Aerenyx did not slow down when he left the amphitheater.
The bodies behind him were already cooling in their seats, their final breaths dissolving into the recycled air as systems tried—and failed—to compensate for death.
The alarms had shifted pitch, no longer localized, no longer organized. It was like the facility was bleeding in frequencies meant to signal containment, but containment was no longer possible and ever the building seemed to understand that.
And despite it all, he walked through it all without urgency.
Death followed him the way gravity followed mass.
The corridor beyond the amphitheater was narrower, its walls reinforced for pressure rather than observation. This was not a place built for crowds or performance. This was where infrastructure lived. Where systems connected. Where mistakes were buried and forgotten.
It was here that people began to die without witnesses.
