Sunlight filtered through the canopy, casting speckled patterns across the dirt path as our group pressed deeper into the forest. The ground gradually shifted beneath our boots, soil giving way to broken stone and creeping roots as remnants of old streets began to emerge.
"Hey, how about chess?" Henry said again, as if the thought had just occurred to him. "I bet I could beat you in chess."
I groaned, not even trying to hide it this time. "Henry, let it go. You lost one game of checkers."
"Three games," he corrected. "But only because you play like some kind of calculating warlord. I mean, who sacrifices their own pieces like that unless they've got something diabolical in mind?"
"Someone who understands how checkers works," I replied dryly, brushing a branch out of my way. "And no, we're not stopping for a rematch. We'd be left behind."
He waved a dismissive hand and walked backward now, careful not to trip over the uneven stone. "We wouldn't need to stop. You can summon stuff, right? Just conjure up a floating chessboard."
"Absolutely not."
"Imagine it," he pressed, hands raised as if presenting something grand. "The whispers of the wind. The quiet tap of pawns. The agony of your inevitable defeat."
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words died as the trees thinned around us.
The city rose ahead, climbing higher the farther we went. Buildings crowded in, broken towers and fractured spires leaning toward one another like tired giants. By the time we reached what must have once been the city's heart, Henry had finally fallen silent.
Stonework etched with worn inscriptions lined the streets, their meaning dulled by centuries of rain and wind. The architecture was intricate in ways no one practiced anymore, designs meant to last forever, yet here they were, cracked and overgrown as nature reclaimed everything. Roots split marble plazas, trees burst through old windows, and vines wrapped iron railings rusted nearly to nothing. Faded murals peeked through cracked plaster, fragments of stories no one remembered how to read.
Our boots scraped softly over loose gravel, crushed tile, and dried leaves. Wind threaded through hollowed corridors, humming through shattered arches and ivy-choked balconies.
Ahead, a narrow passage opened between two leaning towers, their spines crooked and groaning whenever the breeze picked up.
Emily walked just ahead of me and stopped, her eyes fixed on the fractured arch overhead.
"Are we sure this is safe?" she asked, a bit uneasy at the sight.
Amelia glanced back. "It's held this long, so just keep moving, and we'll be fine."
Emily nodded, though she pressed herself closer to the wall in an attempt to be out of the way, just in case.
Nearby, Benjamin knelt beside a crumbled fountain, brushing dust from a half-buried sculpture. The corner of his mouth lifted as he sketched, as if the ruin itself was speaking to him.
The deeper we went, the heavier everything felt, as if time itself were pressing down.
Then we reached it.
A massive plaza opened before us, ringed by the shattered remains of once-grand columns. At its center stood a towering fortress, its metal exterior scarred and blackened, as though fire had raked across it again and again. The massive doors were buckled outward, forced from the inside.
As we moved, it became clear this was the target, as the expedition flooded into the entrance at the instructions of those at the forefront.
I started forward with the others, boots scuffing against worn stone, but after a few steps, I noticed everyone else slowing behind me. I turned just in time to see Amelia helping Emily to her feet.
I hadn't even noticed her fall back.
Emily clutched Amelia's arm as she steadied herself. Her face was pale, hair clinging damply to her cheek despite the cool air. Our eyes met, and for the briefest of moments, she looked utterly terrified.
Then it was gone.
Whatever it had been slipped behind a mask she pulled back into place.
Amelia leaned in, whispering something I couldn't hear, her hand steady at Emily's back as they caught up.
No one said a word as we passed beneath the archway, the fortress swallowing us like a waiting giant.
Inside, the temperature dropped as the air thickened with dust and damp earth. Our footsteps echoed softly at first, then faded as we ventured deeper into the tunnel, each sound swallowed by the widening darkness. But before it could fully envelop us, a voice cut through the silence.
"Light it up."
Without hesitation, dozens of orbs ignited, floating into the air like awakened stars pushing back the gloom as the passage continued downward at a slow, steady slope.
Emily's eyes lit up in awe, her voice hushed. "It's beautiful…"
The further we went, the more surreal it became. The orbs drifted beside us, illuminating ancient etchings embedded into the support beams that kept the halls from collapsing.
