For three days he'd lived like a rat, crawling through alleys he didn't know, sleeping in shadows that weren't his. Now they'd found him.
His breath came ragged. Cold air slipped through his jacket—thin, useless—but sweat still soaked his back. In his left hand, he clutched a flash drive. Cracked plastic. Ancient tech. Shouldn't mean anything in this world.
It meant everything. It was why they'd hunted him. Why he couldn't stop running.
The phone in his pocket vibrated. Elias pulled it out carefully—screen cracked at the corner, fifteen percent battery—and read the message.
Roof. Now. Jump to the building across. I'll clear the path.
No name. No explanation. Just a number he didn't know, the same one that had sent him seven messages since last night. Each one saved his life. Each one arrived minutes before they caught him.
He didn't have time to wonder who sent them. The next roof was three meters away—insane at six stories with wind howling, but less insane than getting caught. He breathed deep, felt the flash drive's weight in his pocket, and ran.
His toes left the edge. Behind him, the emergency door burst open.
"STOP! OR WE'LL SHOOT!"
The voice drowned in wind as he flew. For a moment—a strange moment—he felt no fear. Something cold and calm sat in his chest. His body knew what to do even as his mind panicked.
He slammed into the next building's wall. His left hand grabbed—vines. Thick ones, dangling from the roof. They screamed. Not a metaphor. A real sound, high and sharp, like something alive and in pain. The vines trembled under his weight. For a second he felt something pass from them into his hand. Awareness. Protest. Pain.
But they held.
His right hand found a niche in the brick. He climbed, fingers seeking cracks, breath coming in gasps. Below, his pursuers reached the edge and shouted. None followed.
Elias pulled himself onto the roof and lay flat, chest heaving. The vines twitched beside him, emitting small pulses of dim blue light at their tips. Like a creature recovering from trauma.
These plants... are alive.
He rose slowly. His eyes adjusted. Then widened.
The city below had changed.
---
Not the concrete he knew. Not the neon and billboards. From this height, the old city blended with something new. Something alive.
The district below made no sense. Old concrete, yes—but overgrown. Not with weeds, with things. Massive organisms clung to buildings like parasites. Power poles from a century ago still stood, but moss had claimed them—blue, glowing, pulsing gently. It lit the streets like an ocean of stars, except the light moved. Flowed. Alive.
Above the poles, branches extended from trees that had learned to grow sideways. Their trunks punched through skyscraper walls, emerged from broken windows, stretched to the next building—creating bridges at dizzying heights. Thick foliage caught mist and dripped water that glittered. Blue. Always blue.
The streets below weren't asphalt anymore. Asphalt had cracked and crumbled, replaced by thick moss carpet. Between it, flowers bloomed in unison—one, two, three, then all together. Endless cycle. An orchestra with no conductor.
The colors: blue and green, glowing. Not paint—life. Between weathered red brick, new structures rose. Not built. Grown. Living wood walls without seams. Curved windows formed naturally. Some old buildings had been completely overtaken—only their shapes remained.
In places, banyan roots had become the main structure, supporting floors built around them. Trees and buildings embraced. Inseparable.
From this height, the city looked like a sleeping giant—a network of pulsing blue light spreading from building to building, tree to tree. A circulatory system. Elias could see its pulse. Slow. Deep. Regular. The heartbeat of a living city.
Swarms of glowing insects flew in formations—not random, but spirals and waves, coordinated. Dancing to music only they could hear. Occasionally the formation shifted, and a brighter flash lit their center.
This world... was beautiful. And terrifying.
He had no time to marvel. At his waist, a small device—a modified seashell with crystal components—pulsed and hissed. The familiar baritone voice spoke again, frustrated.
"Ffffhhh... Target lost visual. He jumped to the Transition Zone. We can't pursue there without Council approval. Request activation of 'The Rooter'."
The Rooter? The name didn't sound friendly.
The device in his hand—a phone, but with living wood casing, a gift from someone in the black market—vibrated. Its screen, a thin transparent membrane, lit on its own. A new message appeared in tiny blue dots.
