Kalen did not leave the tunnel immediately.
He told himself it was caution, that rushing blindly through unstable ruins was how scavengers died. That was true—but it was not the whole truth.
Part of him was afraid to move.
The silence felt different now. Not empty, not merely heavy, but occupied. As if something had settled into the hollow spaces of his thoughts and decided to stay.
He stood several meters away from the corpse, lamp clenched tightly in his hand, its beam fixed on the unmoving body. The iron rod lay discarded beside it, darkened with blood.
The blood was real. Tangible. Familiar.
The voice had not been.
Kalen swallowed and forced himself to breathe slowly. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way his father had taught him, years ago, back when the city still believed panic could be trained away.
"This is shock," he muttered. "Adrenaline. Hallucination."
He had heard stories—people trapped underground for too long, hearing things, imagining voices. The mind breaking under isolation and fear. That explanation was comforting.
Unfortunately, it didn't explain the words still etched into his awareness.
Fear Fragment.
The phrase lingered like a bruise you only noticed when you pressed on it.
Kalen turned away from the corpse and took a step toward the tunnel exit.
The moment he moved, a sharp spike of unease flared in his chest.
He froze.
The sensation was subtle, nothing like pain or fear. More like a tightening, a quiet insistence that something was wrong.
Kalen frowned.
"That's stupid," he said aloud.
He took another step.
The feeling intensified.
Images flickered at the edges of his thoughts—an unstable ceiling, weakened support beams, a section of tunnel that would not hold if disturbed.
Kalen stopped completely.
Slowly, carefully, he swept the lamp across the ceiling.
Hairline fractures crisscrossed the concrete above him, barely visible unless the light struck them at the right angle. Dust sifted down in thin streams, disturbed by his movement.
His breath caught.
If he had rushed forward—
He exhaled shakily.
"That… that wasn't luck."
The awareness faded once he acknowledged it, retreating into the background like a receding tide. But the implication remained.
The Echo—whatever it was—had left something behind.
Not strength.
Not skill.
Perspective.
Kalen leaned against the wall, pulse hammering.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Alright. Let's say I'm not imagining this."
The idea felt dangerous. Accepting it meant accepting everything that followed.
He glanced back at the corpse.
"Did you know this place was unstable?" he asked it.
The body did not answer.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then—a faint pressure stirred in his mind, like a thought that wasn't quite his own.
A flash of memory surfaced.
A man running. Boots slipping on dust-coated concrete. A frantic glance upward as the ceiling groaned ominously.
I shouldn't have come back…
The impression vanished before Kalen could react, leaving him gasping.
He staggered away from the corpse, heart racing.
"No," he said firmly. "That's enough."
The thing inside his head did not argue.
But it did not leave.
Kalen turned and made his way back through the tunnel, moving slowly, carefully avoiding unstable ground. Each step felt measured, deliberate. He reached the junction without incident and climbed back toward the surface, muscles tight with tension he couldn't release.
When he finally emerged into the fractured outskirts of Sector Nine, dusk had settled over the ruins. The sky burned a dull orange through the smog, casting long shadows across broken buildings.
The city noise returned—distant generators, muffled voices, the low hum of barriers humming along the sector perimeter.
Normalcy.
Kalen leaned against a cracked wall and let out a long breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"I'm alive," he murmured.
The words felt important.
He made his way home through familiar routes, keeping to side streets and avoiding patrol paths. His apartment was a single-room unit wedged between two abandoned structures, just outside the officially monitored zones. Cheap. Quiet. Mostly ignored.
Exactly how he liked it.
He locked the door behind him and dropped his pack onto the floor. The room smelled faintly of oil and old fabric. A single overhead light flickered to life, casting uneven illumination across bare walls.
Kalen sat heavily on the edge of his cot.
Only then did the exhaustion hit him.
His hands shook as he scrubbed dried blood from his jacket sleeve. The sight of it made his stomach churn.
Human blood.
The voice rose unbidden in his mind, softer now, distant.
I was scared…
Kalen squeezed his eyes shut.
"Stop," he whispered.
The pressure receded, but not entirely. Like a presence that had learned how far it could push.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
"This isn't normal," he said quietly.
Whatever that thing was—system, hallucination, curse—it had appeared the moment he killed.
Not when he entered the tunnel.Not when he was in danger.
When he ended a life.
The thought made his chest feel tight.
Kalen had killed before. Not many times, but enough. Scavenging was not a gentle profession. Sometimes you fought. Sometimes you lost. Sometimes the other person did.
But never like this.
Never with consequences that followed him home.
He straightened abruptly.
"No," he said. "I won't spiral."
If this thing existed, then panicking would only make it worse. He needed information. Understanding.
He took a deep breath and focused inward.
"Echo," he said mentally, unsure if the word even mattered. "Are you there?"
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
[Residual Echo Activity: Stable]
Kalen stiffened.
The response was immediate. Precise. Impersonal.
"So you can hear me," he muttered.
No answer followed.
He tried again. "What are you?"
Silence.
"What do you want?"
Nothing.
Kalen frowned.
"Figures."
It wasn't a conversation. It was a record. A notification. The system—if that was what it was—had no interest in explaining itself.
That meant he would have to learn the hard way.
His gaze drifted to the iron rod leaning against the wall.
Killing triggered Echoes.
That much was clear.
But what happened if he killed again?
The idea made his stomach twist.
He stood and paced the small room, thoughts racing.
If Echoes accumulated… if each one left behind fragments—
"How many can I carry?" he asked the empty room.
The question felt dangerous.
As if asking it acknowledged the possibility.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
When it did, it was shallow and fractured.
He dreamed of tunnels collapsing in slow motion, of doors sealing shut just out of reach. He woke with a start, heart pounding, the echo of panic still clinging to him.
Morning light filtered weakly through the cracked window.
Kalen sat up, rubbing his face.
"Enough," he said. "I can't afford this."
He needed confirmation. Proof that he wasn't losing his mind.
That meant one thing.
He needed to trigger the system again.
The thought sent a chill down his spine.
But if he didn't test it, he would never know the rules. And in this world, ignorance killed faster than monsters.
Kalen packed his gear with methodical precision. Supplies. Lamp. Weapon.
He hesitated, then added a small recording device to his pack. Old tech, barely functional—but if something strange happened, he wanted a record.
As he slung the pack over his shoulder, a faint sense of unease brushed against his thoughts.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
Kalen paused.
"That's new," he murmured.
He stepped outside, locking the door behind him.
Somewhere beneath the city, Echoes waited.
And this time—
He would be listening.