Lena did not think. Thinking would slow her down, and hesitation would kill them both.
She slipped back into the corridor, pressing herself against the wall as footsteps echoed from somewhere deeper in the sector. Her heart hammered so loudly she was certain it would give her away. Caleb's face burned behind her eyes—sweat-soaked, defiant even in restraint. Alive. For now.
She counted breaths. Three. Four. The footsteps faded.
She returned to the door and crouched beside the control panel. It wasn't like the gates—no keypad, no obvious lock. Just a smooth black surface pulsing faintly with light, like a heartbeat. She touched it, and pain shot up her arm, sharp and electric. She bit back a cry.
The whisper laughed softly in her skull.
You cannot break what is grown, not built.
"Then open it," she hissed under her breath.
The panel warmed beneath her palm. The light shifted, spreading outward like a crack in ice. With a low hiss, the door slid open.
Lena slipped inside.
The room was smaller than she expected. Sterile. Bright. Machines hummed in a steady rhythm that reminded her uncomfortably of breathing. Caleb was strapped to a chair in the center, wires threaded into his arms and neck, a metal band clamped around his temples.
His eyes widened when he saw her. "You shouldn't be here," he whispered hoarsely.
"I know," she said, already moving. "Don't talk."
She scanned the room. One door. One control console. No guards—yet. She went to the console first, hands flying over buttons she didn't understand. Symbols flickered, red warning sigils blooming across the screen.
Caleb sucked in a sharp breath. "Careful. That thing—" He jerked his chin toward the band on his head. "It's synced to my vitals."
Lena's fingers froze. "If I pull the wrong switch—"
"It could fry my brain," he finished calmly. "Or worse."
She swallowed hard. "Worse than this?"
His mouth twitched, humorless. "Yes."
The whisper stirred again, closer now, more intimate.
You see? They have learned what we taught them. Pain as a key. Fear as a door.
"Get out of my head," she snarled silently.
She forced herself to breathe. Panic would help no one. She studied the console more closely, tracing the wires with her eyes. One line glowed brighter than the others, pulsing in time with Caleb's heartbeat.
"Okay," she murmured. "Okay. If this is vitals, then this must be output."
She reached for the knife at her belt.
Caleb's eyes widened. "Lena—wait."
"I don't have time."
She sliced the cable.
The machine screamed.
Lights flared. Alarms howled. Caleb convulsed in the chair, teeth clenched, veins standing out on his neck. Lena lunged forward, grabbing his shoulders.
"I'm here," she shouted over the noise. "Stay with me!"
The metal band around his head cracked down the center, sparks flying. The restraints snapped open one by one, clattering to the floor. Caleb slumped forward, gasping, and Lena caught him before he fell.
The alarms didn't stop.
"They'll be here any second," Caleb rasped. "You should've run."
"Not without you."
She hauled him to his feet. He leaned heavily against her, but he could walk. Barely.
They staggered into the corridor just as boots thundered from both directions.
"Left," Caleb said, voice tight. "Testing wing loops back to processing."
"How do you know?"
A grim smile. "I've had time to look around."
They ran.
The corridor erupted into chaos. Doors slammed open. Red lights strobed. Voices shouted orders that overlapped into noise. Lena's lungs burned as they rounded a corner, nearly colliding with a guard.
Caleb reacted on instinct. He grabbed the guard's rifle, slammed his head into the wall, and dragged the body down before it could hit the floor. He handed the weapon to Lena without a word.
She took it, shocked by the weight. "Since when do you know how to do that?"
"Since the world ended."
They moved again, slower now, careful. The further they went, the stranger the sector became. The walls here weren't metal—they pulsed faintly, organic, threaded with veins of light. The air hummed, vibrating through Lena's bones.
Caleb noticed her staring. "This part wasn't here before."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," he said quietly, "it's growing."
The whisper surged, triumphant.
Yes. Yes. You feel it now.
They reached a wide chamber and skidded to a halt.
The rift dominated the room.
It was larger than the one Lena had seen earlier—no longer a flicker, but a wound torn open in reality. Light bled from it in impossible colors. The air around it warped, bending sound, bending sight. Figures stood around it—doctors, guards, technicians—some transfixed, some screaming as shadows peeled themselves from the rift's edge.
Dr. Mercer stood at the center.
She turned slowly, as if she had known Lena would come.
"There you are," she said pleasantly. "I was wondering how long it would take."
Lena raised the rifle, hands shaking. "Let them go."
Mercer glanced at Caleb. "Impressive resilience. You were always an outlier."
"You're opening rifts on purpose," Lena said. "You're feeding people to them."
Mercer sighed, almost weary. "We're learning. The end of the world wasn't a punishment—it was an invitation. Something is reaching out. We're simply answering."
The rift pulsed, and Lena felt the whisper swell into a chorus.
Open. Open. OPEN.
Caleb leaned close, voice urgent. "She's not wrong about one thing. That thing wants in. And it's using us."
Mercer smiled. "Exactly. And some of us will survive because of it."
She gestured. Guards raised their weapons.
Lena made a choice.
She fired—not at Mercer, but at the machinery anchoring the rift.
The chamber exploded in light.
The blast threw them backward. Lena hit the floor hard, stars bursting behind her eyes. The hum became a roar, the walls screaming as fractures spiderwebbed through them. People scattered, shouting, some swallowed by the light as the rift destabilized.
Caleb dragged her up. "Move!"
They ran as the compound shook around them. Sirens wailed—not alarms now, but evacuation calls. The perfect order of Zone Echo collapsed into panic.
Behind them, the rift howled.
Ahead of them, the gates to the outer compound loomed—buckling, cracking.
Lena felt it then, deep and certain.
The cracks weren't hidden anymore.
They were breaking wide open.