Kairo whipped around, black eyes carving the cavern like twin knives. The echo of that voice—Caelen's voice—still hung in the damp air, too clear, too cruel.
"Foolish little brother."
It scraped down his spine like iron on stone.
He swept the flashlight beam left, right, behind him—water slashing silver in the light, stone swallowing the beam. Nothing. Only the endless black flood, rippling faintly. "What the hell?" he muttered, jaw tight.
The voice came again, softer this time, venomous and intimate.
"Everyone's dead because of you, Kai."
Rage kindled in Kairo's chest, hot and hard—but under it, something else: a flicker of wrongness.
The cadence, the little careless cruelty… it matched Caelen, but the feeling behind it didn't.
'Tch. This… isn't Caelen.'
The moment the thought finished—water exploded.
SPLASH.
The floor betrayed him. Where his boots had pressed shallow stone a heartbeat before, the surface yawned open into a cold, swallowing maw.
