Rin pushed deeper into the subway tunnel.
The humming sound roared in her ears like a living thing, its constant pulse vibrating through the cracked concrete and buzzing in her teeth.
The graffiti, "LISTEN" and "AMPLIFY US," burned in her mind.
Their dripping red and black letters gleamed wetly under a flickering light bulb that swung from a torn wire, casting jagged shadows that danced on the walls like mimics.
Her boots splashed through oily puddles.
The air smelled strongly of rust and decay, a damp, rotting smell that clung to her throat and stung her lungs.
Her metal pipe was sticky with mimic blood, its weight a steady anchor in her trembling hand.
Her tough attitude was a weak defense against the tunnel's heavy darkness.
Jisoo followed closely, holding her chipped butcher's knife.
Her bandaged arm was stiff and trembling, and blood seeped from her torn shoulder wound, staining her torn apron a deeper red.
Jihoon held his broken mop stick, its splintered end scraping the ground.
His face was pale and tear-streaked, and his wide eyes darted through the gloom, haunted by his sister's voice from the plaza.
The toy recorder in Rin's pocket felt heavy.
Hana's desperate voice, "Find me…," repeated in her mind—a ghost she couldn't get rid of, a lure she didn't trust.
The tunnel felt like a trap, each step pulling them deeper into something waiting, something that knew their names.
A faint crackle broke the suffocating darkness—not the mimics' clicking buzz but a radio's static, sharp and uneven, like a voice trying to break through.
Rin froze, raising her pipe.
Her dark eyes narrowed as she signaled Jisoo and Jihoon to stop.
She held her breath to catch the sound.
Ahead, under a broken ticket booth, a man crouched amidst scattered radio parts—tangled wires, cracked dials, shattered speakers spilling from a ripped bag.
He was hunched and twitchy, his thin frame lost in a worn coat.
His darting eyes met theirs in the flickering light, gleaming with a feverish intensity.
He held a battered radio, its antenna bent, muttering to himself, "Her voice… again and again…"
His voice was low and broken, as if he'd forgotten how to speak clearly.
His fingers twitched over a dial, as if trying to coax a secret from the static.
"Who are you?" Rin demanded, stepping forward, pipe raised.
She didn't trust strangers, especially not ones muttering like they'd seen too much, knew too much.
Her gaze flicked over him—greasy hair, trembling hands, eyes that wouldn't stay still.
Jisoo edged closer, her knife gleaming.
Her weathered face was set in a scowl, her voice blunt, like a vendor ending a bad deal.
"Answer, or we walk."
Her wounded arm trembled, but her stance was firm, and blood dripped onto the tiles with a faint patter.
"Kyung," he rasped, his hands shaking as he fiddled with a dial.
The radio crackled louder, a burst of static that made Jihoon flinch.
"I hear her… ECHO's hers."
The radio sputtered, and Hana's voice flickered through—"Find me…"—clear for a moment before dissolving into static.
Rin's heart lurched, a sick jolt that stole her breath.
Her fingers brushed the recorder in her pocket, with Hana's same plea trapped inside.
The coincidence wasn't a coincidence—it was a hook, and she was caught.
Jihoon's eyes widened, his stick trembling in his grip.
His voice was barely a whisper.
"That's like my sister…"
The words cracked, raw with grief, his young face crumpling as if the sound reopened a wound.
Jisoo's jaw tightened, her gaze flicking to Rin, a silent question—trust him, or run?
Rin's tough side told her to walk away.
Kyung was trouble, a loose wire in a city ready to spark.
But her curiosity burned hotter, a hacker's instinct to dig where she shouldn't.
He knew something about ECHO, maybe more than she did, and that knowledge was a lifeline she couldn't ignore.
"Talk," she said, stepping closer, her voice low, edged with a warning.
"What's ECHO?"
Her fingers twitched, wanting to grab her sketchbook, a reflex to draw, to steady the chaos in her mind, but she kept them on the pipe.
Kyung's eyes darted, his fingers twisting a wire with frantic precision.
His words spilled out like broken code.
"Unfinished… voices trapped… they amplify."
The fragments hit Rin like shrapnel—her old hacking job, ECHO's servers, lines of code about voice amplification she'd dismissed as just corporate talk.
Her past was unraveling, a thread tied to this twitching man and his radio.
Jisoo muttered, "He's trouble," her practical side cutting through.
Her knife was still raised, and doubt was etched into her weathered face.
Jihoon clutched his stick, his breath hitching.
He was too scared to speak but hung on Kyung's words, desperate for answers about his sister.
Before Rin could press him further, a mimic buzzed from the tunnel's end—"Kyung…"—its voice slithering through the dark, layered with static, chillingly personal.
Its pale form crawled into view, clinging to the wall.
Its pale eyes gleamed like wet glass, and veins pulsed beneath its sagging skin.
Rin swung her pipe, aiming for its head, but it dodged, its claws slashing her arm, tearing her jacket and drawing a thin line of blood.
Jisoo drove her knife into its side, and black blood sprayed.
Her wounded arm shook, but she was relentless, her grunt of effort echoing off the walls.
Jihoon swung his stick, missing.
His tear-streaked face was twisted with fear, and his voice was a choked, "No!"
Kyung scrambled back, clutching his radio, his eyes wild as he fumbled with a dial.
The radio screeched—a high, piercing wail, not unlike the screamer's, that stunned the mimic.
Its buzzing faltered as it twitched, and its claws retracted.
Rin finished it, her pipe cracking its skull with a wet crunch.
Blood pooled on the tiles, and its unblinking eyes stared up at her.
Jisoo yanked her knife free, panting, her face grim.
Blood dripped from her reopened shoulder wound.
Jihoon stood frozen, his stick useless, his chest heaving with shallow breaths, tears glistening in the bulb's flicker.
Kyung was already moving, muttering, "She's calling… she's calling…" as he darted toward a tunnel split, his radio crackling with static.
Hana's voice flickered again—"Find me…"—before cutting out.
"Wait!" Rin shouted, her voice sharp, desperation breaking through her tough exterior.
She took a step, pipe raised, but a new buzz erupted behind them—"Rin… Jisoo… Jihoon…"—a chorus of mimics crawling from the dark.
Their pale eyes gleamed, claws scraping the walls, their voices weaving a net of names that tightened around her heart.
Rin froze, pipe raised, her breath catching as Kyung's silhouette vanished into the tunnel's split.
The radio's static faded with him, leaving only the mimics' buzz and the hum's relentless roar.
They were surrounded, and Kyung's riddles were gone, but his radio held answers—or a trap—and it was slipping away.