"There must've been serious infrastructure built down here," I murmured, watching the light flicker across hundreds of pipes flowing downwards.
"No kidding," Henry replied, glancing around. "Can you imagine the budget? Whole teams probably worked years on this."
The tunnel wound slowly downward for what felt like miles, the air growing cooler by the minute as we descended deeper.
Finally, the space began to widen. Our steps slowed instinctively as the faint glow of the orbs ahead illuminated something vast. Turning the final corner, we emerged into a massive subterranean chamber.
And there it was.
An underground city, gleaming with metal untouched by time. Towering structures of silver and steel from the cavern floor, lit by soft lights embedded high along the curved ceiling. Unlike the ruined buildings above, these stood firm, adorned with strange sigils, smooth glass, and intricate designs that caught the light like art.
The circular ceiling above seemed to curve endlessly, held aloft by massive support columns as thick as buildings.
"Well… you don't see that every day," I muttered, utterly in awe at the vastness of the structure.
Ahead, Thorian's voice echoed softly in the chamber, a firm reminder: "Stay sharp."
Ella's excitement cracked through the awe. "I have to see every corner of this place," she whispered, her eyes wide with wonder.
But Benjamin's voice came in low and serious. "We need to be careful. These cities were built to keep people out, and we don't know if their defenses are still active."
Then, as if in response to his words, the wall nearby exploded.
Sparks flew, Metal groaned, and A panel ruptured outward, sending debris scattering across the floor.
From the smoke, something emerged like a waking beast from hibernation. An ancient sentinel, its body supported by four thick legs, stepped into view. Gun-like appendages unfolded from its back with eerie precision, locking into place as glowing optics came online.
I stood there, stunned, until Henry's voice broke the spell.
"You just had to jinx it, didn't you?"
Just then, the mec spoke up as gun-like attachments began to spin. "Intruders detected."
Yet before the guns could fully charge, an energy dome snapped into place around our expedition force, projected by a select group among us. The barrier shuddered as the projectiles struck it, sparks skittering across its surface. Thorian's voice cut through the chaos, rallying the long-range combatants to prepare an attack.
As the mechanical sentinel paused to recharge, the protective shield vanished, giving our long-range mages their chance.
Bolts of lightning, jets of flame, and lances of pure energy tore through the air, slamming into the towering machine. Its hexagonal barrier began to crack, fractures spreading rapidly across its surface like spiderwebs under pressure.
And through the chaos, I managed to identify it. Terravault Enclave, Class 6 Protector.
Huh… no level?
I frowned. I mean, that made sense. Something like this had to be way higher level than me. But then another thought crept in. What if it didn't have a level at all? What if it operated on something else entirely?
A flicker of movement pulled my attention back just in time to see its shields sputter, the glow dimming unevenly. Even this thing had limits.
The final volley hit all at once. With a sharp crack, followed by the sound of shattering glass, what remained of the barrier exploded outward, leaving the machine fully exposed as the storm of spells came crashing in.
Still, it didn't fall. Not right away.
Even stripped of protection, it withstood the barrage for what felt like forever, its frame sparking and groaning as spell after spell hammered into it.
And then—
Boom!
The sentinel erupted in a brilliant and cataclysmic explosion, a blinding flash of light accompanied by a deafening roar that reverberated through the enclosed space. Shards of jagged metal and debris were flung in all directions, a deadly rain of destruction. Instinctively, I braced for impact, only for the shimmering blue shield to reappear just in time, encasing us in its protective embrace. The force of the blast struck the barrier with an almost deafening clang, sparking bursts of blue light across its surface as the smoke and shrapnel slammed against it.
For a moment, the world was in chaos. Smoke choked the air, and the heat of the explosion left a metallic tang lingering in my throat. Slowly, the tumult settled, the haze dissipating to reveal the devastation left behind. Sharp metal fragments were embedded in the surrounding walls, some still hissing with residual heat. The ground was scorched and littered with debris, the once-imposing sentinel reduced to ruins.
"Dang," I muttered, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene. "It would be nice to have a shield power."
Henry let out a dry laugh, the sound cutting through the heavy air. "No kidding."
For a moment, none of us moved, the sheer scale of destruction rendering us silent. Then, with a collective breath, the expedition resumed its march toward the massive opening that led deeper into the city.
