The tunnel narrowed the farther they walked.

  Gridline Nine was dimly lit. There were memory pipes that ran along the walls and the ceiling. They all glowed with a faint sick green. The floor was grated metal, and a slow drip of leaking fluid was all that was heard.

  The deeper they moved, the more the mist thickened around them. Not quite fog. Not quite smoke. Something in between.

  Yoan led in silence. Lira followed just behind him. Kael stayed last.

  They passed a burst pipe that leaked mist. The sound was like a voice with no mouth.

  "NELL! You get back here, girl—don’t go near that light!"

  “Don’t listen,” Lira said quietly. “Don’t respond to it.”

  The walls grew darker. Crusted with black mold. Lights flickered overhead.

  They reached a raised platform suspended over a pool of silver liquid. Looking at it made memories race through his mind.

  A girl in a red scarf. A man is screaming at a gate. A sword falling through smoke.

  “Eyes forward,” Lira warned. “Don’t look at the liquid. Remember, they’re not your lives.”

  At the end of the walkway stood massive metal doors. Bent inwards, like something had broken out.

  The memory containment unit lay just beyond. Or what was left of it.

  A cracked glass container, and at its center, something moved.

  Something that looked… vaguely human.

  But wasn’t.

  It twitched.

  Then it rose.

  Limbs far too long. Skin melted and stretched. Its face flickered, blurring between the faces of strangers. A woman screamed. A boy cried. A soldier laughed. Then nothing at all.

  It opened its mouth. And someone else’s voice spilled out.

  “Help me,” it whispered. A child’s voice. “I lost my brother.”

  Then another voice followed. Older. “Don’t leave me in the dark. Please. He’s still in there.”

  “It’s corrupted,” Lira muttered. “Don’t fall for its tricks.”

  The creature staggered toward them. Stiff at first. Then faster.

  Yoan stepped forward and slashed with his blade. Clean, practiced. But the creature’s skin split and then reformed around the wound. It didn’t slow.

  “What the hell is that?” Eyrk said, drawing his weapon.

  The creature screeched.

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  Kael followed next, drawing closer.

  The shard inside him pulsed. Dull at first, then hotter.

  His arm tensed. Reflexes not his own. As the thing lunged at Yoan, Kael ducked low and drove his knee into its side. His balance was perfect. Too perfect. The movement wasn’t his—it belonged to someone who died on their feet, refusing to kneel.

  But then, he tripped, losing himself for a moment, and the feeling was gone.

  Lira shouted, “Let it guide you! Don’t fight it—follow it!”

  Kael’s legs moved without his input. His eyes blurred. His body shaped in the form of the crusader's final stand. Anger and defiance.

  He felt it inside him. Resistance. Kael didn’t flinch. He stepped into it.

  His body reflected, twisting low beneath a claw meant for his throat.

  The creature’s other hand then rose into a strike.

  Kae braced, ready.

  The hand slammed hard into his ribs.

  Pain followed, but it didn’t take him down. It didn’t even knock the wind from him.

  For just a second, Kael felt something lock into place inside him.

  Will.

  The shard burned hot in his chest. Not with rage, but with resistance. Unyielding, defiant.

  His ribs didn’t break. His stance didn’t buckle.

  He held.

  Then Yoan came, drawing his blade.

  The blade flashed. For a moment, Kael saw faint symbols swirling around it. Not written. Not spoken. Felt.

  It was so quick, Kael didn’t even see the blade come down.

  The creature hissed in pain, recoiling and trying to escape. But Lira was already moving.

  Her body curved low and then snapped forward.

  She didn’t use brute force. She used angles. Attacking the creature in vulnerable areas.

  For a moment, Kael thought she had vanished—only to reappear at the thing’s flank.

  A step. A flick. A slash that bled silver light.

  “Eyrk!” she snapped.

  The younger man charged in with a loud presence and awkward movements, but his blade sang as it swung.

  Not just from the metal. From the way he moved. It was like his sword weighed nothing. Unnatural height, impossible angle. He didn’t think. He reacted.

  But Eyrk grinned widely anyway, like even he didn’t understand how he did it.

  The creature reared back, shrieking.

  And then it lunged. Feral and desperate.

  Kael met it halfway.

  He didn’t shout. He didn’t hesitate.

  The shard in his chest flared hot. With the will to stand. To resist.

  The creature’s arm slammed into his gut. He didn’t dodge. He endured.

  He held firm, heels planted like stone. Then, with a grunt, he grabbed the creature’s limb and locked it in place.

  Lira darted past him, low and fast. Her blade struck twice, twice across its legs.

  Yoan followed with a final strike, an upward cut from shoulder to jaw. Clean. Brutal.

  The corrupted thing fell to the floor. Its limbs twitched and leaked a green, sickly substance.

  Its face flickers through a dozen expressions. A child. A soldier. A mother. Then, nothing.

  Silence.

  Kael stood still, breath ragged. His hands trembled slightly. But not as much when he was back at the ship. He managed to keep it steady.

  "Are we done?” Eyrk asked, chest breathing in and out hard.

  “For now,” Yoan said, lowering his blade.

  Lira stepped beside him. She didn’t speak, just glanced at the body, then toward the broken containment unit.

  “Let’s get what we came here for,” she said quietly, pointing ahead. “Before the mist gets worse.”

  Kael nodded.

  But as they turned to move, he heard something behind them.

  A whisper. Barely audible.

  Not from the corpse. From the mist.

  “Please, don’t leave me here. I don't want to be alone."

  "Don’t forget me. PLEASE!"

  Kael didn’t look back.