The next morning, the fog was thicker.
As they departed Mirage's village, Reya stood motionless at the edge of the trees, watching them disappear into the Blightshade Line. She didn't wave.
The road was barely visible—moss-covered, cracked, and littered with bones. Old signs hinted at its past life as a restricted military testing ground.
"Anyone else feeling like we're walking into a trap?" Chen Yu muttered, adjusting the strap on his rifle.
Li Wei didn't respond. He was already listening.
There was something under the earth here. A hum. A pull.
Even Rui felt it now. Her head ached, her skin prickled like a fever setting in. Bayo clutched her tighter and whispered, "It's loud here.
They reached the vault by dusk.
It was buried beneath a hill of twisted trees and broken concrete, an old military outpost half-swallowed by the land. The door was iron, rusted but intact. Above it, faint words:
"SUB-VARIANT 17 | DEEP MEMORY RESEARCH UNIT | CLEARANCE K-RED ONLY"
Li Wei slid Reya's crystal into the panel.
The lock hissed.
Then the door opened with a metallic groan that echoed into the earth like a tomb welcoming them home.
Inside, the facility smelled like damp paper and cold metal.
The hallways were narrow, lined with black-glass monitors, many still flickering with unread messages and encrypted files. Fluorescent lights overhead blinked in slow pulses, casting disorienting shadows.
As they moved deeper, the air thickened.
The rooms were… wrong.
In one, they found a woman's skeleton slumped over a desk. A recording looped endlessly on the wall: "Repeat until belief stabilizes. Perception is power."
In another, the walls were mirrors — but none reflected their true faces.
Bayo stared at one, then covered his eyes. "That one has no mouth."
In a central chamber, Li Wei found what looked like a chair with cables hooked to a rusted helmet. A console nearby blinked:
CANDIDATE DETECTED. INITIATE TEST SEQUENCE?
He hovered a hand over it.
"Don't," Rui warned.
He pressed it.
The machine snapped to life with a scream of static, and the lights went out.
When they flickered back on, Li Wei was gone.
Rui screamed. Chen Yu cursed and pulled his gun.
But there was no threat—just empty silence.
And then—
Li Wei's voice, from the intercom: "I'm still here."
Li Wei found himself in a memory. Not his.
He was in a small white room. A woman stood in front of him, dressed in a lab coat. Her eyes were glowing white.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said.
"Whose memory is this?"
She ignored him and turned to a console. "Project Echo was a failure. We tore through the mind's walls and found nothing but teeth."
She looked at him again, and now her mouth was sewn shut.
The room twisted, bent sideways.
Li Wei collapsed to his knees—his heart beating like a war drum—and through his palms he saw his own face reflected in the floor tiles, but aged, scarred, cold.
The machine spat him out.
He landed in Rui's arms, shivering.
Chen Yu just stared. "You look older."
They didn't stay long after that.
But before they left, Rui found a sealed chamber near the back. A cell. Inside it, etched on the wall in blood and soot:
"ECHO IS NOT A MACHINE. IT'S A WHISPER THAT BECAME A GOD."
On the floor was a circle of handprints. Human. Mutant. Childlike.
All pressed in desperation.
Rui touched the glass door and whispered, "They locked themselves in…"
"No," Li Wei corrected softly, still trembling. "They locked something else out."
As they exited the vault and the last blast door sealed shut behind them, the data crystal beeped once.
A final file decrypted itself on Li Wei's wristpad:
PROJECT: GHOST BATCH - SEED UNITS INACTIVE. REMOTE SIGNAL DETECTED. ACTIVITY: RISING. SOURCE: UNCONFIRMED. ID: 0107.
Rui flinched.
Chen Yu looked from her to the message.
"0107… That's you, right?"
Rui didn't answer.
Because she was staring at the forest behind them.
There were footsteps.
Not human.
Not zombie.
Something… in-between.
And the forest had gone completely silent.