As we descended the towering walls enclosing the underground city, the full extent of the destruction unfolded before us. It was overwhelming. Thousands upon thousands of broken mechs lay strewn across the expanse like the casualties of a long-forgotten war. Twisted limbs and shattered torsos of mechanical giants were scattered as far as the eye could see, some piled high in grotesque mounds, their metal shells riddled with rust and decay. The air itself felt heavy, the faint scent of oil and scorched metal lingering like the ghosts of battles long past.
"What happened here?" I found myself whispering, though I wasn't expecting an answer. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the distant clatter of shifting debris as the expedition carved a path through the graveyard of mechs. The sound of boots crunching over metal fragments was a stark reminder of how fragile our footing was in this mechanical wasteland.
Ella walked ahead of me, her gaze darting from one ruined mech to the next, her expression a mix of fascination and sorrow. "Such a waste, a whole civilization just gone," she murmured, almost to herself. Her fingers brushed the surface of a rusting arm, the metal flaking beneath her touch.
Seeing that the weight of the scene was pulling her spirits down, I tried to offer some optimism. "Hey, who knows? Maybe we'll stumble across another intact mech, just like the one that attacked us."
She glanced at me, the faintest flicker of hope crossing her face before it was overtaken by doubt.
"Maybe," she said with a small shrug. "But still… all of this, just wasting away here? It's a shame."
"Well," I said with a faint smile, trying to pull her out of it, "I guess that just means there's more for you to work with."
To my relief, the corner of her lips twitched into a small smile, and soon enough we reached the bottom of the chasm, where the city's gates loomed before us. But any sense of peace we might have expected died the moment we saw them.
They were burst outward, like pressure had built from inside and torn them apart. Deep claw marks scored the metal, raking across the surface like the fury of some caged thing finally unleashed. The steel was bent and twisted in ways that didn't make sense for an invading force.
No… this wasn't something trying to get in.
Something had broken out.
I swallowed hard but said nothing as we crossed the threshold, descending into the city's metallic heart. What waited on the other side only deepened the unease.
The streets were a graveyard.
Scattered mech corpses lay like broken monuments to a war long forgotten. Their metal husks were twisted, scorched, and split open like crushed cans. Shattered armor glinted beneath layers of dust, and severed limbs jutted from debris like skeletal remains.
Whatever happened here, it hadn't been a battle.
It was a slaughter.
"Look at this place," Amelia whispered, her voice tinged with awe. "I cant imagine what it was like in this city's final moments."
"Yeah," Henry added, kicking a piece of debris. "Makes you wonder what happened here."
As we pressed on, the air began to change. What started as a subtle chill soon thickened into something weightier. Each breath felt more labored, each step more deliberate, as if the city itself were trying to slow our approach.
The streets narrowed, winding deeper into the collapsed heart of the underground city. Our footsteps echoed off cracked metal and crumbled concrete, each one a stark reminder of the silence pressing in around us.
Then the movement up ahead stopped.
The people furthest to the front rounded a corner and froze.
We pushed through the stalled crowd, tension mounting with every step until we reached the front and saw why.
A jagged pile of rusting mechs rose like a twisted monument. And impaled on one of them, ran clean through by a jagged sword, was a creature.
Its body—an unholy mass of muscle and deformity—was frozen in death, yet still radiated menace. Misshapen limbs jutted out at unnatural angles, and dispersed in between each were dozens of mouths filled to the brim with teeth, and what should've been eyes were nothing more than hollow, gaping sockets.
No one spoke.
Even in death, it was horrifying enough to steal the breath from your lungs. An aberration so alien, so wrong, it made everything else feel almost ordinary by comparison.
"Oh man, I'm gonna feel sick," Henry groaned, averting his eyes, though the sight of others vomiting didn't help the situation in the slightest.
"You can't handle a corpse, man," I teased, although I knew it went way beyond just the feeling of a corpse. It was almost like my very existence was repulsed by it.
"Yeah, man, I'm honestly surprised you can handle all this," Henry said, eyeing the carnage around us. "I mean, look at Ella—she's pale. Like, really pale. Actually… you good, Ella?"
She didn't answer, just doubled over and vomited onto the ground.