Look northeast. The tree with the triple-branched peak. That's the entrance to the Crystal Forest. You must reach it before dawn. They'll activate The Rooter in 20 minutes. Don't touch anything glowing RED.
Red. Elias looked up.
Two kilometers northeast, a massive tree towered above the buildings. Not ordinary. This tree had grown through a skyscraper—its trunk, house-sized, piercing floor after floor all the way to the top. The building's floors now looked like rings around a giant pillar.
And at its peak, no ordinary foliage grew.
Its branches bloomed with transparent crystal structures, emitting dim light. White light. Amidst the sea of blue and green, it looked alien. Uninvited. Those crystals pulsed in a different rhythm—faster, more alive. The same pulse as the flash drive in his pocket.
The flash drive is responding to something, he thought. Or calling something.
Beneath the giant tree stretched an impossibility: an urban forest that had truly become a forest. Not a park with a few trees. A dense jungle—trees dozens of meters high, vines hanging from building to building, a thick canopy over streets long untouched. Among the foliage, flashes of blue and green. Organisms? Or something else? Something that moved.
Behind him, a low hum began. Growing closer.
Not mechanical. Softer, more organic—like millions of insects at low frequency. Elias turned. Three bright blue points of light moved swiftly between buildings, gliding like a flock of birds.
But these weren't birds.
One passed under the moss-light. Elias saw its shape: a giant jellyfish floating in air, translucent body trailing thin glowing tentacles. They twitched gently, groping, searching. At the top, a transparent dome. Inside it, brighter blue flashes. Brain? Navigation? Something else?
Hunters, his memory whispered. Genetically engineered. City Council creations. He'd heard stories—how they tracked humans by heat, by scent, by vibration. Seeing them in person? First time.
Or... not first time?
For a moment—a flash. Images he didn't ask for: creatures like these, but... different. More perfect. Flying over a city without vines. Without blue moss. A dead city.
He shook his head. What the hell was that?
Elias pulled his jacket tighter, felt the flash drive pulse. Warm. Like a second heart. He crawled along the roof, looking for a way down.
The fire escape on the west side had long collapsed—rusted iron hanging useless. But the vines covering the wall had formed a natural staircase: thick tendrils winding down, small branches for handholds. Elias tested one. It moved—not from his weight, but as if aware of being touched. Dim blue light flowed to where his hand touched. A reaction.
This plant can feel me.
He descended quickly, trying not to make noise. But every step made the plants rustle, emit small blue sparks. Protest. Or warning.
On the third floor, he stopped.
Something moved in the dark alley below.
Not human. The light was too blue, the movements too fluid. One of the hunters—Medusas, they called them—floated just above ground, centimeters from the surface. Its tentacles hung down, touching, sweeping across walls gently, creeping into every crevice. It moved like it was feeling the world. Gathering information with every touch.
Elias held his breath. Distance: maybe two floors. Thirty meters. Far enough, but—
One tentacle stopped. Its tip, glowing brighter, pointed straight up. Toward him.
Elias shut down his communication device. Reflex. But the flash drive in his pocket went warm. Not warm—pulsed. Strongly. He could feel it against his thigh. He pulled it out carefully. White light flashed at its tip—white, not blue—following the same rhythm as the crystals on the giant tree.
It's responding to something. Or calling something.
The hunter below stopped completely. Its tentacles vibrated, then all of them pointed directly at where Elias hid. Its translucent body pulsed with more intense blue light.
For seconds that felt like forever, they stayed still. Elias saw details now—fine vessels inside its body, electrical flashes along its nerves, and at its center, a round structure rotating slowly. Its eyes? Its brain?
Then the hunter moved.
Not away. Closer. Slowly, gracefully, rising through the air along the vines. Its tentacles reached up, groping the wall, searching.
Reflex.
Elias's body moved before his mind. He jumped—not up or down, but sideways. Soaring through air with an explosive push, body arcing perfectly, left hand reaching for thick vines on the next building. Four meters away.
