I could still hear the annoying sound of the gate closing behind us, slicing through the cold air of the tunnel and leaving only the mechanical hum of machines and the murmur of voices coming from everywhere.
The underground city, this so-called Final Line, stretched beneath our feet like a living maze.
Pale lights lit up the narrow streets.
On one side, people arguing; on the other, tired laughter; hurried footsteps, metal grinding, someone cursing in the distance. All of it was a ridiculous contrast to the rotten silence and chaos outside those doors.
If I ignored the ceiling and the walls that looked like part of a giant organism, I could almost pretend this was… civilization.
A place far away from colossal creatures, stairways covered in bodies, and the refugees at the station.
Almost.
For a while, nobody said anything, like everyone was trying to leave the weight of the outside world… outside.
But that didn't last.
Mei walked ahead with a closed-off face, iron bar strapped across her back. Right behind her came the skinny old man, the mocking guy, and the strong woman.
I was the odd one in the middle, the extra weight, walking trouble.
"So…"
The voice of the man holding my arm broke the silence.
"So what's your name again, stranger?"
I swallowed hard. I could hear the mockery in his tone.
"I… I already told you, I don't remember."
They laughed. And the man who'd spoken spat on the ground.
"Of course you don't remember… nobody remembers after a faith bath."
The skinny old man looked at him and rolled his eyes.
"That's enough, Raul."
He grumbled, then turned to me with a half-smile.
"Don't mind him. Down here, laughing is the only thing that still makes it feel like we're alive."
Mei spoke without looking back.
"He'll remember… the Counselor always finds a way."
That made me a lot more nervous than relieved.
Counselor? Like an executioner? Are they gonna torture me?
Raul laughed again, obvious malice in his voice.
"Yeah… the old man has his methods. And you can bet… you're gonna remember everything. Whether you want to or not."
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
Shit, I'm gonna be tortured.
If I could, I would've already bolted.
The skinny old man, walking by my side, seemed to notice my legs shaking and tried to ease things a bit. He looked less paranoid in here. Maybe the meat ceiling and all the noise in this place were the closest thing to safety he had.
"Name's Josh,"
he said, holding out his hand.
"Or whatever's left of him."
I hesitated, but shook his hand in silence.
Should I make up a name?
His hand was rough and bony. It was almost like I was holding just bone.
"You really don't remember anything?"
"Nothing…"
"Just what I saw out there and told you."
Josh nodded slowly, and I couldn't tell if he believed me.
"Then maybe that's for the best."
He scratched his gray goatee, thoughtful.
"Maybe you can start over here… or at least try. Out there it's just rot and rotten flesh. Here… at least we've got a roof."
I looked up.
The pulsing ceiling, with veins and muscles, seemed to stare back at me.
"This place… is it safe?"
Josh let out a low laugh.
"Safe? No one's safe anywhere. But… this is the closest we've gotten since the end. And that thing…"
He lifted his gaze to the ceiling.
"That thing hasn't hurt us… at least not in the thirty-nine years since they built this shelter."
It did look like the truth.
People walked past us without much concern: some wrapped in cloth, others with prosthetics that creaked like old bones, but nobody seemed panicked.
Unlike the refugees on the platform, no one here seemed afraid of living inside something made of flesh.
Raul overheard us, snorted, and complained:
"All this 'end of the world' crap is church talk. The world ended when they started preaching that flesh was sacred."
"Not everyone in the church believed that,"
Josh countered calmly.
"But I'll agree on one thing: 'humanity' doesn't mean anything to them anymore."
I looked at him, confused.
"What do you mean?"
Josh stared at me with those deep, tired eyes.
"Surviving, kid…"
"That's it. That's the most you can do. And that's already miracle enough."
He scratched his chin again and went on:
"Since you don't remember anything, let me give you the basics…"
"This place is one of the Order's cities. The Order of the Three Fears was born when the world still made… some kind of sense."
He frowned, drifting into some memory.
"Or at least when it wasn't as broken as it is now. When everything collapsed, scientists, doctors, soldiers, whoever was left, banded together to try to control the chaos. They tried to make sure at least part of humanity survived."
