The road to the crash was too damn quiet. The kind of quiet that itched in Ash's ears and made the skin on his neck prickle like he was being watched by something with too many eyes. Or, in this case, no eyes at all.
Argh, how many of these things are there?
The Faceless statues were everywhere. A forest of bad art. Ash kept running, his boots crunching on the grit like he was announcing his arrival to a party nobody wanted.
Then the pattern emerged.
It was like a creepy stone conga line. The closer Ash got to the crash, the more their poses shifted. The first one just had its shoulders slightly twisted. The next had its blank head half-turned. The ones further on were fully rotated, their smooth, faceless gazes all locked on the same distant point: the exact direction Ash was running.
A flipbook in rock. Page one: mild interest. Page fifty: full-blown, silent obsession.
Despite the creeping dread, Ash slowed down. This didn't feel right. Not one bit. The way his brain kept showing him images of them all lurching forward the moment he blinked especially didn't help. Still, his legs had to move. His brother was in danger. This kind of cosmic horror could wait.
The wreck finally came into view, and it was a proper mess.
The Catalogue wasn't just crashed. It was destroyed. Its steel hull was split open like a tin can, fire licking from the wounds. Cables dangled like shredded nerves. The whole thing smelled of burned circuits and deep regret.
And the Faceless statues... the Faceless statues were all over it.
They weren't just standing nearby. They were on it. Stone fists were buried in the plating. Some clung to the torn edges, frozen in mid-climb. A frozen mob caught in the act of trying to peel the Catalogue apart.
Ash's stomach did a slow, unpleasant roll. This wasn't ancient history. This was fresh. They'd been moving. Fighting.
Then like someone or something had hit pause, freezing the whole disturbing scene.
The shattered hull revealed only a tomb of twisted metal. No sign of life.
However, the Faceless statues told another story. Their frozen chase didn't end at the ruined shuttle. It continued past it, a trail of petrified violence stretching deeper into the gray fog and silhouettes of what looked like ruins beyond the mining zone. They'd been chasing something. Something fast. Something clever.
Ash clenched his jaw so hard it ached.
Of course. If Max wasn't splattered inside the wreck, he was the one being chased. Because when did Max ever make anything simple for anyone?
The grim breadcrumb trail led toward the gray fog. The mining zone gave way to the corpse of a city. Old, towering structures slumped against each other. Broken walls. Collapsed roofs. The air smelled of wet decay and forgotten centuries.
And the Faceless statues were everywhere. Perched on ledges. Leaning from shattered windows. Lining the streets like a morbid welcoming committee. All facing the same direction. All frozen in pursuit.
Together, they formed a dotted line on a map of nightmares, and Ash was sure it all pointed straight to his brother.
The destruction got worse the deeper Ash went. It looked less like a battle and more like a tantrum thrown by a giant. Buildings were torn apart, not broken. Stone and metal were twisted together. And the Faceless statues were frozen right in the middle of it: mid-swing, mid-leap, mid-whatever-stone-monsters-do.
Ash gritted his teeth. This was officially bad. The smart move was silence. But the scared-brother move was to start yelling.
He took a breath, ready to shout Max's name into the dead air—
A hand clamped over Ash's mouth and yanked him violently into the shadows of a half-crumbled wall.
No point fighting. Ash knew that grip. It was the same one that had pulled him back from ledges, schematics, and bad decisions since they were kids.
Max looked like he'd been dragged through a reactor core. Early twenties, but exhaustion had carved new, permanent lines around his eyes. His crimson hair was a dusty mess. His sleek, intelligent-environment armor, the one with the glowing cables and built-in respirator, was scratched, dented, and had several deep, parallel gouges that looked suspiciously like claw marks.
Ash let out a heavy, muffled sigh of pure relief.
Max pressed a finger to his own lips, then tapped a device on his wrist.
A pale blue holographic screen flickered between them. Max's fingers flew over the projected keyboard.
[Sound = bad. Audio transmission risky. These things hunt by sound. 94% chance they swarm if you make noise. Good thing it's you and not Tyrin. He would've tried negotiating with them. Loudly.]
Ash rolled his eyes and gestured sharply with his free hand: We need to go. Now.
Max's shoulders slumped in a silent, exasperated sigh. More typing.
