The chamber was collapsing.
Light tore itself into ragged strips along the walls, veins unraveling until they bled raw darkness. The spire, cracked and screaming, pulsed in staccato bursts like a heart in its death throes. Ava pulled Caroline with her, boots pounding across the obsidian floor as fissures spidered outward beneath their feet.
The whispers did not fade with the spire's fracture. They multiplied. Thousands of voices layered atop one another, shrill and ragged, until the sound became a physical force pressing on Ava's skull. Her vision doubled, then tripled, as shadows peeled from the walls and took shape.
Figures.
They were not whole—never whole—but fragments of bodies stitched from grief. A soldier's jawline stretched too thin, a mother's empty arms, a child's eyes wide and hollow. They spilled across the chamber like a tide, crawling, staggering, then sprinting toward them.
Caroline fired, her rifle's bark swallowed by the cacophony. Bullets shredded through the nearest shapes, but instead of dying they dissolved into smoke and reformed again, closer.
"Not working!" she shouted, jamming another magazine into the receiver.
"Just move!" Ava yanked her harder, forcing her to leap across a jagged split in the floor. The air was electric, thick with ozone and something sour, like blood left too long in the heat.
Behind them, the spire's shards fell inward, as though being pulled back into a vortex. Each piece screamed with the voices of those it contained. Ava dared not look back, but she felt the suction against her skin, dragging at her coat and hair, urging her to stop, to turn, to surrender.
The line of light at the far wall pulsed brighter. A doorway. Maybe. Or maybe another lie. But it was the only thing solid in this storm of grief.
Ava's breath tore ragged from her throat. She wasn't sure how much was air and how much was screaming.
Then she heard it again.
"Ava."
Her name. That same voice. Marin.
Her legs stuttered, almost buckling beneath her. She could see him at the edge of the tide now—sharper this time, more detailed than before. His uniform was whole, his eyes filled with that same impossible forgiveness.
She wanted to run to him. She wanted to collapse into his arms and admit she had been wrong, that she couldn't do this without him. Her chest cracked with longing.
But Caroline's grip burned like fire on her wrist.
"Don't you dare," Caroline rasped, dragging her forward with brute force.
The false Marin stretched his hand. His lips moved, but the words were swallowed by the chorus. Still, Ava knew them. Come back to me.
She tore her gaze away, biting her lip until blood filled her mouth. The taste anchored her. Reality. Pain.
They reached the base of the light. It wasn't a doorway so much as a vertical wound—torn fabric in space itself, edges sparking white and violet. Beyond it was… silence. Not safety, not yet, but quieter than here.
Caroline shoved Ava ahead. "Go!"
Ava hesitated. The wound was unstable. It could shred them apart. But behind them, the tide surged closer, arms reaching, voices merging into a single scream.
She jumped.
For a heartbeat, her body was unmade. The light scoured her nerves raw, every cell unraveling into threads of thought. She saw fragments of herself—her first step, her first kill, her last kiss with Marin—before the world snapped back into shape.
She hit ground hard, rolling across stone. Her stomach heaved but she forced it down, blinking against the afterimages burned into her sight.
Caroline tumbled through a moment later, crashing beside her. She scrambled upright, rifle half-raised, eyes darting wildly at their new surroundings.
They weren't safe.
The chamber behind them was gone, but the whispers had followed.
They stood on a narrow ledge, suspended in a vast cavern. Below was nothing—an abyss that devoured light. Above, the ceiling stretched into shadow, lined with roots of glowing crystal that pulsed faintly. The air here was damp, heavy, almost breathable after the dry static of the last chamber.
But the wound was still open behind them. And through it, the shadows poured.
Not thousands this time. Hundreds. A stream of broken forms slipping after them, reforming on the ledge.
Caroline cursed. "No time to think. Move!"
The ledge curved away into the darkness. Ava didn't argue. She ran.
Their boots hammered against stone slick with condensation, every step a risk of slipping into the abyss. The cavern hummed with low vibrations, as though some great engine slept beneath them. With every meter, the whispers pressed harder, clawing for their attention.
Ava kept her gaze forward, but Caroline faltered once, her head turning toward a shape that had followed them through.
"Mom?" Caroline's voice cracked.
Ava grabbed her by the collar, jerking her back into motion. "It's not her!"
But the damage was done. Caroline's aim faltered, shots scattering wild as the tide gained ground. Figures closed within arm's reach—one brushing Ava's shoulder with hands like cold smoke.
She shoved it off, heart hammering. The ledge ahead widened into a platform, but something glimmered there. Not light. Not safety.
A machine.
It was half-buried in the rock, its surface alive with faint circuits that pulsed in rhythm with the crystals above. A console jutted out, covered in glyphs Ava didn't understand. The machine hummed louder as they approached, almost aware of them.
Caroline skidded to a halt beside it. "What is this?"
"I don't know." Ava scanned the console, breath ragged. "But maybe a way to close the wound."
The shadows closed in. Hands stretched, fingers elongating into claws of smoke. Ava shoved Caroline toward the console. "Figure it out!"
"And if I can't?"
"Then we die here!"
Caroline's jaw clenched. She slung her rifle and threw herself at the machine, palms skimming across the glyphs. The surface flared in response, symbols lighting up like constellations.
Ava drew her pistol, backing toward her, firing into the mass of shadows. Each shot tore gaps but none lasted. The tide pressed closer.
Caroline muttered curses under her breath, fingers flying across the console. "It's like it knows me—it's adjusting—"
"Hurry!" Ava snapped, shoving another magazine in.
Then the console screamed.
Light burst outward, slicing across the ledge. The shadows recoiled, shrieking as their forms unraveled. The wound behind them flickered, destabilized, its edges sparking like a dying star.
Ava shielded her eyes. Caroline stumbled back from the console, face pale. "I—I didn't close it. I redirected it."
"Redirected it where?" Ava demanded.
The wound collapsed.
Silence followed.
Ava's breath rattled in her chest. The ledge was empty now, the tide gone. For the first time since the spire fractured, there was no screaming in her head.
Caroline sank to her knees, trembling. "I don't know where I sent it. But not here. Not us."
Ava stared at the dead console. Its glow was gone, its surface cracked. Whatever they had done, it was irreversible.
And somewhere else in the depths of the veil, the tide was loose.
---