A move that should have been impossible. Physics didn't allow it without a running start. But he did it smoothly. Like he'd practiced thousands of times.
His hand gripped the vines. They screamed again—softly, blue sparks of pain. A cold thought crossed his mind:
I shouldn't have been able to do that.
The hunter below spun in confusion. Its tentacles groped the air where he'd been, searching for a target that wasn't there. The creature made a sound—not a hum, a low-frequency pulse that made Elias's chest vibrate. A call? A warning?
Elias swung. His right foot found a crevice on the wall, pushed. He shot through a large gap—not a window, a meter-wide crack covered in vines.
He landed with a perfect roll on dusty floor, muffling the sound. During the roll, he felt something: deeply ingrained survival instinct. Perfectly trained movements. Not an ordinary person's. Professional movements. The kind possessed by someone who'd escaped death hundreds of times.
But I'm not that kind of person, he thought. I'm just an ordinary employee. I—
His thoughts stopped.
Inside the dark building, he sat still on the second floor, listening to his own ragged breathing. His heart pounded, but his hands—his hands weren't shaking. Not at all. Only a strange sensation in his chest. Like something stirring after a long sleep. Something cold.
You shouldn't have survived that jump, his mind whispered. You shouldn't know how to disappear from a hunter like that.
But he had survived. That mattered. For now.
Elias rose slowly. His eyes adjusted to the darkness inside. And again, he was stunned.
The walls were entirely covered in glowing blue moss. Every surface—from floor to four-meter ceiling—thickly coated, pulsing gently, creating dim natural illumination. Like being inside a giant aquarium.
This might have been an office building once. Or a mall. Remnants of desks and chairs in corners—all decayed, moldy, barely recognizable. Curtains at windows were shreds. Carpet had merged with moss, boundaries unclear.
But in the center of the room: something strange.
A tree grew there, piercing through the second and third floors. Not an ordinary tree. Its trunk was massive—three adults to encircle it—and its color... pale white. Not brown or gray. White, with glowing blue veins running from roots to the highest branches disappearing through a hole in the ceiling.
Its leaves? Not green. Metallic silver. Gleaming like liquid metal, reflecting the blue moss-light strangely. When they rustled—wind through broken windows—they made a faint tinkling sound. Like metal wind chimes.
At its roots, glowing blue mushrooms grew in perfect circles. Giant fungi deliberately planted in ritual formations. Elias didn't know much about mushrooms, but he knew they didn't grow in perfect geometric circles naturally.
Strangest of all: around the tree, hanging from lower branches, were ancient sensor devices. Not living technology—metal and plastic, obsolete, rusted in places, but still blinking with small red lights. Those sensors pointed at the tree, at its roots, at the mushrooms. As if someone—or something—was monitoring its growth.
Who installed these? And for what purpose?
Elias approached slowly. On one sensor, he saw a faded logo: a circle with three curved lines inside. The City Council logo. The government of this new world.
They're monitoring this tree. But why?
From outside, the hum of hunters grew louder. Not alone anymore. Five or six different sounds now—some low-frequency like the Medusas, some higher, faster. Circling the building. Searching.
The device in his pocket—though turned off—pulsed. A strange, deep pulse. Like a call from somewhere far. Elias pulled it out carefully. The wooden phone's screen lit on its own, without his touch.
Not a text message this time. A simple map appeared in blue light, showing the building where he stood. On that map, a dotted glowing line pointed toward the basement. Below the map, one short sentence:
Underground. Old tunnels. Follow the roots.
Elias looked up at the strange tree. Its roots—pale white, thick as a man's arm—spread in all directions. Penetrating walls. Wrapping around concrete pillars. And some disappeared into large cracks in the floor. Heading down. To the basement.
Follow the roots.
Behind him, the door he'd come through began to vibrate. The vines covering it were being pulled from outside. Voices—unclear commands—from beyond the wall. Blue lights shone through the gaps.