"And did they?"
He laughed, humorless.
"Depends on what you call success."
He gestured broadly, pointing at the street full of people, metal, and flesh.
"This is one of the results."
I couldn't help thinking of the refugees outside.
"At least…"
"They look like they're surviving better."
Raul cut in, dripping venom:
"Believers, all of them…"
He spat, then kept going.
"Cursed fools who only comfort and never do anything."
The strong woman shot him a look that could kill, but stayed quiet. Mei didn't react either. It was like she existed on a different axis, focused only on moving forward.
Josh sighed before going on, voice tired:
"'Surviving in…'"
"That's exactly what the Order has become now… After the great purge, the survivors learned to fear three things above all: faith, reason, and sound."
I frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said…"
"Living in fear of those things. The people here are those who don't believe in explanations anymore. They don't want to understand, they just… just want to still be alive tomorrow. Our group is simple: we just want to survive, we don't ask for more than that."
He looked even more worn out after saying it.
The others fell quieter. No one disagreed.
We turned a corner.
That's when I saw a different kind of building: a huge metal hangar, nothing like the rest.
No patches, no improvised look. Clean lines and white lights. It looked… modern. Almost too clean for that world.
Josh leaned toward me and whispered:
"That's one of the Order's main hubs in the city. Where the Counselor lives. The Master of the Third Fear…"
He gave me a serious look and continued,
"He's the one who decides who lives… and who gets sacrificed for the greater good."
My executioner lives pretty well…
As we got closer, I saw someone standing at the entrance.
An old man, almost fragile.
His body was slightly hunched, his face buried under deep wrinkles, and his eyes… his eyes seemed to pierce skin, bone, and soul.
He didn't wait for us to reach him.
He walked toward us with steady steps and stopped less than a hand's breadth away from me. He scanned me from head to toe faster than someone his age should be able to.
What is this guy, a hundred years old?
If it weren't for the heavy breathing, I'd swear he wasn't human at all, just a fossil.
He didn't greet anyone.
After a few seconds of silence, he just nodded, like he'd confirmed something only he knew, and said:
"Come with me."
Everyone stepped forward, but the old man raised a hand and finished, emotionless:
"No. Just him."
Mei stepped up immediately.
"That's not a good idea."
"I didn't ask for your opinion, captain."
The old man replied dryly, and the others hesitated.
Mei clenched her fists, swallowing back whatever she wanted to say. She shot me a short, almost murderous look.
What did I do?
Before I could react, I felt another shove between my shoulder blades.
I sighed, defeated, and followed the old man.
The inside of the hangar was… another world.
I'd been expecting machines, pipes, cold lights, some creepy lab, but I was very wrong.
What I found was wood.
The floor was clean wood. The walls were covered in paintings, maps, and old photographs. The air smelled like fresh tea.
In one corner there was a dusty piano; in another, a bookcase filled with books burned along the edges.
There was even a fake window painted with a green field under a blue sky. It looked like someone had painted a memory of home from scratch.
Why… does this feel so familiar?
The sound of a rough cough snapped me out of it.
The old man was now sitting behind a dark wooden desk and, in front of him, there was a single black notebook, with purplish edges.
"Sit,"
he said, pointing at the chair.
The chair was cushioned… uncomfortably comfortable, the kind that reminds you you've spent way too long on hard floors.
He stared at me with those dark, deep eyes.
The silence that followed made me more nervous than when I'd first gotten there. I could hear my own heartbeat.
I opened my mouth to speak… but nothing came out.
The old man smiled calmly.
"I know… you're not from here."
His low voice was gentle.
He opened the notebook, flipped through the pages… but didn't write anything. He just kept talking:
"And you don't remember your name either, do you?"
I nodded.
Is this guy psychic?
"I don't remember… I swear."
"Those people out there probably didn't believe you,"
he chuckled, leaning back in the chair.
"But I do."
He watched me in silence for a few seconds, like he was trying to piece together broken memories inside his own head.
Then he placed his hands on the notebook and smiled.
"It's not good to walk around without a name. That draws attention,"
he commented like he was talking about the weather.
"How about… Noah?"
