of us apart. The chamber buckled, consoles exploded, and the ceiling cracked like an eggshell that was ready to fail.
When the light dimmed, the Ancient staggered back, and half its form was flickering uncontrollably. Parts of it dissolved into dust, while other parts tried to regrow and failed. It looked at me, really looked, and for the first time, it sounded… startled.
"You—are—dangerous."
"Yeah," I coughed, collapsing onto one knee, "I've been told."
It retreated toward the broken wall, its limbs pulling inward, and its body collapsing into itself like a dying star.
"This is not over," it whispered.
"Bite me," I rasped.
"Milano," Eliana warned.
The Ancient dissolved into a swirling mass of fragments and slipped back into the Veil. Gone. Just like that. And the chamber went dead quiet. Then the ceiling groaned ominously.
"Okay," I wheezed, "we should leave. Immediately. And… preferably through a door not currently breaking."
Eliana collapsed to one knee beside me, sweat dripping from her brow, and her glow dimmed to embers.
"Are you hurt?" she panted.
"I mean, existentially? Deeply. Physically… maybe? Emotionally? Absolutely. Spiritually? Phew… don't ask."
She almost smiled. Almost.
"We need to move," she said. "That thing didn't mark you, Milano. It claimed you."
"Oh! Isn't that just fantastic. Wonderful. I'm thrilled. Do I get a membership card?"
She grabbed my arm, hauling me up.
"No jokes. Not now, please."
The ceiling cracked again, and we ran. Behind us, the chamber collapsed. Ahead of us, somewhere deep in the tunnels, the Veil trembled again — not from attack, but from anticipation. Like something very, very old had just found its favorite new toy.
And it wanted more.