They had arrived.
Elias didn't think twice. He ran toward the tree, leaping over spreading roots, nearly tripping. He found a hole in the floor near the main trunk—a meter-wide dark passage created by the tree's roots destroying the concrete floor structure. The smell of wet earth, mushrooms, and something sharp like ozone—the same smell as the flash drive when it pulsed—came from within.
Elias paused at the edge. Warm wind blew from below. Warm, unlike the cold night air. And down there, something... called. Not literally. But the flash drive in his pocket pulsed so strongly he could feel its vibration through his entire body.
It's a trap, he thought. Or maybe it's the only way.
From behind the door: a loud crash. The door would break any second.
Elias breathed deep, felt the pulse of the flash drive in his pocket, and jumped down into the darkness.
---
In the City Council's control room, far above the tallest building in the central district, Commander Silas Vane stared at the organic screen before him. His jaw tight.
That screen—a two-meter-wide thin membrane that grew from the wall, not installed—displayed a map of the Transition Zone in glowing dots. Blue for controlled areas. Green for symbiotic zones. And red—a single small red dot—for the target.
Twenty years in the Council's law enforcement. Twenty years, from ordinary police in the lower districts, rising through special units, now commanding an elite fugitive team. Never had he chased a target like this.
This fugitive was different. Slippery. Always one step ahead. Every time they nearly caught him, he vanished like mist. Every time they set a trap, he turned back and found gaps they hadn't anticipated. And now, he'd entered the Transition Zone—a dead zone controlled by no one, where Council law didn't apply, where nature had reclaimed everything.
"Report, Commander."
Vane turned. Lyra Kestrel, his young operator, stared at him with dark circles under her eyes. Three shifts without sleep. Like everyone else in this room.
"We tracked the target to the roof of a shopping district building in Sector Seven, Border Zone. But he jumped into the Transition Zone—right at the boundary—before ground teams could secure him."
Vane nodded. He'd seen it on the screen. That jump—three meters at six stories high—was the jump of a desperate man. Or someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
"We've released the hunters," Lyra continued. "Three Medusa units. They'll narrow down the area in twenty minutes."
On the screen, blue dots moved—the Medusas, beautiful and deadly, flying in search formation. Pride of the Biological Research Division. Could track one human among millions by body heat, breath patterns, footstep vibrations. No one could escape them.
Or so they say.
Vane swiped the screen with his finger, zooming in on the Transition Zone. The image was blurry—the observation symbiotes there, small creatures attached to buildings sending data, were deliberately blinded by the Council. Official policy: "respect the wild zone boundaries." Unofficial policy: "let the dregs of society live there, as long as they don't bother us."
But from the blurry fragments the Medusas managed to send, a shadowy figure could be seen crawling across building roofs. Moving quickly, precisely. Like a shadow that knew exactly where to step. Then that shadow disappeared into one of the empty buildings.
Whoever he is, he knows how to disappear.
Vane took a long breath. Then spoke words he'd never wanted to say.
"Activate The Rooter."
Everyone in the control room turned. Even Echo Vahn, the old technician busy with his collection of communication mushrooms in the corner, stopped. They all knew what that meant.
"Commander," Lyra's voice hesitated. "The Rooter has never been activated outside test zones. The impact on wild symbiotes in the area—"
"There are no wild symbiotes in the Transition Zone," Vane cut in, louder than intended. "Just the dregs of society. And one high-priority target."
Lyra didn't argue further. But Vane could see her jaw tighten. Young, idealistic, still believing in rules. Vane had been like that once. Believing the City Council worked for everyone's good. Believing biological technology was a blessing. Believing rules existed to protect.
Now? Now he only believed in results. And results meant catching that fugitive, retrieving whatever he carried, and ending this operation before the Council started questioning his competence.
The control room door opened. The covering vines parted automatically, rustling aside.
An old man stepped in.
