The moment the bunker caved in, Mr. Ferborn blasted into the air on some kind of propeller device, artificial resonance strings swirling around him like glowing tendrils. He cut through the swarm above in a violent collision of sound and song—an explosion of noise Elias didn't have the luxury to admire.
He was seconds away from dying.
The first Echoform reached him, and up close… Elias wished he'd never seen its true form.
It was humanoid, its translucent skin looking like blood‑soaked glass. Beneath that skin pulsed hundreds of heart‑shaped cores, each beating out of sync, like a chorus gone wrong. Its face had no features—just a long slit stretching from ear to ear.
And from that slit, it sang.
An eerie, twisted melody that made Elias spit blood instantly.
Then—worse—he felt his lust spike so violently he almost lost control.
Launder's earlier words flashed in his mind.
The orchestra of desire.
These Echoforms weren't just ordinary monsters.
They were Echoforms of desire.
Elias bit down hard on his lip, trying to choke back the spell clawing at his mind, and he ran.
His parents were nowhere in the chaos. The thought clenched his chest like a fist. The staircase was only a few meters away—but with Echoforms pouring in, it may as well have been miles.
They swarmed him.
Hands—too many hands—wrapped around his waist, his arms, his chest. Some hugged him from behind, others pinned his limbs. Their broken songs tore through his head, shattering his sanity. Blood streamed from his eyes, ears, and nose as he fought the compulsion to give in.
"Get away from me, motherfuckers!" Elias screamed, shoving, clawing, forcing his way through the symphony of madness. Tears of blood streaked down his face.
But it was useless.
Not when he wasn't even awakened. Not when he was barely capable of defending himself. Not when he was still so weak.
Elias tried to take a step forward. He tried to push, to shove his way out again. But his hands wouldn't move. His mind wasn't responding—not from fatigue, but because its final barriers had shattered. The broken songs had overridden everything.
He fell to his knees, face blank as waves of Echoforms closed in, hugging him from all sides. Their voices rose in chaotic harmony, a maddening symphony.
"Eliiiaas…"
A seductive voice called his name. His head jerked up.
It was Megan—the school's golden girl from Elementary Symphony School. She was dressed in clothes that left her chest and thighs nearly bare. Her golden hair flicked back as she leaned toward him, sky-blue eyes glinting with a teasing hunger. Her hands slid around his neck.
"Tell me, Elias," she whispered, pressing close, lips brushing his forehead. "Don't you want to… touch me?" Her tongue traced the tip of his ear, sending shivers down his spine. "I won't stop you. I'll be obedient… all you have to do is touch."
"Touch…" Elias mumbled, trance-like, his hands lifting almost instinctively.
"Yes… touch me, Elias," her voice stacked on itself, growing darker, hungrier. "I'm all yours. Do with me what you want. You're so close…"
"Get the hell away from my son!"
The new voice cracked through the rhythm like a gunshot. Elias' trance shattered.
His hand hovered midair, inches from certain doom, but the Echoforms were no longer around him. They had formed a circle around his parents, who looked… resigned, eyes glazed as if they had already surrendered.
"What are you two doing?! Get the hell away from there!" Elias screamed, tears welling as the horror of the moment hit him. He could see it happening—but that didn't make it any easier to accept.
"Elias…" his mother called softly, tears streaking her face, voice barely audible over the wailing Echoforms. "Live… be happy. I hope… one day… you will no longer be cursed with the memory of this day."
"Elias…" his father's voice followed, shaking but steady with pride. "I have never felt so proud… and I wouldn't trade this moment for anything. Run, Elias. Survive. Don't let our sacrifice… be for nothing."
And then they fell silent. The Echoforms closed in, shrieking in what sounded like delight, surrounding both his parents as they lay on the ground.
"No! No!" Elias screamed, collapsing to the floor. His legs gave out. He couldn't move. He couldn't think. He just screamed as the horror swallowed him whole.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
He hit his head on the floor over and over, then gritted his teeth, pushed himself to his feet, and began running for the stairs, bloody tears streaming down his face in torrents.
This time, he made it out of the bunker, stepping into streets filled with nothing but madness and broken songs.
He walked lifelessly through the streets, ignoring the humans-turned-echolings who approached him with deranged smiles and eerie giggles.
Passing the plaza at the center of town, he saw maddened humans playing violins and drums in discordant notes—an unsettling soundtrack to the fallen city.
"The Echoforms… are gone," Elias mumbled, half dazed, his hazy eyes scanning the chaos around him.
Without thinking, he continued down the streets, heading nowhere in particular, his mind in shambles.
