The hallway was on fire.
Not literal flames—yet—but sparks rained from shattered lights, and warning strobes bathed everything in violent red pulses. Smoke burned Elias's throat as Mara dragged him through the corridor, boots slipping on melted polymer flooring.
His legs barely worked.
Each step felt delayed, as though his body had to ask permission before moving. The static roared louder with every heartbeat, no longer a background presence but an invasive force scraping against his thoughts.
They're behind you.
The thought was not his.
A concussive blast detonated behind them. Elias was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, vision exploding into white pain. He slid down hard, gasping.
Mara turned and fired blindly down the corridor. Pulse rounds slammed into advancing armored figures, staggering them but not stopping their advance.
"Get up!" she shouted.
Elias tried.
His muscles screamed in protest. His body felt wrong—too light in places, unbearably heavy in others. He clawed at the wall, fingers scraping bloody grooves into the metal as he forced himself upright.
The static spiked again.
For a split second, the hallway peeled open.
He saw another version of it layered beneath reality—elongated, decayed, with dark shapes clinging to the ceiling like corpses caught mid-fall. One of them turned its head toward him.
Elias screamed.
The vision snapped shut.
Mara grabbed him again, half-carrying him toward the emergency stairwell. The door blew open just as another drone burst through the smoke, its red lens flaring brighter.
"Lethal authorization granted," it announced.
Mara didn't hesitate.
She shoved Elias down the stairs and turned back, emptying her magazine into the drone at point-blank range. It detonated, spraying shrapnel that shredded her jacket and cut deep into her shoulder.
She grunted but kept moving.
They fell down the stairwell together, tumbling hard until they slammed into a lower landing. Elias hit his head and the world spun violently.
Footsteps echoed above them.
Too many.
"Continuum has Wardens on site," Mara said through clenched teeth. "This is worse than I thought."
Elias blinked. "Wardens?"
Her eyes flicked away. That hesitation—brief, guilty—burned itself into his mind.
Before he could ask, the stairwell door below them creaked open.
Not forced.
Not kicked in.
It simply opened.
A man stood there, tall and thin, wearing a long coat stitched with faded sigils Elias couldn't focus on without nausea. His hair was streaked with gray, his eyes sunken—but alert. Sharply alert.
The static recoiled.
Elias felt it pull away from him, shrinking like an animal sensing a larger predator.
The man raised one hand.
"Enough," he said.
The stairwell fell silent.
The footsteps above halted abruptly, as if whatever approached had decided not to come any closer.
Mara froze, gun raised.
"Don't," the man said calmly. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be echoing."
He turned his gaze to Elias.
And smiled faintly.
"So," he said, voice low and rough. "You're the one screaming into the Veil without knowing how to breathe."
Elias tried to speak. Nothing came out.
The man stepped aside. "Move. Now. Before the Choir notices the noise you're making."
Mara hesitated only a second—then grabbed Elias and dragged him past the stranger. The stairwell door slammed shut behind them, and something sealed with a sound like tearing fabric.
They emerged into the undercity.
Greyline's lowest layer was a corpse of infrastructure and forgotten people. Steam hissed from cracked pipes, and broken signage flickered like dying stars. The air pressed down heavy and wet, every sound muffled and distorted.
Elias collapsed the moment they stopped.
His body convulsed violently. Blood leaked from his nose and ears as the static surged back in force, furious now—panicked.
The man crouched beside him.
"Unawakened Echo-Bearer," he muttered. "Barely holding together. They usually don't last this long."
Mara rounded on him. "You said you could hide us."
"I said I could delay them," the man replied evenly. "Big difference."
He pulled off his glove.
The skin beneath was wrong—etched with black, vein-like patterns that moved when Elias looked at them.
"I'm Rook," the man said. "Former Warden. Current liability."
Elias convulsed harder.
The static condensed.
Focused.
Rook's eyes snapped to Elias. "That's bad."
"What's happening to him?" Mara demanded.
Rook didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he pressed two fingers to Elias's forehead.
Reality cracked.
Elias screamed as something ripped through his senses. He saw memories that weren't his—cities collapsing silently, people unraveling into ash, Echo-Bearers tearing themselves apart from the inside out.
He saw himself among them.
Rook pulled away sharply, breathing hard.
"He's forming Resonance already," Rook said grimly. "Too fast. Too raw."
Mara swallowed. "Can you stop it?"
"No," Rook said. "But I can teach him how not to die from it."
A metallic screech echoed from the distance.
The Choir was closer.
Elias's eyes snapped open.
Something inside him snapped with them.
A figure lunged from the shadows—one of the undercity scavengers, drawn by the noise, eyes wild. He raised a blade.
Elias didn't think.
He reacted.
The static collapsed inward.
The air twisted violently, compressing around the man's head with a sound like imploding glass.
Blood sprayed.
The body dropped.
Silence followed.
Elias stared at his shaking hands, horror flooding his face.
"I— I didn't—"
Rook stood slowly.
"…There it is," he said quietly.
Mara looked at the corpse, then at Elias.
Her expression broke.
The static whispered.
You can't go back now.
And far beyond the Veil, something ancient leaned forward on its throne.
The echo had learned how to bite.