The pathways created by the Doom did not lead toward anything Galathea Brooks recognized.
She kept her hands buried deep in the pockets of her dark coat, the skin beneath her sleeves throbbing with that familiar, heavy pressure. It wasn't pain anymore; it was an anchor, a relentless downward drag that reminded her with every step that the system was still watching, still calculating.
As she moved forward, the architecture began to shift.
Dust lay thick over cracked stone floors. Broken preservation vaults gaped open like hollow ribs, their internal containment fields dead and dark. She passed shattered catalog stations, overturned reception desks, and narrow administrative offices choked with fallen plaster. The air grew stale, heavy with the dry, settled scent of decayed paper and old stone.
It looked less like a divine construct built to hold cosmic power, and more like a decaying, bureaucratic institution.