"…Right. Never mind," he muttered, wincing. "For the record, I'm barely hanging on myself."
"Yeah, and now the air smells like stomach acid," I muttered, stepping back and covering my nose. "I'm not standing around in this."
As if on cue, Thorian's voice rang out through the gloom, amplified by the silence. It carried through the group like a jolt of electricity, spurring the frozen crowd into motion.
"Well, you heard the man," I added. "Let's go."
But moving forward wasn't as simple.
The path was choked with wreckage, twisted heaps of mangled machines and rotting, nightmarish corpses. There was no way around. If we wanted to continue, we had to go over.
Which was a slow and tedious process, as no one rushed, since not a single person wanted to touch the corpses of an abomination. They avoided them like it was the plague, as if merely touching them could infect you.
Climbing became a slow, awkward ordeal. Every step was cautious, every handhold tentative. The mechs were bad enough, but the abominations… The sight of their bloated, contorted forms made your skin crawl. I could have sworn I had seen an arm twitch, but as I turned back, they lay motionless.
Each person moved with visible dread, grimacing with every squelch of a boot or brush against something unrecognizably organic.
As we descended the far side, the horror didn't ease. The streets were lined with mummified humans, frozen mid-scream, their flesh twisted into grotesque parodies of life. Whatever had killed them hadn't done so quickly. It had taken its time, reveling in cruelty.
The stench of decay clung to everything. Every step felt like an intrusion into something vile, like walking through a mausoleum that still remembered the screams.
Ella was ghost-pale, her eyes vacant, barely blinking. Henry kept his gaze locked to the ground, deliberately sidestepping anything that even resembled a face. Around us, everyone wore the same look of revulsion etched deep into their features, as if the city itself was pressing down on them, daring them to keep looking.
But then there was Benjamin.
His jaw was clenched so tight I was afraid he was going to chip his teeth as he looked at all this destruction with a searing gaze that refused to look away, as if doing so would allow the continuation of such suffering. And when his eyes found mine, I saw no fear. Just rage.
"This is abhorrent," he growled, his voice low and trembling with fury. "These things shouldn't exist. They should be burned. Destroyed. Banished to whatever hell they came from."
His fists were clenched so hard his knuckles had gone bone-white, veins bulging along his forearms like cables ready to snap.
I didn't respond. I couldn't. Words felt hollow here. I turned away, forcing myself to keep walking, trying not to see the shattered faces, the twisted limbs, and the stories of agony written in dried blood and silent screams.
The deeper we moved into the city, the more it stopped feeling like a place built for people. The streets we walked were shattered, warped, some split wide open like old wounds.
What had once been homes, businesses, ordinary lives… now lay buried under the weight of giants.
And then the skyline opened.
We emerged into what must once have been a plaza, or maybe an intersection, its original shape unrecognizable beneath the chaos. The ruins stretched outward in every direction, but more than that... upward. Towering shadows leaned against shattered buildings. Monstrosities—half-organic, half-machine—slumped like gods brought to ruin, their colossal limbs draped over steel towers like discarded puppets. We had to crane our necks just to see the curve of a shoulder or the edge of a jaw.
They were everywhere.
Massive frames of broken mechs lay tangled with them, their armor split open, reactor cores long gone cold. Steel bones jutted from the earth like rebar in a wound too wide to ever close. It was impossible to tell where one thing ended and the other began. flesh fused to alloy, buildings wrapped in cables like vines, arms the size of train cars left reaching across avenues that no longer had names.
I stopped in my tracks, drawn to one of the creatures, if that word even still applied.
Only half of it remained. The rest had been carved away. I could trace the invisible line through its ruined torso, following it along the streets where stone lay scorched black and glass had been reduced to slag. The upper floors of the surrounding buildings curved inward, as if pulled toward the center of some cataclysmic blast. Together, the ruins formed a shallow, circular wound in the skyline.
And above it, high in the cavern's ceiling, gaping through the stone like a bullet through bone, was a dark, circular hole that led to nothing but blackness.
I couldn't look away. It felt like I was staring at the entry point of something ancient. As if that hole wasn't just the source of destruction, but the eye of something that had looked down and decided this place no longer deserved to exist.
