A sudden spike of pain shot through Damian's mind—sharp and cold, like an ice needle driven straight into his skull.
It wasn't his own thought.
The Mirage had linked every trapped mind together, binding them into a single psychic circuit—and the pain came from Adrian, raw and desperate, bleeding straight into him.
Boom.
Damian burst into white flame.
Heat rolled off him in waves, searing the air until it howled.
The fire didn't drive him mad—
it woke him up.
White light poured from every pore, burning away the haze that had wrapped around his mind.
Every nerve screamed awake. Every thought snapped into focus.
The world around him pulsed, alive.
Pale shadows writhed along the walls.
Hundreds—no, thousands—of thick, hairless tendrils crawled across the surface like monstrous caterpillars.
They twitched at the edge of the firelight, hissing wetly, then recoiled—
melting back into the walls that were moving.
The slime clinging to his skin withdrew, dragging away the crawling sensation with it.
But the pain lingered.
He could still feel the lash of those pale-blue jellyfish—the sting, the suction, the pull as they tried to drink the energy from his body.
He knew one thing for sure now: don't let them touch you again.
His pulse hammered in his ears.
He didn't understand what this place was, but every instinct screamed that it was alive.
Then he saw it—the shimmer, the faint distortion ahead.
Recognition slammed into him.
A Psychic Mirage.
Not a legend. Not a theory.
A living field of illusion—real, here, and feeding.
And his entire squad was caught inside it.
He ground his teeth.
He had died once before.
That death had burned away his fear, leaving only will—hard and clear, like tempered steel.
Maybe that was why he could still think when everyone else was lost.
The walls rippled again—breathing, beating, almost pulsing with a heart's rhythm beneath his boots.
The sound alone made his skin crawl.