"Mum… dad…" he sobbed, voice shaking as tears spilled, lifting his torn polo to wipe the blood and filth from his face. "I promise… one way or another, I will save you from the corruption, even if it's the last thing I do."
Then he stopped. A smile spread across his face, and he began to laugh.
"Wait… what exactly can I do?"
"I am weak. Pathetic. Trash!"
"I let you die… I let everyone die. I am useless. USELESS!"
He looked up at the dark sky and laughed, clapping his hands in mockery.
"Are you finally happy now, you son of a bastard called fate? I'm finally learning to accept the weakness you imposed on me! I can almost see you scratching your ass in a happy dance, asshole!"
THUNDER RUMBLED!
"That's right! I'm trying to annoy you, motherfucker! Rumble all you want, scream all you want—but guess what? There's probably nothing you can do to screw me over more than you already have!" Elias screamed, breathless.
For a moment, the sky went silent. Nothing happened.
Then it came down like a flash of fire.
Red lightning struck the ground with the force of a sonic blast, casting Arvenelle in a crimson net of destruction so overwhelming that half the city ignited instantly.
The blast hit right in front of him, sending Elias flying a few meters into the air. He slammed into the frame of a wooden shop, breaking it into splinters.
He got up immediately, running as another bolt of lightning hit the spot where he had fallen, the explosion ringing in his ears like a warhorn.
"Wait—you're telling me, out of billions of people who probably cursed you, I just had to be taken seriously? Don't be such a petty bastard!" Elias shouted, but the lightning didn't listen, hammering the city in relentless torrents.
From that moment, it became a race against instant death. Elias ran through the onslaught, dodging explosions that tore wounds into him and snapped bones. But dying wasn't an option—not after his parents had traded their lives for him.
"Fuck you, fate!" he yelled, flipping the sky the bird as he sprinted. "Is this your pathetic strength, you weak—"
A massive bolt of lightning erupted right in front of him, launching him several meters into the air in a devastating recoil.
He landed on his shoulders, bones cracking under the force of the fall.
"AAAAGH!"
Elias screamed until his voice went hoarse.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
He lay still on the ground, gritting his teeth, waiting for the pain to fade. That's when he noticed something strange.
The lightning ripping through the city didn't touch the area where he had fallen. He squinted, scanning his surroundings. He recognized the park—a place where kids gathered to swap notes and learn instruments.
Grunting in pain, he forced himself to his feet and flexed his arms.
He felt nothing.
"Just great," he muttered. "If I was barely surviving this place with working hands, I guess broken ones will do wonders."
He was about to sink to the ground when something caught his eye. Something that shouldn't be there.
"Is that…" he whispered, swallowing hard. "…a freaking Mirrorth?"
It hovered in the middle of the park, its invisible outline traced by glowing black veins. Unlike other Mirrorths, which usually arrived accompanied by broken songs, this one was silent.
Almost… painfully harmless.
But Elias stepped back anyway, limbs trembling. Mirrorths are graded by seven colors representing their devastation levels—red being the weakest, cyan the strongest.
But there was never a record of a black-graded Mirrorth.
Which meant one of two things: either the stress of the night was finally catching up to his eyes… or the Mirrorth in front of him heralded an apocalypse.
Elias spun around, half-running toward the park exit. He needed to go anywhere but here—as far away as possible from the Mirrorth.
But he hadn't gotten far before something completely out of his calculations happened.
He felt himself lifted off the ground, and before he could even process the shift, he was flung over the shoulders of what had to be a very large man—probably an Echoling.
"Put me down, you bastard!" Elias screamed, but all that answered him were eerie laughs that crawled into his bones.
A terrible premonition gripped him as he realized the Echoling was heading straight for the Mirrorth he would have given anything to avoid.
"Hey… good sir," Elias called, his face paling. "I think… I think you're going the wrong way."
The Echoling didn't stop. Panic clawed through him, sharp and overwhelming.
"Get me off! Get me off right now! No! Don't go any closer, you insane bastard! Someone save me! Help!" His legs kicked, his hands flailed, but his hands weren't working—they never worked when he needed them most.
The Echoling stopped in front of the silent Mirrorth, tilting its head as if studying it. Then it lifted Elias' shivering body higher, holding him in the air—and smiled.
"Please…" Elias begged, tears streaking his face.
The Echoling giggled, as if he were some adorable toy. Then, with no ceremony, it flung him like a sack of potatoes straight into the Mirrorth.
"FUCK YOU, BASTARD!" Elias screamed midair.
And then the Mirrorth swallowed him whole.