The lift came to a halt with a sound that wasn't mechanical, but organic—a low groan, like old lungs exhaling after a thousand years of silence. No one spoke as the translucent barrier dissolved into a shimmer, leaving behind only the dense, lightless air ahead.
They had arrived.
The chamber that welcomed them was not a room—it was a fracture in space. Walls curved inwards and outwards at impossible angles, like some geometry professor's nightmare. Floating platforms drifted lazily above a dark chasm, tethered by nothing but intent. Light here wasn't light—it bled from the seams of the world, slow and blue, barely enough to see.
Kaela stepped out first, her visor flickering as it tried—and failed—to map the terrain. "Structure integrity undefined," she muttered. "Topography isn't static. We're in a partial echo field."
