The city was silent again — but it was a dangerous silence.
A calm before the storm, type shit.
The woman's name slipped from his lips without thinking.
"Lira."
She glanced at him, surprised for a heartbeat, then nodded.
"Good. You remember."
They moved through the shattered streets, the cracked sky bleeding faint light.
Lira's armor hummed softly, the mirror shards catching whispers from the city's hidden corners.
"Who sent the creatures?" he asked.
"Not who — what."
She stopped at a broken fountain, water frozen mid-spill like shattered crystal.
"The fracture is a wound in more than just the city.
It's a wound between worlds."
He frowned.
"Other worlds?"
Lira's eyes darkened.
"Places where memories and shadows collide.
Where forgotten things gather and grow.
Where your past — and your future — bleed into this reality."
Suddenly, the ground beneath them trembled.
From the fracture above, a shimmering figure descended.
Not a creature — but a woman.
Her skin was translucent, like smoke folded into glass.
Her eyes were deep wells of stars, endless and cold.
"You," she whispered, voice echoing inside his mind.
"You carry the fracture's root — the seed of ruin and rebirth."
Lira raised her blade.
"Stay back."
But he stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
The figure smiled — a slow, terrifying curve.
"I am the Echo.
The voice of what was lost.
And the herald of what must be undone."
The city's breath caught in his chest.
The seed pulsed wildly.
"What do you want?"
The Echo's gaze pierced him.
"To reclaim what was stolen.
To tear the fracture open wider.
To make the world bleed its memories until nothing remains."
He felt the roots in his chest tighten — a warning, a challenge.
"I won't let you."
The Echo laughed, a sound like breaking glass and falling stars.
"You cannot stop what is already coming.
You are both the wound… and the beginning of the end."
With a flick of her wrist, the fracture in the sky widened, sending a wave of cold darkness crashing down.
Lira caught him, pulling him into a shield of mirrored light.
"Hold on."
He closed his eyes as the darkness pressed in.
In the silence, a single word echoed in his mind.
"Remember."
End of Chapter 8.