The others were silent. I don't think they even noticed I'd stopped walking. But I felt it.
The scale. The insignificance.
We were ants wandering through the ruins of titans. Bones of beasts littered the roads like abandoned machines, and towers once proud now leaned like gravestones. Each footstep we took felt like a trespass.
And then… the door.
It stood at the far end of the devastation. Twin slabs of impossible metal reaching to the very peak of the cavern, so tall they seemed to vanish into the rock itself. Lights traced faint lines across its surface, pulsing ever so slightly, as if the door was still breathing beneath the weight of centuries.
Sprawled before it lay a final abomination. Its front had collapsed against the gates, arms lying limp, as though it had died in a single attack. Its upper body was simply… gone. Not destroyed, but erased. An absence so complete it left a pit in my stomach just to look at it.
I stood frozen, eyes locked on the gate, when something tugged at me.
Like a thread had been yanked taut inside me. It wasn't painful exactly, but it was Jarring. Enough to snap me out of my awe like a gasp of cold air after surfacing too fast.
I staggered half a step back, a hand pressed to my sternum.
The feeling was impossible to explain, like part instinct and part recognition, as if some part of me knew that gate.
It clawed at my chest, subtle at first, then growing more insistent like stepping into a river and only realizing too late that the current was pulling you under.
Before I was fully aware of it, I'd taken a step forward.
Then another.
My hand twitched, reaching for something that wasn't there.
Then Someone brushed past me, muttering an apology as they went, and the contact snapped me out of it. I blinked, disoriented, suddenly aware of how much time had slipped by.
The expedition was already moving on without me. People were unpacking gear, pitching tents, and sorting salvage into rough piles as camp was being set up.
The pull was still there, but muted now. A faint buzz at the back of my skull, whispering that I should be heading toward the doors. That I belonged there. That something behind them was waiting for me.
But what would I even do if I reached them?
The doors were enormous, mountain-sized slabs of metal and stone. I couldn't open them. The thought was ridiculous.
That logic helped. It gave the feeling less room to breathe. The pull dimmed, like a signal losing strength, until I could finally shove it into the back of my mind.
I turned away and got to work.
The next hour blurred into motion, clearing space for the camp and helping to drag decommissioned mechs into organized piles. My arms burned from effort, but it was something to focus on. Something real.
No one wanted to touch the mummified abominations. Honestly, I couldn't blame them. Even in death, the things were unsettling. Some of the earth manipulators resorted to rolling them into designated piles, using stone slabs or makeshift platforms to avoid direct contact. Burning the bodies had been ruled out, as it was too risky in an enclosed environment. So instead, they began organizing people with abilities to decompose organic matter more deliberately.
That's how Henry got volunteered.
Apparently, his poison still had some effect on the corpses, though he didn't seem thrilled about it. Even if they were going to be taught erosion techniques to help with the process, Henry wasn't convinced he'd get the hang of it, and from the look on his face, he wasn't eager to try, either.
I couldn't help feeling bad for him. Hell, I didn't even want to look at those corpses longer than I had to.
My gaze drifted back toward the massive gate, wondering again what could possibly lie behind it. Then I caught sight of Ella as she was dashing between groups, pointing out where to place salvaged mechanical parts, barking instructions with a confidence that seemed to energize the people around her, some of whom I didn't even recognize.
"You look excited," I called out, picking up a weird, arm-like attachment and giving it a lazy swing.
Ella spun around, eyes wide. She marched over and snatched it from my hands like it was made of glass.
"Please don't touch anything," she scolded, gently placing it back down. "That's one of the most intact pieces I've found."
I raised my hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. No touching the precious artifacts."
A grunt behind me caught my attention. Emily was struggling across the clearing, dragging a heavy chunk of metal armor with both hands. She dropped it with a loud thud and collapsed onto her butt, panting.
"Thi… this thing's way heavier than it looks," she gasped.
I walked over, bent down, and lifted it. She wasn't exaggerating. The thing was heavy. With effort, I hoisted it onto my shoulder, carried it to one of the tables, and set it down a bit too hard, as the table beneath it groaned ominously.
Cringing, I looked over at Ella. "Hey, it didn't break."
She just shook her head and turned away, muttering something under her breath. Emily, on the other hand, looked relieved as she pushed herself up and brushed dust off her pants.
