The rain had stopped by dawn.
Shinshigan's skyline was a pale bruise against the horizon, the high towers ghostly in the mist. Marcus sat with his back to a crumbling wall beneath an abandoned train platform, his jacket spread beneath Lila's head. Elias stood a few feet away, smoking nervously beside a flickering maintenance light that cast long, uneven shadows over the concrete.
For the first time since the tunnels, there was silence.
Marcus stared at his hands. Faint veins of gold still traced his skin, pulsing with a rhythm not quite his own. The glow had dimmed during the night, but it hadn't vanished. It breathed, as though resting.
Lila stirred beside him. She looked fragile in the grey light, her hair plastered to her face, but her breathing was steady. Elias had insisted she rest while he found water. He hadn't gone far — Marcus could still hear the faint scrape of his boots echoing through the overpass.
When Elias returned, he handed Marcus a dented metal flask. "Found it in one of the lockers. Still clean."
Marcus nodded, grateful, and passed it to Lila. She drank, then looked up at him. "You didn't sleep."
"I couldn't," he said. "Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it—the hotel. The walls breathing, the sound of it screaming under the light."
Elias leaned against a rusted pillar. "You're not the only one hearing things. The whole district's been… strange. Power surges. Alarms tripping for no reason. It's like the building's shadow is stretching out."
Marcus rubbed the back of his neck. The warmth from the pendant never faded; it simply hummed, waiting. "It's not the hotel," he said finally. "It's the thing inside it—the Host. It's still looking for us."
"Then what do we do?" Lila asked softly. "We can't hide forever."
Marcus looked up, his eyes tired but steady. "We don't hide. We end it."
Elias's cigarette trembled slightly in his hand. "End it? Marcus, you saw what it is. That thing isn't just evil. It's… structure. It's built into the bones of the place. You can't fight a building. You can't fight what's underneath it."
"That's exactly what she said," Marcus murmured.
"Who?"
"Thecla."
Elias froze. "You mean the girl? The one from—"
Marcus nodded. "She's not gone. Not in the way we understand it."
Before Elias could reply, the pendant flared faintly against Marcus's chest. The air seemed to tighten around them. Lila felt it too; she sat up, clutching her arms. The sound came first — a low vibration like distant thunder, but softer, melodic.
Then came the voice.
Not from outside, but within.
It filled Marcus's head with warmth and clarity, the kind that makes breath catch in your throat. It was unmistakably her.
> "Marcus."
He shut his eyes. The world blurred to gold behind his eyelids.
"You stand beyond the veil now. The chamber broke, but the heart remains. The Chamber was the engine — the Foundation is the heart. It must be broken."
Her words resonated through him, each syllable both sound and sensation, like light spoken aloud.
"The Foundation," he whispered, repeating the phrase as if it might anchor him. "What is it?"
There was no immediate answer. Only a pulse of warmth through his ribs, spreading outward until it steadied his shaking hands. Then her voice returned, softer now, like scripture carried on the wind.
"Every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God."
— Hebrews 3:4
The verse lingered in him, luminous and terrible in its implication.
Elias stepped closer, his expression taut with disbelief. "You're hearing her? Right now?"
Marcus nodded slowly. "She's showing me something. Not in words — in pieces. Stone, iron, blood."
"Blood?" Lila asked, her voice fragile.
Marcus's eyes unfocused, as though looking through the walls around them. "The hotel wasn't built where it stands by accident. Its foundations were laid over something older — a burial, a seal, maybe even a covenant. Whatever it was, that's what feeds the Host. That's the Foundation."
Elias dropped his cigarette, grinding it beneath his boot. "Then you mean the entire city's sitting on top of it."
Marcus nodded grimly. "And we woke it."
The silence that followed was thick and uneasy. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed, then faded into the hum of the waking city.
Lila pushed herself to her feet, leaning against the wall for balance. "Then we find it. We finish it."
Her voice was steadier than her body. She still carried faint gold under her skin, a reflection of his own light.
Marcus studied her for a moment. "You should rest more."
"I'll rest when we're safe," she replied.
Elias snorted softly. "You sound like him now."
They set out before the sun fully rose. Elias led them through Shinshigan's industrial quarter — a maze of rusted cranes, abandoned trams, and silent warehouses. The fog clung to the ground in sheets, muffling sound and light alike. Marcus could feel the divine energy within him react to every corner, every echo. Sometimes it burned hotter when they passed a certain street or when the wind shifted east.
Lila noticed. "It's leading you somewhere."
He nodded. "It's drawn to the Foundation, whatever form it takes."
By midday, they reached the river docks. The water was calm and brown, reflecting the skeletal cranes that leaned over it like monuments to exhaustion. They found shelter in a derelict ferry station. Inside, the tiled floor was cracked and half submerged, the walls stained with years of neglect.
Elias scavenged supplies — a lantern, a rusted crowbar, a few old maps of the city. Marcus unrolled one across a bench. "Here," he said, pointing toward the older district at the city's edge. "These symbols—see the circles? Those aren't drainage routes. They're old site markers from the Shomon era. That's where the palace once stood before the hotel."
Elias frowned. "You think the Foundation's there?"
Marcus met his eyes. "I don't think. I know."
The light at his chest pulsed in agreement.
As dusk bled across the river, the pendant flared again. Thecla's presence returned — not with thunder, but like a whisper curling through the air.
"The heart remembers every stone laid upon it. Break the stone, free the breath."
Marcus pressed a hand to the wall for balance. "She says it can be undone. If we find where the first stone was placed."
Lila exhaled shakily. "But how do we destroy something built into the earth?"
Elias looked up. "With faith," he said bitterly. "Or dynamite."
Marcus managed a faint, humorless smile. "Both, if necessary."
He looked out through the cracked window at the city beyond. Shinshigan glittered faintly beneath the fog — a city of light built upon forgotten darkness. For the first time, he realized how small they were against what they faced.
Still, the warmth in his chest steadied him.
He thought of Thecla — of her siblings still trapped in that city's shadow. John, seventeen, bright and brave. Anne, too young to understand what had taken her sister. Jonathan, far away in Jakar, oblivious to the ruin his family now endured.
He would not let their suffering repeat itself.
"Tomorrow," he said quietly, "we start digging."
Elias blinked. "You're serious."
"Completely."
The night deepened. Lila slept first, her head resting against an old duffel bag. Elias stayed awake, keeping watch near the door. Marcus sat alone by the window, staring at the dim shimmer that pulsed from his chest.
Thecla's voice returned one last time before sleep claimed him.
"Do not fear the shadow that follows you, Marcus. Even light casts darkness when it walks among men. When you doubt, remember—"
The verse came again, clearer now, radiant in its certainty.
> "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." — John 1:5
Marcus bowed his head. "Then let it shine," he whispered.
Outside, thunder rolled softly over Shinshigan.
And in the distance, beneath the earth where the hotel still pulsed like a wounded heart, something ancient stirred in answer.