The descent began in silence.
Alexander led the way, cloak heavy with dust, boots echoing across the abandoned metro line. The tunnel was long sealed from the public—a relic buried under concrete, static, and bureaucratic lies. Mira and Rael followed close behind, weapons at the ready, eyes scanning the darkness that seemed too still, too expectant.
They'd followed the glyph's coordinates. The deeper they went, the less reality felt stable.
Lights flickered above—then bent, as though something unseen was brushing past them. Walls wept condensation that shimmered like memory. Their comms had gone silent miles back. Even their footsteps seemed slower, like time was thickening.
Rael cursed under his breath. "Feels like we're walking into someone else's dream."
Mira didn't respond. She was holding her head, eyes shut tight. Sweat rolled down her cheek.
Alexander turned. "You okay?"
She opened her eyes—and they glowed.
Not fully. Just a flicker. A pulse of silver, then gone.
Alexander's jaw tightened. "What did you see?"
"Not a vision," she whispered. "A feeling. Like my Echo is… bleeding into something else. Or something is inside me, pressing back. Like a reflection moving on its own."
She stumbled slightly. Alexander caught her.
"I'm fine," she said, brushing him off. "It's just… I think the Suppressor broke something in me. I've never felt this raw."
"It's not just you," Rael said. "I feel off too. But not like that. Yours is… different."
Alexander frowned. Mira had always had strong resonance, but stable. Her Echo was projection-based—visual hallucinations, mirages, information weaving. But now, there was something feral in the way she stood. Her pupils kept shifting—shrinking, widening, contracting like her body was trying to adjust to a new set of senses.
They passed into a chamber of white stone—clearly artificial. But it didn't feel made. It felt grown.
There, etched into the floor, was a circle of symbols. Not System glyphs. Not rebellion tech.
Pale markings.
The moment Mira stepped across it, the air screamed.
A pulse knocked them all off their feet—Alexander's ears rang, vision doubled. Rael rolled to his knees, swearing. But Mira… Mira stood still.
The circle beneath her had lit up—tendrils of light slithering up her boots, tracing her spine, wrapping her arms.
Her skin shimmered, faintly translucent. And behind her eyes, something began to stare back.
"Mira!" Alexander shouted.
But she didn't move.
Then she spoke. And it wasn't her voice.
"We were here before Echo," it said. "Before names. Before light. You severed us. Now you seek us."
The voice came from her mouth, but carried the weight of a thousand throats. It wasn't shouting—it was remembering.
Alexander approached carefully. "Who are you?"
The answer came like thunder:
"I am her Awakening."
Mira collapsed to her knees. Her hands trembled. When she looked up again, the glow was gone.
"I—I couldn't stop it," she gasped. "I didn't… I didn't want it to stop."
Alexander knelt beside her. "You're not infected. You're awakening. Like they said. They're testing us. You triggered something."
Rael stared, shaken. "If that's what an awakening looks like… what happens when all of us go through it?"
Alexander looked down at the sigils now fading from the stone. A voice echoed faintly in the back of his mind.
"This is only the threshold. Step further, and you leave yourself behind."