The moment they stepped inside Cinderspar Tower, the city disappeared.
The hum of traffic, the distant sirens, even the whisper of the wind—it all fell away like someone had slammed a vault door behind them. The air was thick. Not just dusty, but old. Like it hadn't been breathed in years. Maybe decades.
Lena lit a flame in her palm, its flicker reflecting off black marble floors warped with heat damage. The lobby was still—eerily so. Furniture had melted into strange shapes, like someone had tried to replicate a corporate lounge using wax and nightmares.
Reya leaned against Jace, her face still pale, but eyes sharp.
"This place doesn't feel abandoned," she whispered.
"It isn't," Lena replied.
They moved carefully, every footstep an offense to the silence.
The walls were covered in faded murals—cities floating upside down, towers of bone piercing the clouds, people with no eyes or mouths kneeling before an unseen figure painted entirely in black. Jace stopped in front of one that looked newer—less faded.
It showed a woman, her back to the viewer, standing in fire. Her hair was wild. Her body wreathed in flame. But where her face should've been, the paint had been scratched off. Not chipped—gouged, deliberately.
Lena noticed. "They defaced her."
"Or she was never meant to be seen," Jace murmured. "A forgotten god?"
"Or a failed one," Reya added quietly.
The elevator was fused shut, its doors bent like something had forced its way in—or out. They found the stairwell instead, sealed behind a rusted fire door that hissed when Lena burned through the lock.
As they climbed, the air grew colder. More aware.
Jace's blade felt heavier.
Lena's flame dimmed.
And Reya… she stopped.
"Wait," she said.
They did.
She knelt and pressed her palm to the concrete wall.
"Someone's watching."
"We know," Jace said. "We're not alone."
"No," Reya murmured. "Not watching us. Watching them."
Lena blinked. "Who's 'them'?"
Reya's fingers twitched.
"I don't know."
And then the wall opened.
No creaking. No rumble. Just… silence. And then a thin vertical seam widened, revealing a narrow hallway, perfectly smooth, lit by an unnatural amber glow.
Jace stepped forward. "Trap?"
"Definitely," Lena said.
"Still going in?"
"Obviously."
They followed the hallway downward, the stairs spiraling like a helix into the bowels of the building. There were no sounds but their breathing—and something else. A hum. Low. Organic. Like a heartbeat muffled by stone.
They reached the bottom.
The corridor opened into a domed chamber.
And in the center—suspended in a cage of bone and black wires—was a body.
It floated, unmoving, naked but genderless. Its skin shimmered between colors, like oil on water. Symbols were etched into its chest, and a long cord stretched from its navel to a pulsing altar made of glass and obsidian.
"Holy shit," Jace muttered. "What the hell is that?"
Reya stepped closer. "It's alive."
"No," Lena said, pointing. "It's remembering."
The symbols on the body's chest were glowing, each one lighting up in sequence—faster, faster—until the entire chamber vibrated with energy.
Suddenly—
The cage snapped open.
The body fell.
And right before it hit the floor—it vanished.
Jace staggered back, sword drawn. "Where the hell did it go?!"
Behind him, something breathed.
He spun.
Nothing.
But the walls had changed.
The murals were moving.
People ran across them, screaming, chased by shapes that didn't belong in any world with logic or gravity. Faces peeled like paper. Whole cities fell into themselves, replaced by towers made of teeth.
Reya clutched her head, screaming.
Lena caught her before she hit the ground.
"Too loud," Reya gasped. "Too much."
Jace ran to them, but froze as the ground beneath his feet cracked—and bled. Thick black ichor poured from the seams in the floor, bubbling, hissing.
"This place isn't just haunted," Lena said, eyes wide. "It's alive."
"No," Jace said, voice grim. "It's a womb."
Reya coughed, blood trickling from her nose. "They're using the tower to breed something… birth it. A weapon. A god. I don't know."
They turned to leave—
—but the stairwell was gone.
Only wall.
Solid.
And in the corner of the chamber, something clicked.
Like a jaw unhinging.
A voice slithered out of the darkness. "You found the vessel. Now… feed it."
From the ceiling, limbs began to descend. Human-shaped. Broken. Wrapped in wires.
And they were smiling.