The tomb had sealed itself behind them, but the voices had not.
Saylor and Lucia walked across a scar of land the Field had no name for. Dust clung to them like memory. The echo of Taelrin's name, of chains refused and cycles buried, pulsed in Saylor's skull like a second heartbeat.
The air ahead shimmered faintly, though there was no heat. Only pressure. A subtle wrongness. Not a god—not yet. Something older. Something waiting.
---
They reached the edge of a new region: jagged earth carved into a basin of fossilized roots. The trees here had never been alive. They grew in reverse, downward from the sky into the soil. Each one hummed.
Lucia stopped at the rim.
"This place is wrong."
Saylor didn't disagree.
As they descended, a soft tone sounded from underfoot. Like static. Or distant radio.
> [FIELD EVENT: ARCHIVED PLAYER PRESENCE DETECTED]
The message echoed strangely, like it had been whispered into the system instead of triggered.
Then the mist thickened. And the Remnants began to appear.
---
They did not rise like monsters. They formed. Bit by bit. Flickers of body, pieces of face, memory-threaded fragments of gear.
One emerged fully.
A girl with a spiral carved into her forehead. Her mouth moved like it was chewing silence.
Another took shape beside her. A hulking man with his own name burned into his chest in letters too jagged to read.
Lucia raised her chain instinctively.
But they didn't attack.
"Not monsters," Saylor murmured. "A choir."
---
They began to speak. Not in words. In moments.
A scream. A laughter. A voice begging a Wheel to stop.
Lucia covered her ears. It didn't help.
> "We were the spin before yours."
"Some of us refused. Some accepted. All of us failed."
Saylor stepped closer.
> [ECHOSHARD: ACTIVATED]
[SYSTEM RESPONSE: MEMORY FRAGMENT SYNC PERMITTED]
His vision flickered.
A desert. A boy kneeling before a mimic god. A field of eyes. A girl binding herself to the Wheel with golden thread.
Then blackness.
Then names.
Too many to carry.
He gritted his teeth. "What do you want from me?"
The Remnants answered in unison:
> "To be remembered."
"To be used."
"To finish the game."
---
One stepped forward from the others.
A younger boy. His face half-gone. The mark of a corrupted Ticket burned into his palm.
"They tried to make me a god."
"But she came first. The one with no Field."
"She wears a smile like it's armor."
Lucia trembled. "Who is he talking about?"
Saylor didn't know. Not yet.
The boy held out the burned Ticket.
> [PASSIVE UNLOCKED: REVERENT LINK]
(Once per cycle: Call on a memory fragment to manifest as echo support. Cooldown: 3 turns.)
Saylor accepted it. The boy disintegrated into ash and static.
---
Lucia fell to one knee, her chain burning red.
Images hit her.
A birthday cake. A mother's face. A phone call.
Then static.
Then a chain wrapped around her neck, pulling.
She gasped and pulled it free.
"It's not just mine," she whispered. "This chain was passed to me."
Saylor said nothing. He watched the Remnants fade.
One lingered.
A girl in a cracked mirror mask.
> "He was the fourth to refuse."
"You are the fifth."
Then she was gone.
---
Silence returned.
The Wheel did not spin.
It fractured.
A shard dropped from nowhere, embedding into the Field like a tooth.
It pulsed with a single message:
> [NEW ENTITY INITIATED: SYSTEM PARASITE]
[ADAPTIVE ROOT SIGNATURE INBOUND]
Lucia stood beside Saylor, eyes hollow.
"You keep becoming more like them."
Saylor turned.
"I'm not becoming them."
"I'm becoming what they couldn't."
And beneath the fractured sky, the next god opened its eye.
---