The word hit something in the back of my mind.
Noah…
It felt… right.
Familiar.
I stayed quiet, feeling that name reverberate inside me.
He waited a moment, and since I didn't protest, he finished, satisfied:
"Then it's settled. You'll be Noah."
He sighed and looked away, toward the fake window. For a moment, he seemed like he wanted to be there.
"You must have a lot of questions…"
"I'll make an exception and answer a few."
I've got dozens.
Where did I come from? Do you know me?
What was that world?
Why… why do I feel like I fit into this madness?
But nothing came out.
"You must be confused…"
he added, noticing my silence.
"Everyone is. It's normal."
His voice was calm, but every word sounded like it carried years of weight.
"Memory is a luxury very few still have… sometimes it protects… sometimes it condemns."
It didn't feel like he was talking just about me.
I couldn't help looking around again.
The room was so… peaceful it was almost cruel. A bad joke planted right in the middle of hell.
"Did you… know I was coming?"
My voice came out as barely more than a thread.
He chuckled softly, his dry throat scraping the sound.
"I didn't know… but I felt it."
His thin fingers drummed on the notebook.
"People like you leave traces… trails that neither time nor flesh can erase."
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
"But before anything else, I need to understand one thing…"
"When you saw the Rizonte… what else did you see?"
The creature's name made my stomach sink.
I remembered the distorted sound and that smell of old blood.
"A shape…"
I answered, almost whispering.
"Several, actually… they looked like… people."
The old man didn't react right away. He slowly ran a finger across the notebook's cover, as if tracing something invisible.
"So we've already reached that point…"
he muttered, weary.
I swallowed hard before asking:
"What is that thing?… They called it… Rizonte."
"A scar on the world,"
he replied immediately.
"Rizonte to the Order… Sinalor to the Anatomists… Mother Pulse to the cult… Many names. Everyone thinks they understand, but the truth is they just want their delusions to sit on top of everyone else's."
He gave a humorless smile.
"In the end, it's just a reminder. A reminder that humanity is doomed."
His words were soaked in gloom.
"The Order… what do you really do here?"
He looked back at me.
"The Order…"
He let out a short, mocking laugh.
"Is what's left of the part of humanity that refused to go insane… or at least pretended it didn't."
He straightened a little in his chair.
"We divided fear like bread… the First Fear was supposed to lead the combat units. Specialist in tactics to evade the flesh."
He grimaced, like he'd just remembered something unpleasant.
"Now he's probably drunk in some brothel in the city."
The contempt was so obvious you could almost touch it.
"The Second Fear…"
His voice changed, the energy draining for a moment.
"She was the commander of the scouts and silencers. The best of us… but she's not here anymore…"
"And finally, me…"
The active old man turned into someone too tired to keep up the posture.
"The Third Fear. The Counselor."
He said his own title like it was a joke.
"Unlike the Church of Flesh and the Anatomists, most of us were civilians… regular people. We didn't agree with the church's madness, or with those scientists' insane ideas."
I frowned.
He noticed and chuckled.
"I forget you don't have your memories…"
"The church, or rather, the Cult of Flesh, believes humanity was a fragmentation mistake. That every human being is an isolated piece of the original entity… the Origin…"
He tilted his head slightly and continued:
"That thing you saw out there, the Rizonte? To them, it's a Herald… the announcement of their god."
He stood, took the notebook, walked over to a sideboard, and poured two cups of tea. The smell was light, almost normal… if you ignored the tension in the room.
Coming back to the desk, he set a cup in front of me before sitting down again.
"Anyway… they're a plague."
"As for the Anatomists… you don't need to know about them yet."
He looked once more at the fake window, a strange kind of sorrow in his eyes.
"What a twisted world this is…"
I muttered, more to myself than to him.
The old man looked at me again.
"You'll understand, Noah… soon."
He took a sip of tea and drew a deep breath.
"The world died when everyone stopped being afraid… and we… we're what's left of fear."
For a moment, he looked smaller. More tired, and even more fragile.
And that's when I was hit with a deeply uncomfortable certainty:
If even fear was tired… then whatever was out there had to be much worse than I could imagine.