The Metros felt silent.
Not at abrupt silence, not like a door slamming shut, but gradually, layer by layer, until even her breath felt intrusive. The air down here was thick with moisture and something else she couldn't name, a faint sweetness carried on rot and growth. Every step echoed softly, then dissolved into the stone as if the tunnels themselves were deciding whether she was worth remembering.
Without M.A.R.S., there was no whisper in her ear.
No quiet left, no urgent run, no constant pressure of being guided by something that saw further than she did. The silence pressed in around her head, not empty, but watchful, like a forest that had learned how to hold its breath.
She moved slower than she ever had in the Vein.
Her boots brushed aside moss and pale ferns that grew directly from cracks in the metro floor, roots burrowing into old composite panels as if they had always belonged here. Lizards scattered at her approach, small, slick-bodied things with translucent skin that caught the dim light and refracted it into faint rainbows. They vanished into crevices with quick, whispering scrapes, tails flicking like punctuation marks.
Insects clicked and chirred from unseen hollows. Some crawled openly along the walls: beetles with shells like polished stone, centipede-things whose legs glowed faintly at the joints. She paused once to watch a cluster of ants dismantle a rusted bolt, their tiny mandibles worrying at oxidised metal with tireless patience.
Machines had once ruled this place.
Now life had learned how to eat them.
She passed an old metro sign half-buried in ivy, the lettering almost illegible beneath creeping vines. A bird, something pale with too many joints in its wings, fluttered up from the sign as she approached, startled more by her presence than afraid. It landed again a short distance away and watched her, head cocked, eyes bright and curious.
She kept her rifle lowered.
For now.
The deeper she went, the more alive the Metros felt. Not loud, not aggressive, just present.Growth thickened along the walls, fungi blooming in soft tiers that pulsed faintly with bioluminescence. Water dripped from overhead fractures, gathering in shallow pools where thin, reed-like plants swayed gently despite the absence of wind.
It felt... proportional.
As if the closer she moved toward the heart of this place, toward divinity, the more the world remembered how to grow.
She stopped near the remains of an old ticketing hall, its ceiling partially collapsed to allow a shaft of distant light to spill down through layers of debris. Vines cascaded from an opening like green curtains, dotted with small blossoms that opened and closed slowly, responding to something she couldn't hear.
She reached into her pack and pulled out her terminal.
The screen lit up obediently, casting a pale glow across her hands. She navigated to the encrypted channel The Church had used to communicate, fingers moving on instinct more than thought.
_________________________________________________________________________
[INBOX: 0 UNREAD MESSAGES]
_________________________________________________________________________
No updates. No warnings. No quiet reassurance that someone, somewhere, still remembered she existed.
She exhaled through her nose and shut the terminal down, slipping it back into its pouch.
"Figures," she muttered to no one.
Her voice sounded wrong here, too sharp, too defined. The Metros seemed to prefer softer things.
She resumed walking.
The tunnels narrowed, then widened again, opening into branching corridors that curved at odd angles. Some were collapsed entirely, choked with soil and roots. Others led downward into darkness so deep her flashlight barely made a dent in it. She chose the path that felt... less hostile, though she couldn't explain how she knew the difference.
Instinct, maybe.
Or the quiet guidance of a place that wanted to be left alone.
She was rounding a bend when a bush ahead of her shuddered.
Her body reacted before her mind could catch up.
The rifle snapped up, finger squeezing the trigger—
The crack of the shot thundered through the tunnel, startling birds from unseen roosts. The bullet slammed into concrete inches from where the movement had been, sparks flaring briefly before dying out.
Something burst from the foliage in a blur of motion.
She staggered back half a step, heart hammering, eyes tracking—
—and then froze.
It was a cat.
Or something close enough to make the distinction feel pedantic.
The creature landed lightly on all fours, muscles coiling beneath sleep fur patterned in mute greys and greens that blended perfectly with the surrounding growth. Its eyes were large and luminous, reflecting the dim light with a sharp intelligence. It turned toward the impact mark on the wall, then back to her.
They stared at each other.
The cat flicked its tail once. Twice.
Its ears flattened, not in fear, but irritation.
With a sound halfway between a huff and a hiss, it turned and padded away, slipping back into the undergrowth with deliberate slowness, glancing over its shoulder at her as if to say do better.
She lowered the rifle, pulse slowly easing out of her throat.
[Fox] "...Sorry,"
She said quietly, unsure who the apology was for.
The Metros did not respond.
She moved on, more carefully now, every sense turned outward. Her footsteps softened instinctively, weight shifting to avoid snapping roots or crunching debris.
She became a visitor rather than an intruder, and the place seemed to accept that.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber.
She stopped at the threshold, breath catching.
The room was vast and cathedral-like, its original purpose long erased beneath layers of living growth. Walls and ceiling were carpeted in thick moss and flowering vines, water trickling down in thin silver threads. The floor was uneven, softened by soil and leaf litter that muffled sound completely.
And everywhere, everywhere, light drifted.
Fireflies.
Or something very much like them.
Hundreds of tiny luminous bodies floated through the air, their glow shifting in gentle rhythms: blues and greens, soft golds, occasional pulses of violet. They wove intricate patterns, spiralling lazily around each other, settling briefly on leaves before lifting off again.
She stepped inside without thinking.
The glow washed over her, reflected in the metal of her rifle, the edges of her mask. For a moment, she forgot about Ecstasy. About Entropy. About the weight of the laptop in her pack and the danger that threaded through every path ahead.
She tilted her head back, watching the lights drift overhead.
[Fox] "How do you even..."
She murmured, wonder slipping through her guarded tone.
[Fox] "How do you glow?"
One of the fireflies brushed past her hand, its light flaring slightly brighter, a shade of blue, before returning to its steady pulse. She felt no heat, no sting, just a soft vibration, like a heartbeat.
Bioluminescence, she thought. Chemical reactions. But it felt something more than that.
She stayed there longer than she meant to, letting the quiet seep into her bones, letting the beauty of small, living things stitch something frayed back together inside her.
Eventually, she forced herself to move.
Before the moment turned into a memory she couldn't afford.
As she walked, her hand drifted to her pack. She slowed, then stopped, kneeling carefully on a patch of dry stone. From inside, she pulled out the pendrive.
The blue one.
It glowed softly i her palm, its light steady and calm, utterly unlike the red dominance of M.A.R.S.' symbol. She turned it over, studying its simple shape, the faint seams along its casing. It looked unremarkable, too small to carry the weight it did.
Too small to calm machines.
Too small to matter.
And yet.
She closed her fingers around it, feeling the faint vibration hum against her skin. However old it had been, it had survived things that should have erased it entirely.
[Fox] "Guess we're both still here,"
She slid it back into her pack, nestling it carefully beside the laptop, and she stood.
The fireflies parted around her as she walked, their glow dimming slightly in her wake, then resuming their dance once she passed. The Metros stretched on ahead, winding deeper into shadow and growth and quiet divinity.
No whispers guided her now.
Only her footsteps.
And the steady pull of something waiting below.