The cafeteria was unusually empty.
No clang of trays, no half-hearted banter between recruits. Just the faint hum of sterilizers and the soft tick of wall-mounted timers counting down to something unseen.
Leo sat alone at a back table, picking at what could generously be called food. A gray protein slab and a cup of nutrient broth—barely more exciting than the scentless air around him. His body was still sore, but functional. Zekiel's gauntlet had left marks that no med-gel could erase.
Across the room, a figure slipped inside and moved with silent efficiency.
Instructor Vance.
Unlike Raelle's crisp and severe appearance, Vance always looked like he'd just walked out of a warzone—coat wrinkled, stubble unshaved, eyes scanning like they were still on a battlefield.
He didn't carry a tablet. He didn't need one.
"Adrael," he said, pulling out the seat across from Leo without waiting for permission.
Leo didn't stop chewing. "If this is about my table manners, I make no apologies."
Vance ignored the remark. "You've been pulled for reclassification."
That got Leo's attention.
He set down the nutrient bar slowly. "I wasn't aware I had a classification to begin with."
"You didn't. Not officially. That's changed." Vance leaned back in the chair, arms folded. "You were flagged by the Observation Core. They've been watching your Judgment logs."
"…Creepy."
"Necessary," Vance said, without humor. "They think you're exhibiting signs of pre-Adaptive compatibility."
Leo blinked. "That's not a real thing."
"It wasn't. Until now."
A long silence stretched between them. Somewhere behind the walls, a machine exhaled a blast of disinfectant gas.
"What does that mean?" Leo asked finally. "You think I'm mutating?"
"Not mutation," Vance replied. "Refinement. Evolution triggered by sustained exposure to Systemic pressure. You're adapting *faster* than your environment is updating to counter you."
"That's not how people work."
"No," Vance agreed. "But it's how survivors work."
He slid a metal cuff across the table. Sleek, obsidian black, with lines of faint silver running along its surface.
"You're being transferred to the Echo Unit."
Leo didn't touch it.
"What the hell is the Echo Unit?"
Vance's voice dropped. "They're the first responders to anomalies inside the System. Not all zones are static. Some… change. Expand. Eat other zones. When that happens, Echo goes in. Not to fix things. To *contain* them."
"And you want to put *me* there?"
Vance stood. "You're already halfway inside it, Leo. Might as well learn how to breathe."
He left without another word.
The cuff sat between Leo and his tray like a loaded question.
He didn't want to answer it.
But he would.
He always did.
Leo wasn't given time to reconsider.
An hour after Vance's visit, he was escorted from the residential sector by two Echo operatives—men whose faces were covered by reflective helms, their steps in perfect synchronicity. No words were exchanged. Not even a warning.
The transition center was located deep underground, past levels he didn't know existed. The elevator ride was long, silent, and lined with metal panels that pulsed faintly with veins of light—like the building itself had a pulse.
When the doors opened, he stepped into what looked nothing like the rest of the Nexus.
The Echo Wing wasn't polished. It was raw—unfinished concrete, exposed wiring, and rows of steel doors without labels. The lighting was dimmer, almost hesitant, casting long shadows across the hallway. A low hum filled the air, but it wasn't mechanical. It sounded… deeper. Like breathing. Or something pretending to breathe.
Leo followed the operatives until they reached a wide chamber with a domed ceiling. At its center, a circular platform pulsed with lines of System code in slow rotation. Six figures stood around it, their presence sharp enough to pierce the air.
Echo agents.
They looked different from everyone else Leo had seen in the Nexus. Their gear wasn't standardized—some wore hybrid armor suits with strange markings, others wrapped in ragged cloaks fused with metallic seams. Each one held themselves with the casual stillness of people who'd watched worlds fall.
A woman with ash-white braids stepped forward. Her eyes shimmered with an inner light—like twin stars held in orbit by sheer force of will.
"You're the new noise," she said.
Leo blinked. "You're the welcoming committee?"
"No." She motioned to a small control panel on the side of the platform. "I'm the one who decides if you come back."
"…Comforting."
"You'll be entering a live zone. One with unstable Judgment influence. We lost contact with a scouting drone four hours ago. You'll retrieve its core."
Leo frowned. "Why me?"
"Because you can still afford to be expendable."
The platform activated before he could reply. Symbols spiraled around him, the air thickening like it was being rewired. His breath caught in his throat as gravity twisted sideways, then inverted, then—
Nothing.
The world cracked.
Not with sound, but with *discontinuity*.
And Leo was somewhere else.
Leo hit the ground hard.
Or at least, what passed for ground. The terrain was a warped mesh of broken stone, jagged obsidian, and veins of shimmering crystal that pulsed intermittently with deep red light. Above, the sky was a churning mass of violet clouds, occasionally torn open by streaks of golden lightning that didn't flash, but *flickered*, like corrupted data trying to render properly.
He rolled to his feet, gasping, heart racing. His Echo-issued gear had deployed mid-transfer: reinforced jacket, lightweight boots, and a compact utility pack. His wristband blinked to life, displaying a crude map and three primary metrics: **Vital Signs**, **Judgment Integrity**, and **Signal Distance**.
"First step into madness," he muttered, scanning the surroundings.
The place had a name on his HUD: **Zone Theta-13**. But the System also added a warning in small, flickering font:
> Environmental Stability: Low
> Anomaly Concentration: Severe
> Judgment Density: Fluctuating
> Recommend: Immediate Extraction Upon Core Recovery
"No pressure," Leo breathed.