[Understood. Your concern for Tyrin is touching, but he's fine, I'd put his survival at 99% given what we're dealing with. You, however, are sitting below 80%. My Soul Core is damaged. Seems to correlate with a larger variant mixed in among the standard units.]
Ash's eyes narrowed. A larger variant? Nothing bigger had shown up yet. Great. Just what they needed: a boss monster.
Max was already typing, anticipating the question.
[Approximate height: 4.2 meters. I'm calling it 'The Curator.' Working theory: it coordinates the swarm. Also, it's why we're not leaving yet.]
Another screen popped up.
[I located a significant energy signature deeper in the ruins. Apex didn't choose this gray planet at random. They were digging toward something specific. I intend to find out what it is. Mission parameters support investigation.]
Ash just stared. Of course. Max hadn't been running for his life. The man had been on a field trip.
Max caught the look. His typing took on a defensive, faster rhythm.
[I recognize your expression. But consider: Apex operations are expensive. Their presence here, mining toward this specific ruin, means there's a return on investment beyond mineral wealth. Whatever they wanted is likely in that structure. Better to understand it than stay ignorant.]
Ash didn't need a hologram to hear the unspoken part: 'And I really, really want to know.' Max's curiosity wasn't a trait; it was a gravitational force. It had saved them a dozen times over, and Ash hated that the logic was sound enough to kill any argument.
He gave a single, sharp, grudging nod. Fine. They were doing this.
A final message blinked.
[Good. Now, check your Soul Space. I need to confirm you are stable before we proceed. Don't worry, I'll watch the stone audience.]
Ash sighed. Right. The Soul Space. The inner realm where his soul lived. A place he almost never visited, because the need had never been there. He closed his eyes and turned his focus inward.
***
As always, the transition was jarring.
Inward, Ash stood on a surface that defied normal physics. An endless flat plane of black still water stretched in every direction like a pane of smoked glass. Stupidly, deeply quiet. The only sound was a soft shhh under bare feet with every step. Of course his feet were bare. And he was naked. This place was cheap and never provided clothes, just existential atmosphere.
A reflection stared back up from the perfect black mirror: the weary young man Ash was now. Same messy black hair, same tired eyes that had seen too many failed suicides. But where Ash felt the symphony of aches in his muscles and the grit in his teeth, the reflection was just... still. Disturbingly still. It wore his face with a faint, permanent curl of the lip, as if the universe had hired it on a part-time basis just to be disappointed in him.
"Yeah, yeah."
He muttered to the void.
"I'm not staying long. Just a wellness check. Don't get excited."
The horizon did a weird, nauseating shiver. Above, three suns were nailed to a fake black sky.
One was a sickly, sputtering orange ball, like a dying streetlamp. The second was a crackling cage of trapped lightning, buzzing behind glass. The last was a spinning black hole of a sun, a perfect circle of nothing that greedily drank the light from the other two.
Ash tilted his head, looking at them. For all their strangeness, they looked... normal. Or at least, his version of normal. Soul damage was uncharted territory. Would it be a crack? A weird noise? A polite error message? Ash didn't know.
The black water rippled. The reflection's lips moved, and a voice that was his, but stripped of any warmth, spoke aloud:
"Soul records."
The water shifted. The reflection vanished, replaced by lines of stark, glowing text. The flat, toneless voice echoed in the silent space:
Name: Ashley Burns
Origin: Core Realm
Soul Core: [Fire], [Lightning], [Dark]
Soul Stage: 1st
Vessel: Human
Vessel Tier: 5th
Soul Pool: 3000/3000
Soul Essence: 97%
The voice stopped. The letters dissolved, and the reflection's indifferent face returned to the water, staring back.
A breath Ash didn't need here escaped anyway.
"Well. No cracks here. Looks like whatever mess his core is in didn't backwash into mine."
He glanced at the silent twin with one eye.
"Am I right? Or are you just not telling me?"
The reflection said nothing. Just maintained its masterpiece of passive-aggressive judgment.
You could at least reply for once. A thumbs-up. A middle finger. Something. Like the old days.
Ash sighed and glanced back up, then took another step forward. The water rippled under his foot. The image of his present self shattered, dissolved, and was gone. Replacing it, clear and vivid, was a little boy.
Wild, black mess of hair. Staring down into the black puddle at his feet, into the face of a wide-eyed, smiling stranger wearing his skin, thinking nothing at all. The wonder was too big for thoughts.