Descending into the abyss did not feel like entering a tunnel.
It felt like sinking into a memory that had been waiting for her.
The ground beneath Karmari's boots sloped downward at an unnatural angle, as though the city itself were bending its spine to offer sacrifice to whatever slept below. The wind vanished as soon as they crossed the threshold. Air became heavy—not in the lungs, but in the mind.
Gravity itself felt… wrong.
She slowed unconsciously, her steps lighter than necessary, as if afraid the darkness might shatter beneath her feet and swallow her whole.
Or worse—
Wake.
The entrance sealed behind them with a groaning sound, like stone rubbing against bone.
The city above disappeared.
All that remained was the breathing sound of an ancient place that did not welcome visitors.
"Spread out."Arkan's voice was calm, professional… artificial.
But Karmari could hear the tension buried inside it.
Feyrn moved first.
He stepped into the tunnel as though expecting the walls to come alive and attack him directly. His weapon hummed softly, heavy enough to shake the air with its presence alone. Lydia climbed onto a fractured beam and took her vantage with practiced elegance, adjusting her scope with surgical focus.
Siren did not walk.
She glided.
Her movements were almost artistic—too smooth for a soldier, too calculated for a normal human body. The darkness seemed to avoid her.
Rivan followed the wall, his fingers tracing along rusted panels and shattered control ports, eyes darting between his wrist console and the shadows ahead.
Miral came last, scanner in both hands as though it were her last remaining sense of safety.
Idris stayed near Karmari.
Not close enough to be obvious.
But close enough to matter.
The metal walls whispered beneath their gloves.
Not with sound.
With knowledge.
They were wrong.
Too warm.
Not warm like heat.
Warm like blood.
Karmari flinched when her fingers brushed against them.
It was not the sensation that disturbed her.
It was the memory that came with it.
A hallucination she could almost touch.
Cold silence.
Liquid moving behind glass.
A vibration in her spine.
She pulled her hand away and stared at it as if it no longer belonged to her.
Does ruin remember?Or is memory something only the wounded carry?
The thought came without invitation.
It did not feel like her own.
Sweat formed along Miral's spine.
"This place isn't dead," she whispered. "Just… comatose."
Rivan choked out a dry laugh."That makes it worse, somehow."
Arkan raised a fist.
They stopped.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber with an impossibly high ceiling.
Steel pillars stood like ribs.
Broken machines lay scattered at strange angles, some half-buried, some twisted like corpses frozen in agony.
Screens flickered with dying light—green, then blue, then nothing.
Then green again.
Like a heartbeat.
Miral crouched, her scanner buzzing inexplicably.
"No stable life signs. But the neural field here is… saturated. As if thought itself never left."
Idris glanced at the ceiling.
"Maybe it didn't."
Everyone raised their weapons.
There was something else in this room.
Not movement.
Not sound.
Presence.
A thickness in the air that could not be named.
Then came the noise.
Metal against metal.
Dragging.
Breathing.
Everyone turned.
The shadow that emerged from the corridor was… wrong.
It moved like a corpse that refused to admit it was dead.
Skin cracked like dried earth.
Veins glowing dull blue beneath translucent flesh.
One arm useless. The other twitching.
Clothes melted into the body as though the man had been liquefying slowly for years.
But the eyes…
The eyes were human.
Terrified.
Clear.
He raised his head slowly.
Like someone waking from a nightmare that had lasted too long.
"Don't…" he whispered.
His voice cracked like glass.
"Don't let them… put you to sleep…"
And then he collapsed.
Miral was at his side instantly.
She did not wait for permission.
She did not wait for orders.
She only saw a man who was still alive.
"Pulse is weak," she muttered, hands moving automatically."Neural output… distorted, but present…"
She froze.
Her eyes widened.
"This…" she whispered.
Idris joined her. "What?"
Her lips trembled.
"He's been here… at least thirty years."
Silence ripped through the chamber.
Rivan swore violently.
