The Sink was gone.
Cael had put miles behind him, walking until his boots bled and the air stopped whispering backwards. But distance wasn't enough.
Not from the thing on his arm.
Not from what it had done.
Not from what it might do again.
The transit spine ahead stretched out like a broken scar, a strip of rail and slagmetal half-eaten by Lock corrosion. Strange flowers grew where bodies had fallen during old surges — curled metal petals, soft and sharp, feeding on trauma.
He didn't look at them.
Everyone knew what they were.
Memory thorns.
He kept moving, eyes low, breath shallow.
Somewhere behind him, the Sink breathed. Places like that didn't stay still. They folded. Shifted. Remade themselves like a guilt too loud to ignore.
He passed an iron post covered in burned-out lights. One flickered as he passed and whispered, softly:
"Don't—"
His jaw tightened.
The bridge dipped sharply ahead, mangled rails buckling like snapped bones. He paused, catching his breath — and his reflection shimmered in a puddle that shouldn't have been there.
He blinked.
And when he looked up again… the road was clean.
No ruins.
No wreckage.
No flowers.
A child walked ahead of him, laughing.
A woman's voice called:
"Cael! Stay where I can see you!"
He turned. Her face was warm. Familiar. She held something in her hand — a small stone spiral.
The Keymark.
"Want to see what it does?"
He blinked again — and the world shattered.
The decay returned. Blood rust. Bones in the weeds. The boy was gone. The voice gone with him.
He fell to one knee, vision swimming.
That wasn't mine.
Or maybe it was.
He rose, slower this time, and walked until the world remembered how to stay still. But the weight in his mind never left.
The road didn't just hold ghosts.
It echoed.
The first dog came silently.
Metal spine. Bone-teeth jaw. No growl — just motion.
It lunged from behind a ruptured pipe, snapping where Cael's shoulder had been a second earlier.
He ran.
Another followed. Then a third.
Scav-dogs.
Twisted, upgraded machines. Predators rebuilt by people who didn't believe in mercy.
He sprinted between two broken pillars where the path narrowed — and stopped.
Trap.
He raised his blade, knowing it was useless.
The dogs flanked.
Teeth glinted.
Then — a sharp thwip.
A steel dart zipped past his face and slammed into the lead dog's neck.
It yanked back violently — rope gone taut — and flipped twice before crashing into a pillar.
Another flash — an explosive charge hit the second dog's eye socket. Glass and bone sprayed.
Smoke.
And from the ridge above dropped a girl.
She landed light, too practiced for a scav.
Short-cropped hair. One boot taller than the other. A rope-gun strapped to her hip and a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes.
She looked at Cael like she'd just caught him stealing her tools.
"You really do attract the pretty ones," she said casually.
She tossed him a pouch.
"Painleaf. Chew it. You look like roadkill."
He didn't move.
"Who are you?"
"No one worth chasing."
She winked.
"But you? You've got something following you. And I don't mean the dogs."
The tunnel she led him to was half buried — an old subway station warped by time. Signal wires hung like vines. The screens blinked static in code.
Inside, it smelled of cold metal and lost time.
Lira dropped her pack and got to work dismantling something shiny.
Cael stayed back.
"You're not from here," she said, not looking up. "You move like someone waiting for the road to bite."
"Where'd you find the cult?"
He froze.
"He was wearing teeth," she added. "Dead giveaway."
He didn't speak.
"Did he see the mark?"
"What mark?"
She finally looked up — sharp and unreadable.
"Relax. I meant the imaginary one. You know, the one that gets people killed for gossip."
"Sometimes people claim they got marked by a Lock. Usually it's branding. Scars. Delusion."
"But real Keymarks? They don't show up without reason. And when they do…"
She held up a silver disk.
"This screams."
They ate quietly that night.
He didn't touch the scanner.
But she didn't press again.
Later, as the lights dimmed and their breath fogged the air, he spoke.
"He tried to carve it out of me."
"The cultist?"
"Said I wasn't worthy. Said I was a shell. Tried to kill me."
"What happened?"
"I didn't do anything. It did."
She didn't mock him. Didn't smile.
She just said:
"That's how it starts."
He stared.
"You've seen it?"
"Once."
That was all she gave.
He didn't sleep.
Not really.
But he closed his eyes.
And whispered — to himself, maybe. Or to the thing in his skin.
"Nothing rules me unless I let it."
Silence.
Then:
"Say that again," Lira said.
His eyes opened.
She was staring. No smirk now.
"What?"
"That phrase. Say it again."
"It's just something I said."
"No," she said quietly. "It's not."
She pulled out a scroll. Old. Thin. Covered in symbols that bled through.
She pointed halfway down and read:
"Vas ul'ethrin kadas."
"Command phrase. From the old war. Not something you just think up."
Cael said nothing.
She rolled the parchment away and leaned back.
Eyes thoughtful.
Voice soft.
"Sleep if you want.
But if you dream… pay attention."
End of Chapter 3: Echoes Leave Teeth