I don't remember falling asleep.
I just remember waking up with blood in my mouth and dust in my lungs, lying on cracked stone and wondering if I was still me.
The light was dim. Not from the sun, because there was no sun down here. Just a red pulse threading faintly through the fractures in the ground. The last echoes of the Nexus vein I'd followed… flickering now. Weak.
My breath came shallow. My arms shook when I pushed myself up.
I wasn't sure how long I'd been unconscious, or what had happened after Orion vanished. I couldn't even trust my memories anymore. There were moments where it felt like he'd never existed at all. Others where I saw his smile burned into the walls like an afterimage of a bomb.
But I remembered the hunger.
I remembered letting go.
I remembered what it felt like when the Dark Nexus took over.
And I didn't like how easy it had been.
The floor around me was warped. Not broken—warped. Like reality had tried to snap itself back into place and failed. Some of the stone bled upward in curls, frozen mid-fold like petals. Other parts were liquified into glass, frozen mid-drip.
Orion had done that. Or maybe I had. Hard to tell where he ended and I began in that moment.
I stood, slowly. My legs felt heavier than they should've. My body didn't ache like it was injured—it ached like it was still being rewritten.
The Nexus lines under my feet buzzed faintly. Still there. Still waiting.
I followed them.
Because that was all I had left.
The deeper I went, the quieter the world became.
At first, I thought I'd lost my hearing. But it wasn't that. There was still the sound of my footsteps, the scuff of boots over stone, the soft rasp of breath against the inside of my mask.
But the world had stopped speaking.
No wind. No hum. No psychic pressure.
Even the Nexus inside me was silent.
And that… terrified me.
For months, it had whispered in pulses and instinct. Not words. Just presence. Hunger. Direction.
But now, it was as still as a grave.
I tried to ignore the way that made my chest tighten. I kept walking.
The air grew colder. The walls have more geometric, unnatural angles carved into the stone, etched with symbols I didn't recognize. They weren't glowing. They weren't reacting to me anymore.
Whatever energy had responded to my arrival… it was gone.
Dead, maybe.
No. Worse.
Withdrawn.
Like something ancient had been watching.
And now it was turning its back.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a large chamber.
The ceiling stretched so high I couldn't see where it ended. The floor was smooth, perfectly round, and empty.
Just a single platform in the center, like a raised dais. And atop it—nothing.
No console. No pillar. No light.
No sister.
No lock.
No answers.
I stood there for a long time.
Just breathing.
Letting the weight of that emptiness settle into my skin.
The Nexus pulse inside me remained still. Not severed—just… waiting.
Almost like it was saying: You're here too early. Or too late.
A flicker of rage sparked in my gut.
I stepped onto the platform.
My voice echoed through the chamber, low and hoarse.
"Where is she?"
No answer.
I closed my eyes and focused, channeling the part of me that had reached Booker, that had bent space, that had created and destroyed and rewritten pieces of the world in fits of panic and grief.
I called out with every fiber of who I was.
"Aaliah."
Nothing.
I knelt, pressed my palm to the floor. Tried to reach again. Tried to feel the hum of her echo.
But there was only silence.
Only stone.
Only cold.
For the first time in days, I didn't feel like the center of anything.
I felt like a child lost in a museum made by gods, staring at empty walls and trying to understand why none of them spoke anymore.
The visions had led me here.
The power had surged when I came close.
The glyphs had recognized me.
The lines had followed my every step.
And now? The path just… ended.
No trail. No signal. No sister. No purpose.
Just me.
And a silence so complete, it felt like it was watching me fall apart.
I sat on the platform and let my legs hang off the side.
I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just sat.
I thought about the others.
Booker, still recovering. Maddie, trying to hold everyone together. Chase, staring at readouts he didn't understand but still trying. Jacob, angry and loyal and always expecting me to lead. Rev, patching up systems while patching himself.
They didn't know I was down here.
And now I wasn't sure if I even deserved to be the one who led them anymore.
I followed a signal that gave me nothing. I gave in to a power that nearly devoured me. I fought a Harbinger I didn't understand. I woke up in a place I couldn't explain.
And I had no idea what came next.
I let out a slow breath and lay back on the platform.
The stone was freezing.
My body still felt wrong. My pulse was off. My shadow didn't follow the same direction it used to.
The Nexus wasn't amplifying anymore.
It was consuming.
And I didn't know how to stop it.
Maybe that's why it led me here.
Not to find Aaliah.
Not to find the lock.
Maybe it led me here to find nothing.
To watch me break in a quiet place, far from everyone who cared. To see if I'd give in completely.
To see what happened when I had no reason left to fight it.
The thought made me shiver.
The silence pressed harder.
But then—
Just as I stood to leave—
One of the glyphs on the far wall pulsed.
Once.
Faint.
I froze.
It wasn't part of the Nexus thread. Not like the lines I'd followed. This was something else. Smaller. Older.
A different language. A different rhythm.
It flickered again.
Not a pattern I recognized.
Not a location.
Not a warning.
A summons
I approached slowly, cautious.
The glyph pulsed a third time.
And for a heartbeat, I felt watched.
But not by the Nexus.
By something outside of it.
I didn't reach out. Not yet.
I turned away and started back up the tunnel.
I'd wasted enough time.
The path back was worse.
Not because it was longer.
But because I had nothing to carry with me but failure.
I was supposed to bring something back.
A message.
A sign.
A victory.
Instead, I was returning with the same questions I'd left with—and a power inside me that didn't feel like mine anymore.
I didn't know how to tell the team that.
Didn't know if I could.
But I was done following echoes.
If I were going to get Aaliah back—if I was going to survive whatever was coming—
I needed a new plan.
I needed to stop reacting.
And start deciding.
I climbed, step by step, breath by breath.
And somewhere deep behind me, buried under stone and forgotten geometry, the glyph pulsed a fourth time.
Soft.
Patient.
Waiting.