Chapter 22: The Noise Between Breaths
Kaito didn't sleep that night. Not really.
He sat by the window of his apartment, soaked to the bone, wrapped in the hospital blanket he'd never returned. It still smelled faintly like antiseptic and dust — more real than anything else in his life right now.
Outside, the city pretended to rest. But it wasn't resting. It was watching.
He could feel it — the hum beneath the asphalt, the faint flicker of streetlights pulsing off-rhythm, like a heartbeat trying to sync with something else. Something wrong.
The news was quiet. Too quiet. No mention of the chasm. No alert. No missing persons bulletin about Dr. Nakamura.
Buried.
Like always.
He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. The smoke tasted like burnt paper. His mother's name… carved into that altar like a trophy.
He didn't even know if she was alive anymore.
> "You broke the first chain."
The words returned, unbidden. A whisper between breaths.
There was movement on the table — his phone vibrated once, weakly, before dying. Battery dead… or maybe something else. The power had been flickering all day.
Then a knock at the door.
Three times. Slow. Unrhythmic.
He didn't move.
Another knock. Louder this time.
Kaito reached under the couch, pulled the small metal crowbar he'd started keeping near him after Sector 9. Took a breath.
Opened the door.
It wasn't who he expected.
Not Aya. Not the police.
It was Haruto.
Hair matted, coat torn, blood crusted on his sleeve. Eyes wide.
"You need to see this," he said, pushing past.
Kaito shut the door and followed as Haruto dropped a soaked folder onto the table.
Inside—photos.
Grainy surveillance stills. Not government.
Private.
In one: Kaito, standing over the altar.
In another: Aiko, mid-transformation. Her wings half-spread, mouth open in a scream that looked like it bent the lens.
"I thought you were dead," Kaito said.
"I was close," Haruto muttered. "The cult has surveillance everywhere. But someone leaked these. Someone inside."
Kaito stiffened. "Who?"
"I don't know. The files were slipped under my door with one message."
He passed Kaito a crumpled note.
> "The second chain is breaking. Stop it — or the city ends first."
There was no signature.
Kaito's head buzzed. "What's the second chain?"
But Haruto just shook his head. "Whatever it is, it's tied to the hospital records. Old ones. From before the Fire."
Kaito froze. "My mother worked during the Fire."
"I know. And guess where those records are stored?"
Kaito already knew the answer.
> Sector 0. The old records wing.
Sealed. Quarantined. Off-limits since the chemical purge.
They said nothing lived in that building anymore.
They were wrong.
Haruto stood. "I've got a connection. An intern who works night shift. She'll leave the door unlocked. But you only have one shot."
"When?"
"Tonight."
Kaito looked down at the photos again. At Aiko's half-broken form. At the altar. At his own face — half-lit by the glow of something ancient.
"Why do I feel like I've been sleepwalking through someone else's dream?"
Haruto didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Outside, the streetlights blinked twice.
And somewhere beneath the city,
something else blinked back.
End of chapter