His robe: dark green natural fiber, woven with glowing blue moss at the edges—clothing only someone with highest authority could wear. Long white hair tied neatly back, revealing a thin face with sharp features. His eyes—cold, analytical. Like two cameras recording for later study.
In his hand: a small crystal ball. Inside it, something pulsed with white light. Not blue or green like all the technology in this room. Pure white. Alien. Beating slowly like an artificial heart.
Director Alistair Valerius. Head of the City Council's Biological Research and Development Division. A scientist with nearly unlimited power.
"Sorry to interrupt, Commander."
Vane gave a half-hearted salute. "Councilman Valerius. What brings you here? This is a field operation, not lab business."
Valerius smiled. A smile that never reached his eyes. His gaze remained cold, analytical.
"Oh, this is lab business, Commander. Believe me."
He stepped inside. Technicians moved aside with respect—or fear. Some wall moss near him shriveled, reacting to negative vibrations he emitted. Valerius didn't care.
"The target you're chasing... he's carrying something."
"A flash drive. Ancient technology. We know."
"Not just a flash drive."
Valerius raised the crystal ball. The main wall screen—previously glowing calm blue—flickered. Its pulse changed, faster, and its color shifted. Blue faded, replaced by white.
On that screen, a pulsing signal appeared. One dot. The exact same dot as the target on their map.
"That is a key," Valerius said quietly. "A key to unlocking something we've been growing for ten years in the new district. And if it falls into the wrong hands..."
"Whose hands? He's a fugitive. Alone. No connections."
Valerius laughed. Soft, but more wall moss shriveled deeper. Lyra instinctively pulled her jacket tighter.
"You think he's running without purpose? You think he knows how to enter the Crystal Forest without help?"
Valerius approached Vane. Up close, his eyes looked strange. A thin white ring around the iris. Like contact lenses—or something else. Something that shouldn't exist in normal human eyes.
"There's someone out there helping him," Valerius continued. "Someone who knows more about our project than they should. And you—" he crooked his thin finger, pointing at Vane's chest "—will let your target live long enough to meet that person."
Vane held his breath. "We can capture him alive. Interrogate him. Find out who's behind this."
"No."
Valerius shook his head slowly. Once. Decisively.
"If he's captured, the key will self-destruct. Believe me, we designed it that way." He stared at his crystal ball, where the white pulse continued beating. "The only way to retrieve it is while he's alive and free—until he meets his contact. At that moment, you capture them both. Simultaneously."
"So we let him run?"
"You let him reach his destination. But don't make it too easy."
Valerius turned toward the door. The vines were already parting, as if knowing he was leaving. But at the threshold, he stopped.
"Oh, one more thing."
He touched something on his crystal ball. The main wall screen flickered again, changing images.
A creature appeared on the screen.
Vane had never seen it before. Its shape: like a spider—but not ordinary. Its body: living wood, dark, with red glowing veins running across its entire surface. Eight legs: long and slender, made of roots that moved flexibly even on screen. On its back: glowing red mushrooms grew in specific patterns—intricate spirals, like writing in an unknown language.
It didn't look aggressive. Just sitting there on screen, its eight eyes—or whatever they were—staring somewhere off-frame.
But just looking at it made Vane's chest tight. A strange tightness. Like an invisible hand squeezing his heart.
"What is that?" he asked, voice rougher than usual.
Valerius smiled again. This time, for the first time, his smile reached his eyes. And that was more terrifying than his cold stare.
"We call it Arachne."
He walked back to the center of the room, approaching the screen. Everyone was silent. Even Echo had stopped touching his communication mushrooms.
"It won't chase your target. It wasn't designed for that." Valerius stared at the creature on screen with pride. "It only... observes. Records. And occasionally, causes minor disruptions to the surrounding ecosystem."
He tapped his crystal ball once more. The screen changed, showing a view from Arachne's eyes—infrared, or something similar—of the Transition Zone. In the center, the red target dot was clearly visible, now moving down from the vines.
But around that red dot, small blue dots. Many. Dozens. Moving slowly, scattered throughout the area.