The landscape stretched out like a nightmare that forgot how to end. Twisted forests of metallic trees pulsed with unnatural rhythms, and the sky occasionally bent inward, distorting perspective like glass folding in on itself. The air was breathable, technically, but thick with the scent of ozone and burnt copper.
He activated the tracker. The drone's signal pinged faintly to the east.
Leo moved.
He kept his pace steady, watching the terrain shift subtly with each step. The ground didn't just react to weight—it *listened*, vibrating as if cataloging his presence. The farther he walked, the more wrong everything felt. Time didn't flow naturally here. He couldn't tell how long he'd been walking. Minutes? Hours?
And then the whispering began.
It wasn't loud. In fact, it barely registered as sound. But something was trying to talk to him—voices at the edge of thought, speaking in languages he didn't know yet somehow understood.
> "You shouldn't be here."
> "He watches through you."
> "Return what was taken."
Leo stopped cold.
"Okay," he said aloud, "creepy voices. Classic horror trope. But I'm not alone, right? Echo monitors all of this. Probably watching me freak out in real time. Laughing. Eating popcorn."
No reply.
He pressed forward, until a ridge opened up to a basin below.
The drone was there.
Or rather, *what remained* of it.
Its shell was half-melted, caved in by what looked like impact or pressure—except the surface was warped in patterns, like something had unraveled its existence. The core module blinked weakly, embedded deep inside the wreckage.
Leo took a cautious step down.
And that's when the light changed.
It dimmed—not like a sunset, but like someone had *removed* color from the world. The violet clouds above turned grey. The pulsing crystals dimmed. And something emerged from the shadows of the far rock wall.
It wasn't humanoid. Or animal. Or anything he could easily define.
It was like a patch of space had been erased—an outline of pure absence, edged in static and shimmer, crawling across the terrain like a glitch given purpose. Its movements were jerky and fluid at once, stuttering with each step, like time disagreed with its presence.
Leo froze. His pulse jumped to triple digits.
> Judgment Entity Detected
> Classification: Unknown
> Threat Level: Red
The HUD didn't offer a name. Just red.
The figure flickered, and in that moment, it *saw* him.
Leo turned and ran.
No plan, no strategy—just instinct, pure and blinding. He scrambled up the basin's edge, sensors blaring warnings, terrain deforming behind him as the anomaly surged forward.
He didn't look back.
Looking back in places like this got you killed.
Leo's breath burned his lungs as he sprinted through the twisted landscape, the unstable ground threatening to give way beneath his feet at every step. Behind him, the anomaly's flickering form pulsed closer, its unnatural distortions warping reality in its wake. The air rippled with static, and distant echoes of those sinister whispers surged into a rising chorus — voices threading through his mind, half warnings, half taunts.
His wristband beeped erratically, the **Judgment Integrity** metric oscillating wildly, a fragile bar teetering on collapse.
"Focus," Leo told himself. "Just get to the extraction point. Get the core. Get out. Repeat as needed."
But survival wasn't that simple here.
He glanced sideways and caught sight of a crack splitting open along the rock face. Without thinking, he dove into it, tumbling into a narrow tunnel lined with crystalline formations that shimmered faintly under the dim light. The anomaly hesitated at the entrance, its form flickering, struggling to follow.
Inside, silence swallowed everything except the pounding of Leo's heart. He pushed deeper, the tunnel's walls narrowing until he had to squeeze through a tight crevice, his jacket scraping against sharp edges.
When he emerged on the other side, the landscape had shifted again—gone was the cracked basin, replaced by a vast field of jagged, blackened spires piercing the violet sky like teeth. Somewhere in the distance, a pale glow beckoned.
Leo scanned his HUD — the drone core's signal was faint but intact. If he moved quickly, he could reach it before the anomaly recovered.
He sprinted toward the glow, weaving between spires, dodging falling debris. The ground beneath him trembled with every pulse from the crystalline veins embedded in the earth — nature itself seemed to shudder under the weight of this place's corruption.
Ahead, the drone core floated above a pedestal of broken stone, encased in a fragile bubble of energy.
"Jackpot," Leo muttered, slowing to catch his breath.
As he reached out, the bubble flickered violently — a warning.
The anomaly surged forward, its form coalescing into something more solid, more menacing. Dark tendrils of pure distortion extended toward him, warping the very air.
"Not today," Leo hissed, activating a small device from his utility pack.
A blinding flash erupted, a pulse of energy that ripped through the distortion like a blade cutting through smoke. The anomaly recoiled, its shape unraveling for a moment.
Seizing the chance, Leo grabbed the core.
Instantly, the bubble shattered, and a sharp jolt shot through him, like static electricity biting into his skin.
The core was heavy—alive somehow, humming with a power that was both alien and ancient.
His wristband chimed — extraction coordinates locked in.
But before he could move, a voice whispered again, clearer now, almost human.
"You carry what you do not understand. Beware what judgment you invoke."
Leo's grip tightened on the core.
"Yeah, yeah. I've heard the warnings. Just a little longer, then I'm out of this cosmic nightmare."
But deep inside, a seed of doubt settled, unspoken and unwelcome.
This place wasn't just a zone to scavenge. It was alive. Watching. Judging.
And Leo was already part of its game.