They ran through purple-tinged darkness, the Mist surge snapping at their heels like a tide of dissolution. The forest thinned, trees becoming twisted things that looked like they'd given up on photosynthesis and taken up interpretive dance. Then, abruptly, the ground dropped away.
The Singing Canyons spread before them—a wound in the world that had healed wrong. The stone wasn't red or brown but every color at once, shifting based on viewing angle. Wind moved through the formations, and it did sing. Not pleasantly. The harmony sounded like a choir that had discovered existential dread and really leaned into it.
"In," Varos ordered. "Now."
They half-ran, half-fell down a carved path that seemed ancient and freshly made simultaneously. Behind them, the Mist hit the canyon edge and recoiled like it had touched something distasteful.
"Even cosmic horror has standards," Ren panted. "That's either really good or really bad."
"Bad," everyone said in unison.
The path leveled out into a ravine barely wide enough for single file. The walls rose impossibly high, and the stone sang louder here. Words almost formed in the harmonies—fragments of language from a time before speech was invented.
"Stay close," Mayfell instructed from the middle of their formation. "Touch nothing unnecessarily. Think calm thoughts."
"Calm thoughts. Right. 'The world isn't ending. I'm not in aggressive geology. This is fine.'"
His words echoed, but the echo came back wrong:
The world IS ending. You're going to die here. This is NOT fine.
"I said don't think too loud!" Elanil hissed.
"I wasn't thinking! I was talking!"
He doesn't know the difference. Typical human. All noise, no substance.
"Okay, the canyon's just rude now."
They pressed on, the path winding deeper into the maze of singing stone. The countdown in Ren's mind ticked relentlessly: 38:14
. Every second meant the barriers weakened further. Every second brought the Void King closer to freedom.
The formation shifted as the path widened. Lysara scouted ahead, moving with the fluid grace of someone who'd spent centuries learning to be dangerous. Keiran limped but kept pace, using his spear as a walking stick. Seylas watched their backs, arrows nocked but not drawn.
"How's the leg?" Ren asked Keiran during a brief rest.
The quiet guard shrugged. "Hurts. But pain means alive."
"Philosophical. The canyon probably loves you."
He pretends to joke but fears being forgotten. Last of his kind. When he dies, humanity dies forever.
"Shut up, rocks!"
Elanil grabbed his arm. "Don't engage with it. That's how it gets stronger."
Too late. The echoes had found something to latch onto. The harmonies shifted, becoming more coherent, more personal.
She protects him out of duty, not love. He's a responsibility. A burden. A—
"I said SHUT UP." Elanil's blade cleared its sheath, slicing through empty air. But the gesture must have carried intent because the echoes faltered, retreating to wordless humming.
"You defended me," Ren said, surprised.
"The echoes lie. That's what they do." But she wouldn't meet his eyes.
They climbed deeper, the path sometimes vertical, requiring actual climbing. Ren's hands bled from rough stone, but complaining seemed pointless when everyone else managed it without issue. Well, except Mayfell, who simply floated up like gravity was a suggestion she politely declined.
Hours passed. Or minutes. Time worked differently in the canyons, stretching and compressing based on criteria no one understood. The singing grew louder, more complex. Sometimes it sounded like warnings. Sometimes like laughter. Once, terrifyingly, like his mother calling him for dinner.
"There," Varos pointed ahead. "The central chamber."
The ravine opened into a vast circular space, walls covered in carvings that hurt to look at directly. In the center, impossibly, stood a building. Not ruins—an intact structure of concrete and steel that belonged in industrial Tokyo, not a magical canyon.
第七研究所—立入禁止 RESEARCH FACILITY SEVEN—NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY
"That's it," Ren breathed. "That's actually it."
"Intact," Mayfell marveled. "After ten thousand years."
"Question," Seylas said slowly. "If it's intact... what's been maintaining it?"
As if in answer, the facility's doors hissed open. Light spilled out—not torchlight or magical glow, but the harsh fluorescent glare of modern electricity.
A figure stepped out. Human in shape but wrong in every detail. Skin too pale, movements too smooth, eyes that reflected light like a cat's. It wore a lab coat that looked freshly pressed despite the centuries.
It smiled, showing too many teeth. "Welcome home, Subject Zero. We've been waiting so long for someone who could read the signs."
Rating: 0/10 for comfort, 10/10 for horror movie vibes, incalculable/10 for what happens next.
The corrupted human spread its arms wide in a parody of welcome. "Please, come in. Dr. Yamazaki is eager to meet the last pure specimen. We have so much to discuss about the future of humanity."
Behind it, more figures emerged from the facility. All human-shaped. All wrong. All smiling those terrible, too-wide smiles.
"Define 'pure specimen,'" Ren said, voice steadier than he felt.
"The unchanged. The uncorrupted. The control sample in our grand experiment." Its head tilted at an angle that necks shouldn't allow. "You're quite valuable, you know. The only human DNA uncontaminated by ten thousand years of... optimization."
"I prefer 'modification-free.' Like organic vegetables, but more disappointing."
The thing laughed. It sounded like glass breaking in reverse. "Still making jokes. How wonderfully human. How perfectly inefficient. Come. Let us show you what your species has become."
"I think we'll pass on the horror tour, thanks."
"Oh, but I insist." More corrupted humans flanked them, emerging from crevices in the canyon walls. "After all, you came all this way. It would be rude not to be... hospitable."
Weapons cleared sheaths all around him. Elanil stepped forward, placing herself between Ren and the creatures. "He goes nowhere without us."
"The mongrels? How quaint. Very well. Dr. Yamazaki does so enjoy guests. It's been centuries since we had anyone to show our work to." The lead creature gestured grandly. "Welcome to Research Facility Seven. Where humanity transcended its limitations. Where we broke the chains of mortality. Where we became so much more than nature intended."
"And where you apparently lost your sense of personal space," Ren added as one of the creatures leaned uncomfortably close.
It smiled wider, breath smelling of ozone and old death. "You'll understand soon enough. After all, you're home now. And family should stick together."
The facility doors stood open like a mouth waiting to swallow. The countdown continued its merciless advance: 34:42
.
No choice. Forward into the nightmare, or back to the purple death.
"Rating," Ren muttered as they walked toward those sterile doors, "negative infinity out of ten. Would not recommend to friends, enemies, or people I'm ambivalent about."
The echoes of the canyon followed them inside, singing a harmony that sounded disturbingly like a dirge.