"What are those?" Vane pointed.
"The native inhabitants of the Transition Zone." Valerius was already at the door again. "Those who chose to live integrated with the wild. Or those who had no choice. Arachne will make them... unfriendly to uninvited guests."
His voice echoed in the room, which suddenly felt cold. Despite being full of warm moss and living technology.
"Happy hunting, Commander. And remember—the target must meet his contact. Don't let him die before that."
The door closed. The vines covered it again.
The electrical hum from the screens suddenly seemed very loud.
---
Underground, Elias kept running.
Black water up to his ankles splashed with every step, spraying his pants, leaving a sticky feeling on his skin. The smell here was different—not just wet earth. A mix of mushrooms, rusted metal, and something sweet like rotting nectar.
The tunnel walls were alive. Elias could see it clearly in the blue light from moss covering almost every surface. That moss pulsed slowly, in time with his own heartbeat—or maybe his heartbeat followed theirs. Hard to tell.
But something was strange.
Amidst the dominant blue moss, white patches were appearing. Small mushrooms, no bigger than a fingernail, grew like alien islands in a blue sea. Their light was different—pale white, cold, not pulsing in rhythm with the surrounding moss.
And wherever those white mushrooms grew, the blue moss around them withered. Died. Turned black. Fell from the walls.
Elias paused briefly, touched one white mushroom patch with his fingertip. Cold. Very cold. And as his finger touched it, the flash drive in his pocket pulsed strongly—once—as if greeting it.
These mushrooms... respond to the flash drive.
Or the flash drive responded to them.
From a distance, sounds came. Not machines. Not the hunters' hum. Footsteps. Many. Heavy breathing echoing off the tunnel walls.
Elias froze. Blue lights began appearing at the far end of the tunnel, shining straight toward him. Not electronic flashlights—Council enforcers' biotech lights, attached to their helmets and shoulders, glowing bright blue in symbiosis with their wearers.
They've come down. They found the entrance.
"Who's there?" a heavy voice boomed, loud, authoritative.
Elias didn't answer. His eyes moved quickly, searching for a gap, another path. But this tunnel was straight. No branches. No alternative routes.
The lights came closer. Two, three, four figures behind them. Maybe more. Boots splashing through water. Clear now.
"Don't move! Hands in the air!"
Elias raised his hands slowly. His mind blank. Three days running. Three days escaping. And now—
Suddenly, all the blue lights went out.
Not dim. Completely dead. Simultaneously. In unison.
Startled shouts from the pursuers' direction. Then impacts—hard, heavy. Bodies falling into water. One. Two. Three. Four.
Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.
Silence.
Elias didn't dare move. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes tried to pierce the total darkness, but there was nothing to see. Even the blue moss on the walls had suddenly extinguished, as if someone had switched it off at the source.
Then from the darkness, another voice emerged.
Old. Hoarse. But calm. Very calm.
"Elias?"
Elias swallowed. Throat dry. "Who... who are you?"
A figure emerged from behind a decayed concrete pillar, about ten meters ahead. An old man—unkempt white hair, worn jacket that wasn't made of the Council's natural fibers. An ordinary jacket. A jacket from another world. Faded jeans. Worn boots.
And his eyes.
His eyes glowed strangely in the dark. Not blue like Council humans. White. The same as the flash drive. The same as the alien mushrooms on the walls. Pale white, faintly glowing, like two small stars in a cave.
"I sent those messages," the man said. "I'm Remy. And we don't have much time."
He stepped closer. Elias stepped back instinctively. But then he saw the man's left hand.
Beneath the skin at his wrist, something moved. Not veins. Not muscles. Circuit patterns—straight lines, sharp angles, something unnatural—pulsed with white light. Flashing in rhythm with the flash drive in Elias's pocket.
Technology. But not technology from this world. Technology from there.
"You... you're also from..." Elias didn't know how to finish that sentence. From where? Another world? The past? Something completely different?
