They moved through the old experimental wings like ghosts that had outlived their creators. The walls were slick with moss and hairline cracks, pipes split open along the ceiling like veins. Lights that should have burned for years were dead, leaving only a dense, oppressive darkness that pressed against their skin. The air stank of rust, sour chemicals, and something that had once been meat.
From the shadows came faint whispers and hissing sounds... not voices, but the friction of things half-alive. Failed experiments still lurked here, broken shapes that had never been granted true existence, only released into corridors like these and forgotten. They moved in the dark with patient hunger, ready to strike from any direction.
Each of Aaron's footsteps sent out a thin, glassy echo that felt like an invitation. Among shattered equipment and toppled consoles, there was always the sense that something else was sharing the room, breathing just beyond the edge of sound. Bodies warped beyond recognition could crawl out at any moment. Limbs grafted wrong, spines twisted backward, jaws that opened too far.
Lyra felt every throb of pain in her leg grow heavier under the weight of that fear. Somewhere in her mind a small voice repeated itself... Why is he this kind to me? He was born a monster, built by the same experiments that killed countless people. How can he be the one keeping me alive? Is there still something human in him... or am I just part of the experiment?
Fear and a fragile strand of hope tangled together in her thoughts. Yet on Aaron's back, with his hands firm around her, she felt more protected than she had any right to feel in a place like this.
The deeper they moved, the more the underground felt like the lungs of a dead world. Air did not move. Dust hung suspended. The thin line of light from the corridor above crawled down the wall and vanished before it touched the floor.
Aaron hoisted Lyra higher onto his back with a single pull. Her breaths came sharp and clipped, but she didn't complain. Her leg hung helplessly... calf torn open, ankle twisted, blood leaking slowly through the rough bandage he had tied.
She bore the pain in silence, jaw tight.
Her hands trembled against his shoulders, not from terror, but from her body edging closer to collapse.
Something stepped out of the dark ahead.
Slow. Heavy. Rhythmic.
Too human in its cadence for something that was not human at all.
The creature stood almost two meters eighty. It looked like a man forced to grow faster than bones and muscles could keep up... back hunched, chest jutting forward, arms hanging long and thick like steel beams wrapped in flesh. Every line of its body suggested force that did not care about shape.
It stopped three meters from them.
No movement.
No visible breath.
Just a stare.
〈Do not move yet. It reads micro-movements.〉 the entity murmured.
Aaron held himself utterly still.
On his back, Lyra drew a small, quiet breath. Her face had gone almost colorless. Sweat ran down her temple, cold against her skin. She tightened her grip on his shoulders, forcing herself to remain silent.
From the left side of the corridor, something scraped across the floor.
Fast, sharp... like small claws on wet stone.
Aaron turned his torso a fraction.
Two smaller creatures crawled into view. They moved quickly and silently, their bodies low and tense. They were not focused on him. Their attention circled around him, angling instead for the heat of Lyra's body.
They prowled in low arcs… then leapt together.
Aaron moved the instant their muscles tensed.
One step. One strike.
He grabbed the first midair, crushing its jaw in his palm with a sickening crack. The second lunged from behind a broken pillar. Aaron dropped his weight, bent his knees, and swung his arm in a clean, controlled arc, slamming the creature into the floor hard enough to knock the air out of it.
Silence fell again, heavy and absolute.
Lyra looked over his shoulder. Her eyes widened slightly, but she made no sound. She didn't scream. She didn't cling. She simply held her breath and watched him.
The towering creature tilted its head a little to the right.
Judging.
Aaron knew he could not afford a prolonged fight now. Lyra needed treatment.
And they were still in the wrong place to give it to her.
He turned, never giving the creature his full back, adjusting only enough to change direction while keeping the distance controlled.
The giant did not follow. It did not lunge.
It did nothing... as if Aaron and Lyra were just two insignificant details in the rot of the underground.
Aaron walked briskly. Not running.
Not rushing blindly.