"Thanks," she said, catching her breath.
"Not a problem."
That's when I remembered something I'd overheard earlier. I turned back to Ella.
"Hey, Ella, did you hear they're sending out teams to scout the city?"
She glanced over at me like she was finally acknowledging my presence, then gave a small smile. "Yeah, I actually heard a bit from some of the people dropping off parts. Apparently, they're giving out tokens as some kind of safeguard for the scouting teams."
She placed the final piece onto the table, then looked toward a tent set up in the distance. "Amelia and Benjamin went to pick them up, so we'll be heading out soon."
"Huh... I guess I'm the last to know," I muttered, following her gaze to where groups were already forming around a tent.
It wasn't long before everyone was gathered. Well, almost everyone. Emily had let us know she'd be staying behind to help organize the equipment.
"I just… I can't go back in there. Not with all that death," she said quietly, eyes downcast.
I couldn't blame her. Just thinking about the bodies, the way they died, it still sent chills crawling up my spine. The others agreed without protest, and Amelia gave her a reassuring nod, visibly relieved.
Once the tokens, which looked like some kind of guild pins, were handed out, one last question remained.
"Alright," Henry said, crossing his arms and glancing around with a faint smirk. "Are we finally ready to head into the city, or are we still arguing about it?"
"I still think it makes more sense to check the wall first," Ella countered, tilting her head toward the towering structure in the distance. Her arms gestured animatedly as she laid out her argument. "Think about it. The wall's probably intact. In the city, everything's in ruins, and most of it will already be picked clean. But at the wall? You might find passages, equipment, maybe even some intact mechs. And let's be real, everyone's going for the city. Do you really want to fight over scraps with seasoned scavengers?"
Henry raised an eyebrow, clearly amused by her reasoning. "So, you're saying all the good stuff is at the wall, huh?"
"Yes, exactly. Someone has to think strategically here," Ella shot back, pointing a finger at him. "But sure, go ahead and run straight into the chaos if you're so eager to get trampled."
Henry chuckled, clearly enjoying the banter. "Okay, okay, I'll give you that. But…" He leaned in a little, lowering his voice like he was letting us in on a secret. "I know you might not have noticed it, but most, if not all, of the mummified corpses we came across had this small plastic thing hanging from their necks."
I frowned. "Plastic thing?"
"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I'm guessing some kind of ID." He straightened, warming to the idea. "Which got me thinking. How do the mechs even tell who's a resident and who's an intruder? No way they're doing facial recognition or something, right?"
Ella blinked, caught off guard. "Huh. That's… actually a good point," she admitted, reluctantly.
"Wow, Henry," I grinned. "Look at you, paying detective."
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," he replied, shrugging, though he was clearly pleased with himself. "But it makes sense, right? No ID, you're toast. So we head into the city, find one of those things, and suddenly we're a lot harder to shoot at."
He spread his hands. "Seems like a solid plan to me."
Ella groaned, rolling her eyes but eventually relenting with a wave of her hand. "Fine, you've got a point. But once we're done here, we're heading to the wall. I'm not missing the chance to find something untouched."
Henry threw up his arms in mock surrender. "Fair enough. We'll do it your way... eventually." His grin turned smug. "See? Compromise. I'm a natural at this."
Ella narrowed her eyes but smirked. "Yeah, yeah. Let's just get moving before you throw your shoulder out, from patting yourself on the back."
We set out again, but this time, the mood was different. As we pushed deeper into the city, the playful banter faded. Optimism gave way to a silent unease.
The air was heavier now. The ruins around us weren't just broken buildings; they were graves. Crumbling walls whispered stories of desperation. Windows shattered from the inside, doors reinforced with whatever people had on hand. Every barricade we tore down wasn't just a barrier. It was someone's last line of defense.
Claw marks scarred the walls. Dried blood painted floors and ceilings. The silence was suffocating, broken only by the crunch of debris beneath our boots.
The deeper we went, the more the city revealed its truths.
Bodies lay where they had fallen. Some were huddled in corners, arms wrapped around children. Others were slumped against doors they had never made it through.
Henry's bravado wavered. He stared too long at a collapsed stairwell, where half a family still sat together, fossilized in their final moments.
