The corridor didn't exist until it did.
One second—smooth white walls, heat climbing, alarms whispering like a threat too confident to shout.
The next—metal screaming open beneath their feet.
Cael dragged Elara sideways as the floor panel snapped shut behind them, sealing the burn room with a final, furious hiss.
They hit the passage hard.
Cold steel. Narrow. Angled downward like a throat swallowing secrets.
They ran.
Not blindly. Not panicked.
Professionally.
Elara didn't question why her legs knew how to pace the slope, or why her hands automatically brushed the wall, counting seams, mapping exits. The burn room had taken memories—but not instincts.
Above them, the alarm changed.
Not louder.
Smarter.
"This facility just woke up," Cael said between breaths.
Red lights strobed ahead, slicing the darkness into pieces. The passage forked—left collapsing into shadow, right illuminated just enough to feel like a lie.
Elara didn't slow.
"Left," she said.
Cael glanced at her—sharp, quick—then trusted her without question.
They turned.
The lights behind them cut out instantly.
The dark pressed close.
Elara's pulse hammered, but her fear stayed contained, folded tight inside her chest like something trained to wait. Her mind was filling in gaps—not memories, but patterns.
"Why did the system react to our names?" she asked.
Cael vaulted a low barrier without breaking stride. "Because names are permissions."
"What does that mean?"
"It means ghosts don't trip alarms," he said. "The dead don't trigger protocols."
Something thudded behind them.
Heavy.
Mechanical.
Not fast yet—but relentless.
Elara risked a glance back.
Bad idea.
The thing filled the corridor—angular, jointed, crawling with the wrong kind of precision. Not a machine built to chase.
A machine built to retrieve.
"Oh," she breathed. "That's new."
Cael swore. "It's a Sentinel."
"Of course it is."
He shot her a look. "You know what that is?"
"No," she said, ducking under a sparking conduit. "But I know we don't want it catching us."
The corridor narrowed.
Too narrow.
The Sentinel adapted instantly—plates shifting, frame compressing with a sound like metal learning how to hate.
It gained speed.
Cael skidded to a stop at a sealed door, fingers flying over a recessed panel.
"Tell me you can open that," Elara said.
"I can break it," he replied. "Opening is negotiable."
The Sentinel lunged.
Elara turned without thinking, grabbed a loose rod from the wall, and slammed it into an exposed joint as the machine surged forward.
Sparks erupted.
The Sentinel recoiled—not damaged, but recalibrating.
Cael ripped the door open.
They dove through as it slammed shut behind them.
Silence fell so fast it rang.
They stood there, breathing hard, hands on knees, listening.
No impact.
No breach.
Just the distant hum of systems thinking very carefully.
Elara straightened first.
The room they'd entered was different.
Not white. Not sterile.
Old.
Concrete walls stained with watermarks and time. Exposed cables like veins. This wasn't part of the facility's public anatomy.
"This is a shadow level," Cael said quietly.
Elara looked around. "You sound familiar with it."
"I helped design the blind spots," he replied.
She studied him—really studied him this time.
The way he stood slightly angled, never square to a door. The way his eyes tracked reflections instead of surfaces. The way his calm felt… practiced.
"You weren't just declared dead," she said. "You were erased."
Cael didn't deny it.
"They killed my name," he said. "Buried my record. Scrubbed every system that mattered."
"And yet," Elara said softly, "the burn room remembered you."
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
"That room was never updated," he said. "It runs on legacy protocols."
"Which means," she continued, "someone wanted it to remember."
Cael met her gaze.
"Yes."
A new sound reached them.
Footsteps.
Human this time.
Multiple.
Organized.
"Elara," Cael said, testing the weight of her name like it mattered now. "If we get separated—"
"We won't," she cut in.
A corner of his mouth twitched. "If we do, go up. Not out."
"Why?"
"Because out is where they expect us to run."
The door behind them creaked.
Voices filtered through—controlled, confident.
"Targets confirmed."
"Engage quietly."
Elara's hands clenched.
"Cael," she whispered. "What are we to them?"
He stepped closer, voice low.
"We're proof."
The door burst inward.
Gunfire cracked the air—short, suppressed, lethal.
Cael moved first.
Elara followed.
They didn't flee.
They broke through.
And somewhere deep inside the facility, a system flagged an impossible error—
DECEASED SUBJECT ACTIVE.
MEMORY-ERASED ASSET RECOVERING.
The shadows weren't breathing anymore.
They were screaming.