Darkness breathed. Not silence, breathing. A slow mechanical inhale through vents that hadn’t worked in decades, followed by a labored exhale that echoed through the corridor like a creature trapped beneath the metal skin of the world.Sophia’s boots splashed through the flooded floor, cold water licking up her ankles. Emergency lights pulsed in periodic blood-red, turning every drip of water into a smear of crimson. Luther’s heavy frame moved ahead of her, his shoulder lamp casting a jittering halo through the darkness.The facility groaned alive, rebuilding itself. Screens along the walls flickered, static, then nothing, then a blink of code patterns that danced like a heartbeat. Daniel’s heartbeat. The same symbols she’d seen under his skin the last moment she’d touched him.“Keep your guard up,” Luther muttered, eyes scanning the ceiling.Sophia nodded once, swallowing hard. If she spoke, she wasn’t sure her voice would come out whole. Water rippled around her knees now. They turn

Sophia’s stomach dropped as the abyss rushed toward her. The molten glow of the reactor far below painted the tunnel walls in hues of fire and blood. Water sloshed violently around her boots. Her fingers gripped Luther’s as they tumbled over the fractured edge, freefalling.Gravity twisted, metal groaned, and the world above them seemed to vanish into a blur of red and black.The figure, Daniel hovered at the edge above the chasm, impossibly still. One arm outstretched, mechanical lines tracing across his flesh. One human eye flickered with panic, the other with the cold, relentless pulse of Oracle.Sophia’s heart seized. “Daniel! Hold on!”The air around them distorted, a violent pressure wave emanating from the reactor’s core. Sparks and molten debris rained like shooting stars. Luther shouted something, but the words were swallowed by the roar.The drop felt endless. Time fractured. Every heartbeat thundered like the explosion of a war drum. Sophia’s mind screamed, lungs burned, an

The chamber erupted in chaos. Molten water hissed violently, metal groaned like it was alive, and sparks rained down in lethal arcs. Sophia slammed herself against the wall, arms aching from clutching the railing of the twisted catwalk.Luther coughed, water and steam burning his lungs. “We have to move! Now!”Her eyes darted frantically. Daniel was gone. Not just out of sight, vanished. The last she saw, the flash of his human eye had flickered once before disappearing into the inferno of molten metal and collapsing corridors.“Where did he go?” she gasped, voice shaking.“We find him,” Luther snapped. “We don’t stop. Not for a second.”The catwalk beneath them groaned dangerously. Each step felt like the last. Rusted beams twisted and bent under the weight of chaos. Water sprayed from ruptured pipes, scalding their legs, while sparks cracked from overloaded electrical lines overhead.Sophia’s mind raced. Oracle had him. Oracle was inside him. Every pulse, every surge of energy she’d

The massive beam crashed to the side, sending molten metal and sparks spraying in every direction. Sophia pressed herself against Daniel’s chest, heart hammering, while Luther struggled to regain footing on the collapsing platform.The heat was unbearable, molten rivers hissed violently below, and the walls groaned with every pulse of the failing reactor.Daniel’s mechanical arm braced against a chunk of twisted metal, stabilizing them, while his human side guided every move. Oracle’s presence inside him flared like a living storm, writhing and screaming, testing the limits of his control.Sophia clung to him. “You have to fight it! You can fight it!”He gasped, one hand clenching hers, the other holding the debris steady. Sparks licked at his mechanical arm, arcs of raw energy snapping across the chamber. His human eye flickered, recognition, fear, determination, while the mechanical one pulsed with Oracle’s relentless influence.“I I’m trying,” he rasped, voice raw, fractured betwee

The molten chamber roared like a living beast. Sparks showered down in chaotic arcs, molten rivers hissed violently, and steam scalded every exposed inch of skin.Sophia pressed herself against the jagged remains of a platform, chest heaving, hands raw from gripping fractured metal. Luther crouched beside her, sweat and grime streaked across his face, eyes scanning the shifting chaos with intense focus.Daniel was gone. The last she saw, human and machine intertwined, one moment struggling against Oracle’s control, the next swallowed by the eruption of molten energy. Her stomach twisted into knots, a cold panic threatening to consume her.“We have to move,” Luther hissed. “If he’s alive, Oracle’s dragging him deeper into the core. We can’t hesitate.”Sophia swallowed hard, voice trembling. “I can feel him. He’s still in there, somewhere. I know it.”Luther grabbed her arm firmly. “Then we find him. Every second counts.”They navigated the shattered catwalks, leaping over molten gaps,