Kahn stayed in the bathroom long after the call ended. The screen of his phone dimmed to black, leaving only the faint hiss of the faucet and his own reflection—pale, sweat-slick, eyes rimmed in sleepless red. The grooves his nails had left in the porcelain seemed deeper now, their edges darkening like old blood. A thin humidity clung to the tiles, slick against his fingertips. The fragment inside his arm pulsed once, slow and deliberate, a rhythm that felt more like a reflex than a heartbeat, a faint vibration he could taste behind his teeth.
He stepped back into the apartment. The air had thickened while he was gone, carrying a faint metallic dampness like wet coins. The amber glow of the lamp now felt brittle, a crust of light over something hollow. Shadows clung to the corners in shapes too patient to be ordinary dark. Each creak of the floor carried a damp echo, as if the building were listening. His skin prickled with static, every hair on his arms lifting in silent recognition.
He tried to sit, but the sofa sagged beneath him with a sound like wet paper tearing. The fabric scratched his palms with a grainy, almost oily texture. The smell of iron seeped from nowhere—metallic, faintly sweet, dry enough to tighten his throat. The fragment beat faster, tugging at the inside of his bones, an invisible instinct pulling him outward. Toward the window. Toward the city. His jaw ached with the pressure, like teeth grinding against a low frequency hum.
Outside, the streets swam in a washed-out dusk though the clock insisted it was still afternoon. Cars slid by in drained colors—pale grays, bruised silvers—leaving no sound behind them. Even the sky looked scraped thin, clouds stretched into transparent scars. A cold breeze carried the smell of damp stone and faint exhaust, brushing his cheeks with a chill that felt sharper than the season.
The fragment urged: move.
Kahn grabbed his coat without remembering the motion. The fabric rasped against his knuckles, rough and dry as old canvas. Keys rattled in the bowl by the door, each strike a sharp, copper taste on his tongue. By the time he reached the hallway, the apartment already felt distant, a room folding in on itself. Behind him, the door clicked shut with a hollow sound that echoed like a heartbeat stretched thin.
Voss waited in the lobby, a dark silhouette against the flicker of a dying fluorescent tube. Smoke curled from the cigarette balanced between his fingers, its ember the only point of warmth in the sterile light. The burnt-paper scent mingled with the chemical tang of cleaning solution and cold concrete.
"You look worse," Voss said without greeting. His voice was a rasp of gravel and cold air.
Kahn tried to answer, but the fragment pulsed beneath his skin, a blind signal that made language feel brittle. His tongue felt heavy, coated with the faint taste of rust.
Voss studied him for a beat, eyes sharp but unreadable. "It's pushing you, isn't it?"
Kahn gave a short nod. "Not thoughts. Just…direction. Like a compass that won't stop shaking."
"Then we move before it drives you past the edge," Voss said. He dropped the cigarette to the concrete and crushed it under his boot. The sound was a brittle snap, like a dry insect shell. "South sector. Valley neighborhood. Follow the pull, but don't let it set the pace. I'll sweep the perimeter. If it notices me, it scatters. If it notices you…" He left the sentence hanging, unfinished but heavy.
The fragment twitched again, a wordless impulse, steady and cold.
Voss stepped closer, the smell of smoke and rust clinging to his coat. "Stay alive, Kahn. Whatever waits out there, it isn't finished."
Then he turned and slipped into the stairwell's shadow, leaving only the faint hiss of the dying light.
The city greeted him like a film slowed a few frames too far. Morning light should have softened the buildings, but everything looked prematurely old—paint blistered, glass milked over, weeds swollen with invisible rain. Pavement seams exhaled faint warmth that rose like the breath of sleeping animals.
His footsteps landed a half-second late, as though the pavement waited before accepting his weight. Each impact sent a muted throb up his legs, a delayed echo in the cartilage of his knees. The fragment beat a patient rhythm, guiding him south. Every pulse aligned with a sound he could almost hear: a low grinding, the earth wearing itself down.
He crossed into the valley neighborhood just after noon—though the sky above flickered between twilight and pale morning, never choosing.
For a long stretch nothing seemed wrong. The streets were only tired: cracked sidewalks, leaning fences, a thin smell of river water baked into old brick. Cars idled at lights. A woman tugged a grocery cart across an intersection. Ordinary life, worn but intact. A faint breeze carried the dusty sweetness of dried leaves, mingling with the sharper scent of distant rain.
Kahn slowed, uncertain. The fragment gave no direction at first—only a faint, restless throb beneath his skin, like an animal scenting something too far to see. His fingertips tingled as if brushing invisible wires.
Then it sharpened. A sudden, involuntary pull—northwest, a narrow corridor between two weather-stained buildings. The instinct carried the clarity of a reflex: there.
His breath hitched as he followed. Each step tightened the world around him. The air cooled, smelling faintly of iron filings and wet stone. Shadows thickened along the brickwork as though dusk had folded itself into the gap. The alley's mouth seemed to draw him in with a pressure he felt behind his eyes, a gentle but irresistible drag.
The alley breathed with him—exhaling when he inhaled, drawing tight when he held his breath. The walls gave off a damp mineral chill that soaked through his sleeves and settled into his bones. Thin films of moisture slid upward instead of down, catching stray light like crawling mercury. Puddles spread across the pavement, each reflecting skies that did not exist: bruised purple, copper streaks, stars that writhed like worms. The faint scent of mildew mixed with something sharper—ozone, scorched metal, the sterile bite of hospital corridors.
At the far end a familiar glow pulsed against the bricks: the symbol of decay, alive and unraveling.
It throbbed with a deeper resonance now, each pulse collapsing the geometry around it. Bricks softened under his gaze, their mortar sweating black steam. The fragment inside Kahn answered with a sharper beat—pure instinct, steady and inescapable. His ears popped as though the air pressure had dropped; a low ringing filled the hollow of his skull.
The symbol brightened until the alley dissolved into a single rushing sensation—rot blooming, stone melting, time fraying into threads of dust.
The space around him inverted with a soundless implosion. Gravity bent sideways, folding light into spirals of rust. The taste of copper flooded his mouth. His skin tingled with static that felt like thousands of tiny needles. Kahn felt himself drawn through the glow, sucked inside the aberration's projection — into a hollow dimension where decay became landscape, where walls bled rust and air peeled like old paint.
The ground underfoot rippled like wet paper. Colors bled into each other, copper and ash, as if the world were dissolving into a single palette of corrosion. The air smelled of cold iron and something sweetly rotten, a scent that filled his lungs and settled behind his eyes.
Distance stretched and collapsed in the same breath, corridors elongating like pulled taffy before snapping back. His heartbeat faltered and then raced, syncing with the fragment's merciless rhythm.