Remy smiled bitterly. The lines on his face deepened. "From the same place as that thing in your pocket, maybe. Or from a different place. I don't know for sure myself." He stared at the flash drive. "What I do know is, that's what they're after. And it must not fall into Valerius's hands."
"Valerius?"
"The Councilman you saw on screens. The old man with the white eyes." Remy came closer. This time Elias didn't retreat. "He's not an ordinary human. Or maybe he was, once. Now? I don't know."
Remy fell silent.
His gaze lingered on Elias's face—longer than it should have. There was something there, in those tired eyes. Recognition? Confusion? Elias couldn't tell.
"What?" Elias asked, uneasy.
Remy shook his head slowly. "You remind me of someone." His voice dropped, barely a whisper now. "Someone I lost. A long time ago."
Before Elias could ask, a sound echoed from the darkness behind them. Not footsteps. Not voices. Just wood scraping against concrete—slow, deliberate, like something crawling along the ceiling.
Remy stiffened. "Arachne."
He grabbed Elias's arm. "Run."
They ran.
---
Through the dark tunnel, wading through deepening water, past moss-covered decayed concrete pillars. Remy led, breath ragged but legs never stopping. Sixty years—or maybe more, Elias wasn't sure—meant nothing now.
Behind them, Arachne's sound grew closer. Elias could hear it clearly now—the tread of eight wooden legs on the ceiling, the clicking of red mushrooms, occasional soft hissing like steam.
"How do you know this path?" Elias asked between breaths, trying to keep up.
"I've lived here three months." Remy didn't turn, focused ahead. "Three months learning every corridor, every gap, every hiding place. For a moment like this."
"You knew I was coming?"
"I knew someone would come." Remy turned left, entering a narrower passage. Here the walls were still covered in blue moss—alive, not yet contaminated by white. Water seeped from above. The smell: fresh earth after rain. "That flash drive emits a signal. A signal that only people like me can detect."
"People like you?"
Remy didn't answer. He kept running.
The light from the flash drive in Elias's hand—which he'd now pulled out—lit their path. Pulsing in rhythm with the light in Remy's arm. Same pulse. Same heartbeat.
I'm connected to this man, Elias thought. Or to something that exists in both of us.
Behind them, Arachne's sound grew closer. Now Elias could hear other sounds—squeaking, growling, small creatures scurrying in the darkness. All of them moving toward them.
"That's it," Remy breathed. "Arachne releases spores. Makes all the animals here—rats, bats, whatever—attack us."
"Then why haven't they attacked yet?"
"Because you—" Remy pointed at the flash drive in Elias's hand "—are emitting something. Something that frightens them."
Elias stared at the flash drive. Its white light was brighter now, stronger. And around them, on the walls, white mushrooms were growing thicker. Following them. Or protecting them.
Or perhaps calling something.
At the next intersection, Remy stopped abruptly. Three passages ahead. Two dark. One glowing blue with moss.
"Left," Remy said, pointing at the darkest passage. "Go that way. Follow the train tracks until you see massive roots coming down from above. White roots. That's the way to the Crystal Forest."
Elias nodded, ready to run again. But Remy didn't move.
"You're not coming?" Elias's voice changed.
Remy shook his head slowly. His hand reached into his worn jacket pocket. When it emerged, he held another flash drive. More worn, cracked in places, but pulsing with the same white light.
"I'm the bait," Remy said flatly.
"What? No—"
"Elias." Remy's voice was firm. Firmer than before. "Listen. I'm old. My body is already half not from here. But you... you're still whole. You still have a future. And you have that flash drive." He gripped Elias's shoulder. "I know the way out of here. But if we run together, Arachne will chase us both. Slower. Easier to catch. But if I give them another target—"
"I won't let you—"
"You don't have a choice."
Remy smiled. Genuine—the first in a long time. Elias saw it in those white eyes. Behind the glow: warmth. Pain. Regret.
"It's been a long time since I had a purpose," Remy said quietly. "Ten years running, hiding, not knowing why. But now..." He paused. "Now I have one. Saving you."
