The tunnel finally widened into a cavernous, dust-choked chamber—rails curling like rusted veins beneath flickering ceiling lamps. The Subway Station sprawled before them, half-collapsed and littered with abandoned kiosks, torn advertisements, and skeletal benches swallowed by grime.
Netoshka raised a fist, halting the squad.
"Movement?" Taran whispered, scanning the platforms with his rifle half-raised.
"Only echoes," Genrihk murmured. "But echoes don't lie in places like this."
They stepped farther in, boots crunching over shattered glass. The oppressive darkness behind them rumbled—the distant shriek of Vitraspawns hunting through the tunnels.
They were getting closer.
Rue rushed to an ancient terminal half-buried in rubble, dusting off the cracked monitor.
"Netoshka… I think one of the trains is still connected to auxiliary power."
Netoshka knelt beside him. The glass screen was dead, but when Rue pried open the side panel, a faint blue spark flickered inside.
Twilla let out a breath.
"After all these years… one still works?"
"Barely," Rue said.
"Could be enough to get us through the next sector if I can rewire the conductor nodes."
"Do it," Netoshka ordered.
"Everyone else—secure the platform."
The squad scattered into positions.
Zev and Surgien pushed debris away from the tracks.
Circe scanned the rafters, her lantern casting pale arcs over rusted signs.
Genrihk placed two rupture traps at the stairwells leading deeper into the tunnels.
Taran stood by Netoshka, watching the dark tunnel mouth with a tense jaw.
A low, distorted howl echoed behind them.
Zopi's voice trembled.
"They're coming…"
Netoshka rose, eyes narrowing.
"Then we buy Rue some time."
The lights above them sputtered violently—once, twice—then blew out entirely.
Darkness swallowed the station.
A wet scraping sound slithered across the platform.
Then another.
Then dozens.
Vitraspawns poured from the tunnel like a tide of malformed shadows—elongated limbs skittering, jaws unhinging, their bodies pulsing with Wired corruption.
"CONTACT!" Taran roared.
Genrihk slammed a detonator—his rupture trap ignited in a burst of white-hot light, vaporizing the first wave but barely slowing the rest.
Twilla opened fire, rounds tearing through twitching appendages.
Circe hurled a luminous charge that burst into a cloud of burning sparks.
Zev slashed at a leaping spawn, cleaving its head clean off.
But for every creature they killed, more dragged themselves out of the abyss.
Rue panicked.
"Ten more seconds! Just ten—"
Netoshka shoved him into the conductor cabin.
"You have five! Work faster!"
A Vitraspawn slammed into her from the side. She twisted, snapping its neck, then fired twice into its chest.
Taran covered her flank, crushing another under his boot, then driving his blade through its skull.
Zopi hurled an explosive tag—
BOOM
—sending limbs flying across the platform.
Rue suddenly shouted,
"I GOT IT!"
The train's exterior lights flickered to life—dim, ghostly, but alive. The front cabin hummed weakly as the ancient engine sputtered awake.
"ALL ABOARD!" Rue screamed.
Netoshka grabbed Zopi and pushed her inside first.
Taran, Circe, Zev, Surgien, and Twilla piled in after, firing out the door as they retreated.
Genrihk backed in last, blasting a spawn off Netoshka's back before slamming the emergency release.
Netoshka jumped into the train as Rue hit the throttle.
The rusty subway car lurched—screeching horribly—then began rolling across the station, slowly at first… then faster.
Vitraspawns slammed into the exterior, clawing and shrieking.
One shattered a side window before Zev kicked it out.
Another clung to the roof, gnashing.
Netoshka braced herself, reached up, and phased her arm through the roof, destabilizing the creature's form with a burst of glitching static.
It shrieked and dissolved into corrupted ash.
The tunnel swallowed them.
The station disappeared behind them.
Only the screech of ancient rails and the echoing roars of the Vitraspawns chased them deeper into the unknown ahead.
Team B was moving again—but into darkness even worse than before.