"That's—That's not biologically possible!"
Miral shook her head.
"Not without modification. Not without intervention."
Arkan crouched beside the man.
"Who did this to you?"
The man's eyes flickered toward sound like dying lights in the dark.
"A… zero…"
Karmari's breath vanished from her lungs.
"A0?"
The man turned his head slightly.
And looked directly at her.
In that moment—
Something broke inside her chest.
His lips curved upward.
Just barely.
A smile.
But not of joy.
Of recognition.
"We weren't…" he whispered.
"The first…"
And then his heartbeat stopped.
Miral closed his eyes.
Her hands shook.
"I couldn't run out of medicine," she whispered.
Her voice hollowed.
"I ran out of time."
Siren stood rigid.
"He wasn't a monster."
Arkan nodded.
"He was a prototype."
No one asked what that meant.
Everyone already knew.
They moved deeper.
The deeper they went, the louder the place became.
Not with sound—
With echoes of intention.
Dead speakers crackled alive.
Old lights flickered.
Screens shuddered awake.
A distorted recording echoed through the chamber.
"Generation Eight… failure rate… unacceptable."
Then another voice—
Colder.
"Exposure to gate resonance exceeding six months results in identity fracture and mental collapse."
Images stuttered onto decayed monitors.
Men screaming.
Women restrained.
Helmets glowing blue.
Needles.
Wires.
Surgery without anesthesia.
None had names.
Only numbers.
Idris clenched his fists.
"So many… forgotten."
Rivan exhaled."Not forgotten. Buried."
Then they reached the next chamber.
The walls here were not metal.
They were stories.
Scratched by fingernails.
Written by fear.
Painted by loss.
Broken doors.
Burned cities.
Figures with empty faces crawling toward a black arch that swallowed light.
And then—
That word.
Carved into the walls over and over.
Everywhere.
MIKEL
Karmari staggered back.
Her ears rang.
Her vision swam.
Idris caught her by the arm.
"Hey—What's wrong?"
She shook her head violently.
"I don't know…"
Her voice shaking.
Her hand pressed to her chest.
"But I feel like… I lost something. Someone. Something important."
Her implant pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
Too fast.
Then—
ALARM.
The chamber was consumed by red light.
The walls shook.
The ground pulsed.
Rivan shouted—
"System just activated itself! This place isn't abandoned—it's waking up!"
Idris spun.
"Waking up from what?!"
The floor beneath them shifted.
Ceiling panels collapsed.
A massive roar echoed from the lower levels.
Not an animal.
Not a machine.
Something else.
Something aware.
And it was not happy.
"MOVE!" Arkan commanded.
They ran.
Down corridors that bent in impossible ways.
Past doors that closed too fast.
Lights exploded overhead.
Sparks rained like dying stars.
The walls whispered.
Karmari's head screamed.
Images flooded her mind.
Glass.
Blue liquid.
A voice she could not remember.
You were never supposed to wake up.
She stumbled.
Idris pulled her.
"STAY WITH ME!"
They leaped over collapsing walkways.
Feyrn blasted through debris like a god of war.
Lyndra fired behind them, covering their retreat.
Miral screamed as part of the ceiling crashed inches from her head.
Siren vanished ahead—
Clearing a path.
And then—
They reached a corridor of mirrors.
The walls reflected them.
But wrong.
Karmari's reflection stared back—
Not as she was.
As she used to be.
Or would be.
Her implant burned.
The reflection whispered:
You were not born. You were recovered.
She screamed silently.
The corridor shattered.
—
They burst into a forgotten service shaft.
Dark.
Narrow.
Cold.
The roar followed.
Closer.
Closer.
Arkan sealed the final door behind them.
It screamed against something pushing from the other side.
And then—
Silence.
Everyone collapsed.
Breathing hard.
Broken.
Alive.
Karmari stared at her trembling hands.
Her implant flickered.
A single sentence stole through her consciousness.
"WELCOME HOME."
She fainted.