The floor beneath Ashe's feet reflected the light and the surrounding structure, creating faint and distorted images that moved with her.
The corridors ahead were remarkably high, with ceilings barely visible above at all. Their walls were embedded with unusual elements she couldn't understand and with thin lines of light that still ran through them. That detail felt strange in a place that looked so abandoned.
Ashe slowed her pace slightly and let her eyes move across the walls as she passed them, trying to distinguish the mechanisms on them. Some were small and barely visible, others were larger and appeared mostly broken. She tried to compare them to something familiar, anything that might exist in her memory, but each attempt had the same result. A faint buzzing in her head and a complete blurriness of unclear thoughts.
The deeper she went, the more visible the damage became. Entire sections of infrastructure had been forced through the walls, as if something inside had torn its way out. Large pieces of machinery lay scattered across the floors or hung suspended in the upper reaches of the corridors, leaving behind debris she couldn't begin to make sense of.
She didn't have the knowledge to understand the mechanisms themselves, but she could observe the pattern of damage. It looked like something had happened suddenly, with enough force to disrupt multiple layers of the structure at once. This couldn't have been just slow and gradual decay. Also, given the scale of the facility, whatever had caused that damage had to be significant. That thought remained with her for a long while as she walked.
But most importantly, through all of the wreckage and destruction, there were no signs of life anywhere. No movement. No evidence that anyone else had been there recently, or even at all. That's what she had hoped to find. Someone who could help her understand what was happening.
Her thoughts returned to Seven's writings in the pod chamber. She remembered the words he had mentioned: Threnos and harmonic seeds. She whispered them several times, in an attempt to store them in memory even if she didn't understand their meaning. They were perhaps the key to prove to herself eventually whether she was actually losing her mind or not. Because in those moments, anything felt possible.
After a while of trying to steady her thoughts, something ahead caught her attention. It looked like a faint light flickering in the distance. She couldn't make out what it was from where she stood, but in a place so still and broken, its movement certainly drew her attention.
She approached carefully and stepped through the arch that followed. The chamber ahead was smaller than the others she had encountered, but at its center, suspended in the air, stood something she had no words for.
Its form was fractured and crystalline, with sharp edges coming out from all sides and directions. A blue light pulsed from within, and thin strands of black energy circled around it. It looked like a mass of blue and black energy, yet its shape was mostly rigid, reforming its crystal edges until it settled into a new configuration, only to fracture and change again moments later. And It was silent, eerily silent as it moved within its own space.
As strange and unsettling as it was, there was an unusual beauty to it that Ashe couldn't ignore. She was not afraid of it even though she knew she should have been. What she felt instead was curiosity.
She studied the mass as she slowly approached it. It was in a constant state of motion forming and reforming in loops, occasionally tightening, then loosening again.
Eventually she extended her hand, almost hypnotized by those moving patterns. But the very second her skin made contact, the entire thing reacted to it. The shock was brutal and unlike anything she had experienced since she had awakened. It entered through her hand and traveled up her arm, striking her nervous system directly.
Ashe hit the floor in seconds.
From where it stood, the mass reacted as if it were alive. Its structure quickly destabilized and its movements grew erratic and aggressive. Shards forced their way to the surface, tearing through its form as if driven by a violent force.
Suddenly, several of them shot toward Ashe. She tried to move, but her body had not yet recovered from the shock so it didn't respond the way she intended. Before she could do anything, the crystalline shards latched onto her left arm. As soon as they touched her, the pain returned, even more violent than before.
A scream tore from her as she felt something forcing its way deep inside her skin. She looked down and saw dark lines spreading through her veins. Panic set in instantly and that forced her to react. She reached blindly across the floor, grasping the debris scattered around. She pulled herself backward, dragging her body against the ground in an attempt to create distance.
All the while the shards maintained their grip, extending slightly as she moved, adjusting their length to maintain contact.
Eventually Ashe's fingers reached what seemed like a solid object.
She wasted no time in figuring out what that object was. She could only feel that it was solid, heavy and somewhat sharp so she figured it must have been good enough. Most likely a piece of broken piping of sorts. She tightened her grip around it and struck as hard as she could. The extensions fractured, breaking into smaller shards that quickly dissolved into dark particles. The grip they had loosened so immediately afterwards she struck again. This time the connection severed completely and the remaining shards withdrew, retracting back toward the central mass.
She used the brief opening she had gained to push herself from the ground. Back on her feet and facing the mass, she threw the pipe straight at its center. The object cut through the air and struck the core, directly where the blue light flared. As soon as that happened, the pulsing intensified, destabilizing the entire structure for a moment.
Ashe turned and ran. Her legs barely supported her but the circumstances were too critical for that to matter.
She retraced her path through the corridor, though she was aware that following the exact same route would lead her back to the pod chamber. And that location was very much a dead end. She remembered the broken ceiling it had but it was too high up and her body too unstable for her to climb before that thing caught up to her.
So she improvised. She changed direction at the first intersection.
Behind her, the mass had already begun to move. It no longer remained suspended. Instead, it attached itself to the surrounding environment. Crystalline extensions latched into the walls and floor, dragging the main body forward at a speed she wasn't expecting.
She increased her pace as well, but her coordination suffered as a result. Her steps became less controlled, her breathing more erratic.
As the entity moved through the corridor, it disrupted the mechanisms and systems on the walls causing them to release bursts of electricity around. One of those releases struck close to where she was. She recoiled instinctively in order to avoid it, but the movement made her trip slightly and bump violently against a support beam. She regained balance and continued running.
As she advanced, the layout became more and more unfamiliar. The structure was less damaged here, but there were fewer open routes instead, which didn't help at all.
She reached the end of the corridor and here she finally found no exit. She stopped abruptly in front of a thick wall, which forced her to catch herself against its surface. Her breathing was unstable, turning into panic.
Suddenly, dark markings appeared on the wall's surface.
"Move the debris below where you are," Seven said. "To your right side."
Ashe did not waste time questioning this time.
She immediately looked at the indicated area. Small debris obstructed a narrow opening that had been concealed by the surrounding walls. She pushed it all aside with what strength she had left, clearing space for her to pass through.
"Enter," then Seven continued. "Don't stop."
She complied.
The passage beyond was tight, forcing her to adjust her posture. Behind her, the entity's approach echoed through the space. The walls vibrated with each impact as it moved through.
"Forward," the markings appeared again, now along the inner surface of the passage. "Three meters. Then right."
She followed the instructions without hesitation. Seven's guidance came in short and clear phrases, each appearing just before she needed to decide where to turn.
Behind her, the entity adapted by altering its form to fit the narrow spaces, compressing its structure while still maintaining speed.
"Step over the gap," the writing appeared ahead.
She stepped to the side just in time to avoid a break in the floor that would have caused her to fall. Her vision blurred briefly, but she managed to maintain the direction forward.
"Left. Now."
She turned abruptly, nearly losing her balance in the process.
Up ahead, the corridor turned into a wider section. Before she had any time to process her new surroundings though, the floor beneath her feet moved unexpectedly. It cracked in several places simultaneously until it eventually gave way without warning.
In just a few seconds, Ashe fell through the gap, along with all the surrounding debris.