The farther they ran, the hotter Fred's skin felt.
It wasn't just fear.
It was something else.
The shard he had touched — it had left a mark.
Invisible to the eye, but burning into his flesh like a second heartbeat.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
It synchronized with the thundering steps of whatever was now chasing them down the tunnels.
Mira stumbled again, barely able to keep up.
Subject 0 hoisted her over his shoulder without a word, his muscles straining as he sprinted beside Fred.
The walls themselves seemed to warp.
Tiles peeled back.
Ancient symbols bled from the stones.
Fred wiped sweat from his brow and tasted salt and iron.
The tunnel was remembering.
And memory here was alive.
---
A heavy iron door loomed ahead.
Fred didn't think — he slammed his shoulder into it.
It gave way with a shriek of rust and dust.
They tumbled inside.
Subject 0 kicked the door shut behind them.
BOOM.
Darkness.
Nothing but the sound of their breathing.
Fred flicked on a flashlight.
Its beam illuminated a small, circular room lined with cracked mirrors.
In the center stood a pedestal.
And on it, a book.
Bound in a material Fred didn't want to name.
On the cover was a symbol.
A spiral of thorns... encircling a bleeding eye.
Mira stirred weakly, whispering, "That's the Book of Names..."
Fred's blood ran cold.
He knew that name.
Every child in the orphanage had.
It was the book that remembered everyone who had ever been offered to the web.
Everyone who had bled for it.
And now it waited for him.
---
The pounding at the door grew louder.
Splinters cracked and jumped from the wood.
Fred moved forward.
Each step felt heavier.
The Book of Names pulsed faintly under the beam of the flashlight.
He could feel it calling to him.
Promising answers.
Promising revenge.
Subject 0 hissed, "Fred, don't."
But Fred was already reaching out.
He barely brushed the cover—
FLASH
Names.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Screaming through his mind.
Faces of forgotten children.
Eyes wide with betrayal.
Fred's knees buckled.
He forced himself to stay standing.
Forced himself to remember.
This was not a gift.
It was a burden.
And he was the last one who could carry it.
---
Fred placed his palm firmly on the book.
A pulse of crimson light exploded outward.
The door shattered inward.
Creatures poured in — twisted mockeries of humans.
But they hesitated at the threshold.
Hissing.
Fearful.
Fred stood between them and the book.
He wasn't just Fred anymore.
He was a living vessel of every memory that had been silenced.
Every scream that had gone unheard.
The burning mark on his chest flared.
A spiral of blood bloomed beneath his shirt.
It matched the one on the book.
Mira gasped weakly, "You... you're the last heir..."
Fred smiled grimly.
Not a happy smile.
A broken one.
Of course he was.
It had always been him.
It was why the web wanted him.
Why the world had broken him.
Why the shadows whispered his name even now.
Fred drew his blade.
The creatures hissed louder.
And he spoke — not in his voice, but the voice of a thousand lost souls:
"You have no place here."
The creatures shrieked — a deafening, agonizing sound — and fled back into the darkness.
For now.
---
Fred turned back to Mira and Subject 0.
"We find the exit," he said. "We find whoever left that letter. We end this."
Subject 0 just nodded.
There was no point arguing anymore.
The rules of the game had changed.
Fred wasn't running anymore.
He wasn't hiding.
The blood had chosen him.
The past had claimed him.
And he would carve a new future out of its broken bones.
Step by bloody step.
---