Hours dragged. Each building we searched felt heavier than the last. Climbing over barricades, sifting through decaying belongings, and unearthing what people had once called home.
It felt disgusting to sort through their belonging as if we were disturbing graves.
Sometimes, we found preserved items. Sometimes, just bones. Other times… nothing but the remains of panic and silence.
And then, I stopped as a sudden chill swept over me, not from the air, but from something else. My senses dulled, and then my mark vibrated as the world around me blurred at the edges, colors bleeding into shadow. The muffled echo of rapid footsteps reached my ears, getting louder.
Slap-slap-slap.
Then the slam of a door.
I blinked, but I wasn't in the hallway anymore. I was standing inside a room filled with terrified people. They were huddled together, faces pale, whispering desperate reassurances to one another.
"We're safe," someone murmured. "They can't reach us up here. We're too high."
Another voice: "We locked the door. It can't get in."
Then the sound.
A soft, deliberate tapping on glass.
Tck—tck—tck.
Heads turned, and then they screamed at whatever they had seen, and just as suddenly as the vision had begun, it faded, leaving me standing alone in that same room… only now in the present.
My body trembled at what I had seen, my mind scrambling for an explanation. But the moment it dawned on me that I was having another vision. I froze, bracing myself for more gruesome images to spill out like before.
But as the time passed, nothing happened. It became clear that the vision was over. And only then did I allow myself to breathe and focus on the room all around me.
It matched the vision I'd seen, only far older. Where their eyes had been drawn, a shattered window gaped open, the glass long since broken inward. Dust clung to the jagged frame like ash, and a trail of dried blood streaked across the floor in brittle brown smears, leading straight to the ledge beyond.
I took a slow step forward, fearing what I thought I would see, only for it to be confirmed. Far below, nearly ten stories down, two skeletons lay twisted among the rubble, their bones bleached and picked clean by time.
I couldn't breathe. My heart was still hammering in my chest.
That was real. It wasn't just a hallucination.
I shook my head hard, trying to break the tension coiling in my spine. What the hell is happening to me?
My hands trembled slightly at my sides. I clenched them into fists, trying to ground myself. The last thing I needed was to lose it in front of the others. They didn't need to know about this.
With another deep breath, I took it all in, then—
"Guys! Over here!"
Amelia's voice sliced through the silence, bright and sharp like a flare cutting through fog.
I turned toward her, still disoriented. She was kneeling beside a pile of debris, holding something up that resembled a plastic-encased key card.
I stared for a second longer before joining the others. But part of me was still back in that room, hearing the tapping on the glass.
Still wondering what had been on the other side.
Henry gave a weak chuckle, more out of habit than humor. "You can always count on plastic to survive the end of the world."
Ella crossed her arms tightly, her voice strained. "So... can we go to the wall now? It's suffocating in here."
"Yeah," Amelia said softly, rising to her feet. "Let's go."
No one argued.
We left the shattered room behind, but I couldn't shake the sensation that something unseen was still watching from the shadows. My steps felt unsteady, like I hadn't fully returned to the present.
I barely heard Henry's footsteps ahead of us or the crunch of debris under our boots as we made our way toward the city's outer wall. The air here felt heavy, but a far cry from the inner city, where every collapsed path and sealed corridor whispered of horrors.
We searched for a while, picking through crumbled structures and rusted machinery, until we finally found it: a sealed entrance, untouched by time or looters.
Eyeing the opening, a dull ache pulsed in my head. The remnants of the vision still lingered behind my eyes, replaying like a broken film reel.
I stepped forward before anyone could speak. "Alright," I muttered. "Let's see if we can crack this open."
I summoned the gauntlet with a flash of Void, feeling its weight settle around my arm. And before I could stop myself, or second-guess it, I threw a punch at the door.
I knew it wouldn't break, but that wasn't the point.
The impact landed with a deep, vibrating thrum that rattled up my arm. The metal barely gave, but it was something real. A sharp reminder that I was still here, not stuck in the past.
"Hu… barely a dent?" I muttered.
"No duh," Henry quipped, stepping up beside me. "Last time I checked, you weren't exactly made for breaking steel."
