I rose through darkness like someone swimming upward through cold tar.
Consciousness came in pieces—
a heartbeat,
a breath,
a sound I couldn't place,
then the weight of my own body returning all at once.
I gasped.
Air flooded my lungs.
The world snapped into place.
Sort of.
I was lying on a metal cot in a dim, emergency-lit room.
The hum of old generators buzzed in the walls like trapped bees.
A voice whispered sharply:
"Elias—hey—look at me. Look at me."
Lira.
She was crouched beside the cot, sweat on her temples, eyes wide and frantic.
I blinked slowly.
Everything looked slightly wrong—
as though the world were half a second delayed.
Her voice echoed even though she wasn't speaking loudly.
"Where…" My throat burned with the effort. "Where are we?"
She exhaled shakily.
"Deep tunnels. Off-grid. I dragged you down here after you—"
She caught herself.
"After you collapsed."
Collapsed.
Fell.
Cracked open.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
A sharp, hollow pain pulsed beneath the skin.
Lira noticed.
"That's where the bleed spiked," she said quietly.
"You scared the hell out of me. I thought you died."
Part of me wondered if I had.
I pushed myself upright.
The room tilted.
For a moment, the walls slipped sideways like loose pages in a book.
I blinked hard and it stopped.
"Lira," I whispered. "The shadow. Did he—?"
Her jaw clenched.
"He took something from you."
I froze.
"What?"
"I don't know," she admitted.
"But your Echo index—your mental signature—there's a missing block. A big one."
I tried to think.
Pain stabbed behind my eyes.
Everything… felt thinner than it should.
Like I had been hollowed out.
I looked around the room carefully.
A table.
Old screens.
A wall of dusty conduits.
Everything in washed-out tones, too dim, too quiet.
"Where's Marin?" I asked.
Lira's expression tightened.
She turned slowly toward the far corner.
At first, I didn't see her.
Then the air shimmered faintly—
silver dust gathering itself into a shape.
Small.
Flickering.
Unsteady.
Marin sat curled against the wall like a dying candle.
Her face lifted when she sensed me.
"Eli…?"
Her voice was so small it barely carried.
I reached for her instinctively.
But my hand passed through her arm like smoke.
She glitch-flinched backward.
"It's slipping," she whispered.
"I'm slipping. He… took some of me when he left."
Lira looked between us helplessly.
"I don't know how to stabilize her. She's tied to you—your memories, your mind, the bleed. That shadow tore out a chunk of your identity. Whatever was inside that chunk… she needed it."
My stomach twisted.
"Marin," I whispered, "what part of me did he take?"
She lowered her head.
"I don't know what it was."
Her voice cracked.
"But I feel… smaller. Wrong. Like I'm missing… rooms inside myself."
I swallowed hard.
"What do you remember of me?"
She blinked slowly.
"You're my brother. You saved me when we were kids. You tried to keep me alive even afterward. You—"
She froze.
Her face went blank for a moment.
Then fear rippled through her features.
"I can't remember your laugh."
Her body flickered so violently that the air crackled.
Lira swore and rushed to her, shielding her with both arms even though ghost-light passed through them.
"Marin—stay with us—stay—don't fade—"
I stumbled out of the cot.
The pain in my chest sharpened as I crossed the room.
"I'm here," I said.
I didn't know if it mattered, but I said it anyway.
"I'm here. Stay with me."
She blinked up at me, glitch-fog clinging to her edges.
"I want to," she whispered.
"But I need the part he took. Without it… I'm not tethered anymore."
A cold realization crawled through me.
The shadow hadn't just taken a memory.
He had taken a connection.
A piece of me that linked to her.
A piece she needed to exist.
Lira ran a trembling hand through her hair.
"He took it on purpose," she muttered. "Whatever you ripped out of him—it wasn't random. He grabbed something vital on the way out."
Marin tried to smile.
It broke halfway.
"Eli…"
Her voice thinned, fading like an old cassette tape.
"You're not whole. I can feel it."
I sat down beside her, even though my hand kept slipping through her body.
"What part did he take?" I whispered.
Marin shook her head.
"I don't know. But when I look at you… something's missing in your eyes."
Lira swallowed hard.
"Elias… say something only you would say. Something from your childhood. Something she'd know."
I took a breath.
Reached back.
And found—
nothing.
A smooth, blank wall.
An empty drawer.
A room with all the furniture removed.
"I…" My throat tightened. "I can't."
Marin began to cry.
Silver tears fell, turning to dust before they hit the ground.
The lights flickered.
Lira placed a hand on my arm, steadying me.
"Elias… this is bad. Really bad."
A faint hum crawled through the room.
The lights dimmed further.
Marin's outline wavered dangerously.
And then—
a new voice echoed through the tunnels.
Soft.
Low.
Cracked with static.
"It begins."
The shadow.
Somewhere in the distance.
In the tunnels.
Coming closer.
Lira stood, pulling out her disruptor.
"We need to move."
Marin stared at me, tears glitching down her cheeks.
"Eli… he took the part of you that remembers how to fight him."
My blood went cold.
"What does that mean?"
She whispered:
"It means you're weaker now."
The shadow's steps echoed again.
Closer.
"Elias…"
Calling me.
"…come finish what you started."
Lira grabbed my wrist.
"MOVE!"
And as we ran—
Marin flickered like a dying star behind us.
"Don't leave me—"
"Eli—don't—"
"Don't let me—"
And then—
she vanished.