He felt the pressure in the walls, the direction of the air currents, the distant echoes traveling through the labyrinth. Each detail slid into place inside his mind, forming instinctive routes toward safer ground.
Lyra's hand tightened weakly on his shoulder as the bandage shifted.
"A… Aaron…"
Her voice came out low and rough.
"Quiet. Save your strength," he replied.
Lyra lowered her head. She was not offended.
In fact, that short, blunt answer warmed something in her chest... a strange defiance of the horror around them.
They moved through a long corridor lined with broken pipes.
The reek of old rust stung their noses.
Bones littered the floor… small bones, far too small for most failed subjects.
Aaron quickened his pace.
He checked every corner without a sound.
Finally, Lyra spoke again, voice trembling almost imperceptibly.
"Aaron… when we finally reach somewhere safe… can I call you… 'Ray'…?"
Aaron paused for half a second.
"…Why?" His tone was flat, but there was something faintly curious beneath it.
Lyra turned her face away, a faint blush creeping into her cheeks despite the cold and the pain. "I just… want to call you in a way no one else does…"
He looked at her for an extra moment.
"…If you want to," he said, giving a small nod.
Nothing more.
But Lyra's grip on his shoulder tightened without her realizing it.
The color in her cheeks deepened.
"You… agree too easily…" she whispered.
Aaron did not answer. His gait did not change... always steady, always precise.
They reached a deeper chamber... an old service room with thick concrete walls, two narrow entrances, and a wide ventilation opening overhead. Broken tools and rusted machinery lay scattered. It was secure enough for a brief stop.
Aaron lowered Lyra carefully onto a section of intact floor.
She bit down on her lower lip as pain surged through her, the sound trapped in her throat.
"This will hurt," Aaron said.
"It's fine…" Lyra breathed.
The softness in her voice made him pause for a heartbeat. Lyra almost never spoke without filtering herself.
Aaron found an old strip of sterile cloth on a rusted shelf. He knelt beside her and wiped away the blood along her calf. Lyra grabbed the edge of his jacket, fingers digging in, when his touch brushed open skin.
"R… Ray… slower…" she whispered, her body rigid.
"This is already slow."
"I know… but my body… still panics whenever you touch the wound…"
Something flickered at the corner of Aaron's mouth... the ghost of an almost-smile, quickly restrained.
"…Sleep," he said quietly.
"I can't… you're too close…"
Aaron paused, looking up at her.
Lyra jerked her head away, ears burning. "I… I don't mean it like that! I mean… you're too close so my brain… has trouble… thinking straight…"
Aaron went back to cleaning the wound without comment.
"Ray…" Lyra called, voice as soft as a breath.
He stopped.
Just a little.
"…Hm?"
"Thank you," she said. Her gaze dropped. "If you hadn't come… I wouldn't be here."
Aaron tightened the bandage around her calf and spoke in a low murmur, barely above the echo of the room.
"You will not die with me."
Then he lifted her onto his back again.
In that exact moment… the floor vibrated.
Not from the towering creature. Not from the scuttling smaller ones.
This rhythm was different.
Human footsteps.
Several.
Harsh beams of tactical lights cut through the dark ahead. Moving shadows of armed figures stretched along the walls as a squad advanced with disciplined formation.
Aaron recognized the pattern instantly.
Not Blackthorn.
Not regular hunter units.
Ghostline.
Clean-up operatives. The kind deployed when something... or someone... needed to disappear quietly.
If they saw Lyra alive, she would not be classified as a survivor. She would be classified as a loose end.
Aaron leaned forward slightly, muscles tensing, ready to bolt.
Then the leader stepped into view.
A woman with long black hair, falling like ink over her shoulders. Her eyes were a sharp sapphire blue that cut straight through the dark and locked onto Aaron as if she had been expecting him all along.
That gaze did not waver.
Did not flinch.
Lysandra Larasvati.
Recognition passed between them in a silence that felt louder than any alarm.
She knew who he was.
And Aaron understood, in that instant, that everything beneath the earth had just changed.