"Got a better idea, genius?" I shot back. Though I knew he was right, but punching things always helped clear my head a little.
"As a matter of fact... yeah." He grinned.
After a quick huddle, we settled on a plan. Amelia would use her magma powers to superheat the metal. Once it was glowing red-hot, I'd form a chisel and hammer to cut through.
"Here goes nothing," I said, lining up the chisel.
"Careful," Amelia warned, her hands still glowing with residual heat. "It's pretty hot."
We got to work.
Time blurred as the clang of metal against metal echoed through the chamber, each strike accompanied by a burst of sparks and the groan of softening steel. Sweat ran down our faces as we fell into a rhythm of chipping, hammering, and burning.
Finally, the metal began to yield. A small hole opened, jagged around the edges and glowing faintly red.
Just enough to glimpse what lay beyond.
I leaned in and froze.
"Guys… look at this." Inside was a sterile workshop, dimly lit and unnaturally clean. Machines lined the walls, some barely humming with power, and at the far end, a reinforced door stood sealed, its panel still glowing faintly.
"Wow," Ella breathed. "It's so... pristine."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Henry cautioned. "We still need to make sure it's safe."
Driven by curiosity, we worked quickly, widening the opening until it was large enough for someone to crawl through. With our makeshift entrance complete, it was time to put the ID card to the test.
As Henry was the one closest in age to the card's original owner, he volunteered to go first.
"Alright… moment of truth," he muttered, gripping the ID as he slipped through the narrow gap.
One by one, we followed–Ella, myself, Benjamin, and finally Amelia. The moment we stepped inside, the atmosphere shifted. The air was stale, yet still somehow clean. Dust floated lazily in the low light, but everything else felt untouched, preserved in time.
"This is... amazing," Ella said softly, her fingers trailing across a smooth control panel, leaving lines through the dust.
Benjamin remained silent, his eyes slowly sweeping across the room, absorbing everything.
But the quiet didn't last.
A sudden chime broke the silence as Emily's foot grazed what looked to be a faintly glowing sensor embedded in the tile. And a second later, a low rumble followed like the awakening of ancient gears, leaving vibrations through the chamber.
"Uh… what did I just do?" Emily asked, her voice rising an octave.
Before anyone could respond, a panel on the far wall hissed open, revealing a towering mech that stepped forward with weighty, deliberate strides, its joints clicking softly as it moved.
Overall, it resembled the earlier mech we came across in the tunnel, but much smaller, with lower arms that looked designed to grab things.
"This doesn't look good," Amelia muttered, instinctively stepping in front of us.
"Stay calm," I said, trying to steady my voice as my heart hammered against my ribs. "Henry, show it the card."
The mech adjusted its stance with mechanical precision, servos whirring softly. Then its voice crackled to life, cold and slightly distorted.
"Resident detected... five unreadables accompanying. Assessing threat level."
The hum of weapons powering up filled the room. Bladed appendages flickered to life on either arm, glowing faintly like they were being tested for sharpness. The mech's voice returned, this time more forceful.
"Step aside, Joseph."
We froze.
"Uh… guys?" Ella whispered. "What now?"
I nudged Henry forward. "Say something."
Henry's face had gone pale, sweat beading on his forehead. But after a moment's hesitation, he lifted the card a little higher and blurted out, "We're residents! We just… lost our cards."
For a moment, nothing happened. The mech stood still, systems humming low, as if weighing his words.
Then, shockingly, the weapons retracted.
"Proceed to receive your new identification cards," the mech announced. Its voice remained flat, but the threat had vanished.
Without another word, it pivoted with uncanny precision and stomped toward a nearby terminal, heavy footsteps echoing in the silent room.
"Follow," it ordered, not bothering to look back.
Henry turned to us, face caught between triumph and disbelief. "I can't believe that worked," he muttered, completely in awe.
We exchanged looks, but none of us argued. As surreal as it was, we moved quickly to follow the mech's command as no one wanted to piss it off.
At the terminal, it walked us through the process step by step. A panel slid open to the left, revealing a machine that looked like a cross between a passport kiosk and a 3D printer. It whirred to life, carefully forming new identification cards as we followed its instructions.
No one spoke. The tension hadn't fully eased, but watching the cards take shape made everything feel just a little more real.