The air in the chamber grew heavy, thick with a silence that pressed down against their skin.
She stood still, her hand hovering inches from the shattered glass core at the room's center. The low hum she had felt earlier was stronger now, vibrating faintly beneath her boots and crawling up through her bones.
Behind her, Dakarai paced in slow, tight circles, sparks slipping off his fingertips every few seconds. His Volt Line mark glowed faintly, responding to the tension hanging over them like a charged storm.
Rhazir moved carefully along the far wall, inspecting clusters of worn symbols carved deep into the metal panels. He wasn't rushing, but every movement felt deliberate, as if he already knew exactly what he was looking for.
"How do we even reach her?" Dakarai asked, voice strained with frustration.
"We can't tear the fracture open," Rhazir said without turning around. "It's not a doorway. It's a scar. If we force it wider, it could collapse everything connected to it."
Kazi narrowed her eyes, stepping away from the core. "Then what's your plan?"
Rhazir stopped at a panel near the broken scaffolding. He placed a palm flat against the wall, and a web of dull, amber light spread outward across the surface, lines threading like veins through the metal.
"We call to it," he said.
Kazi stiffened. "Call to it? What does that even mean?"
Before Rhazir could answer, the center platform rumbled beneath them.
At first it was subtle, a faint vibration, no louder than a growl. But as the seconds stretched, the entire room began to shake with slow, steady force. Dust trickled down from the ceiling beams, and the cracked glass core pulsed with a weak, bluish light.
"What did you just do?" Dakarai barked, stepping back with sparks gathering dangerously around his hands.
"I triggered the memory layer," Rhazir said. His voice remained calm.
"The memory layer?" Kazi asked, heart hammering.
"It's a safety net," he explained. "A replay of the last recorded resonance event inside the chamber."
Before they could press him further, the platform flared with pale light.
Images began to form above the cracked glass, it wasn't clear, but it was shifting like smoke under glass.
At first, Kazi thought they were alone.
Then the shapes solidified.
Figures in heavy coats lined with glinting wires moved around the platform, their hands pulsing with faint, controlled resonance energy. They weren't scientists. They were handlers. Their movements were stiff, like soldiers following orders they didn't fully understand.
Suspended between them, caught inside a trembling cocoon of light, was a young girl.
It wasn't Luma, but someone younger.
The girl's mark blazed violently across her arms and throat, wild and untamed. She thrashed against the energy holding her aloft, her mouth open in a scream they couldn't hear through the faded recording.
"They tried to force the Mark onto her," Dakarai muttered, his voice low with disgust.
"They didn't just try," Rhazir said. "They succeeded."
The memory shifted violently.
The girl's mark cracked open across her skin, splitting like shattered glass. A thick, black energy poured from the fractures, lashing out and carving deep gouges into the floor and walls. The handlers panicked, scattering like leaves in a storm.
One man didn't make it. The shadow had wrapped around him, and he vanished without a sound.
The holographic image began to distort, breaking apart into static flashes.
Before it fully faded, a final figure appeared at the heart of the chaos, a tall, faceless shape cloaked in shifting shadow, reaching outward.
The vision shattered.
Darkness rushed back into the room.
Kazi's knees buckled slightly, but she stayed standing.
The mark on her arm burned, resonating with a rhythm that wasn't her own.
"That's what's inside the fracture," she said through clenched teeth. "It's not just memories. It's not just Luma."
"It's something worse," Dakarai said.
Rhazir didn't speak. His face was carefully blank.
Kazi felt her stomach twist. Deep down, she knew.
This wasn't just about saving Luma anymore.
It was about stopping whatever had been locked away down here and stopping whoever had been protecting it.
She turned back to the platform, and she realized that they weren't there to rescue a prisoner. They were standing at the threshold of something built to break everything they thought they understood.