From a distance, Arachne's sound returned. Closer now. Clearer. Wood scraping against concrete. The pulse of red.
"Go." Remy pushed Elias toward the left passage. "Run. Don't look back. Don't stop. Until you see those white roots."
Elias stumbled, nearly fell. He stared at Remy one last time. That old man in a worn jacket with glowing eyes stood tall at the intersection, the old flash drive in his left hand, his right hand waving gently.
"Go," Remy whispered.
Elias ran.
Tears mixed with sweat on his face, but he didn't stop. His footsteps echoed in the dark passage, followed by Arachne's sound growing closer—but no longer chasing him. That sound stopped at the intersection.
Then Elias heard Remy's voice from a distance, shouting as loud as he could:
"VALERIUS! YOU WANT THIS? THIS IS WHAT YOU'RE AFTER! TAKE IT!"
The flash drive in Elias's hand pulsed strongly—once, long, deep—as if saluting. Or as if mourning.
Then Arachne's sound moved away. Chasing Remy.
Elias kept running.
---
He didn't know how long he ran. Ten minutes. An hour. Time blurred underground, in darkness lit only by the white light from the flash drive and patches of alien mushrooms now covering the walls.
Blue moss grew scarcer. What thrived now were white mushrooms—hundreds, thousands, covering every surface, emitting cold light that strangely felt warm on his skin. Or maybe that was just his imagination.
Old train tracks began appearing on the floor—rusted iron nearly unrecognizable, covered in moss and mushrooms. Elias followed them, hoping this was the right direction.
His feet hurt. His lungs burned. But he didn't stop.
And finally, he saw it.
At the end of the tunnel, where the ceiling had completely collapsed, there was light. Not blue. Not white. Gold—the warm golden light of sunrise.
And from that collapsed ceiling, massive roots hung down.
Not ordinary roots. These roots were as thick as a human body, milky white with bright white glowing veins inside. They pulsed—slow, deep, regular—like giant pulses connecting something above with something below. From those roots, Elias could hear the rustle of millions of leaves in the wind.
The Crystal Forest.
Elias grabbed the nearest root. It felt warm in his hand. Alive. Pulsing. And as he touched it, the flash drive in his pocket pulsed back—the same rhythm, like a conversation between two beings who recognized each other.
He began to climb.
The root was solid. Small branches along its sides served as handholds. Elias climbed faster than he thought he could, his body moving with instincts that felt strangely natural.
Below, Arachne's sound was gone. Or maybe lost in the distance.
Above, the golden light grew closer.
When his head emerged at the surface, Elias took a long breath. Fresh air—truly fresh, not city air full of pollution—filled his lungs.
He was at the edge of the Crystal Forest.
Before him, giant trees towered, their trunks fused with collapsed skyscrapers. Metallic leaves glittered in the wind, producing a soft tinkling like millions of wind chimes. Among the foliage, transparent crystals grew on branches, reflecting the sunrise in a spectrum of colors he'd never seen before.
And in the distance, towering above everything, the giant tree with its crystal peak still pulsed. Calling.
Elias sat at the edge of the hole, catching his breath. His hand reached into his pocket, pulling out the worn paper Remy had given him. Wet, nearly destroyed, but the writing was still legible.
Dr. Anya Weiss. Crystal Forest, Sector Seven. Follow the red light.
Red light. Elias looked up, searching. Amidst the sea of blue and white and gold, he saw it—a small red dot on that giant tree's trunk. Blinking slowly. Waiting.
The flash drive in his pocket pulsed once—strong, long—then quieted. Like a heart finally resting.
Elias clenched the paper, putting it back in his pocket. He stared toward the underground, toward where Remy was now likely dead—or maybe still alive. A new subject for Valerius's experiments.
Thank you, he whispered in his heart.
Then he turned and walked toward the red light.
The hunt wasn't over.
But for the first time, he had a purpose.
And in his hand, the flash beat gently, leading him into something that might change everything.
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To be continued...