The molten chamber was a living nightmare. Heat radiated from every surface, steam hissed violently from ruptured pipes, and rivers of molten metal carved glowing scars across the floor.Sophia pressed herself against the jagged remains of a platform, hands raw from gripping twisted metal, lungs burning from smoke and adrenaline. Luther crouched beside her, sweat streaked with grime, eyes scanning the chaos for any sign of Daniel.He was gone. Just gone. One moment, human and machine intertwined, resisting Oracle’s control, the next, swallowed by the eruption of molten energy. Sophia’s chest tightened with fear, panic gnawing at the edges of her mind.“We can’t just wait here,” Luther hissed. “If he’s alive, Oracle’s dragging him somewhere worse. We have to move.”Sophia nodded, swallowing hard. “I can feel him. He’s still in there, somewhere. I know it.”The corridor ahead was narrow, twisted, partially collapsed. Sparks arced unpredictably across molten lined walls, the heat intense

The molten chamber groaned like a living beast, every pulse of the failing reactor reverberating through the twisted metal. Sparks showered in unpredictable arcs, molten rivers hissed violently, and steam scalded exposed skin.Sophia pressed herself against a fractured support beam, hands raw, chest heaving from the heat and adrenaline. Luther crouched beside her, eyes darting across the chaos, every muscle tensed for movement.Daniel was gone. The eruption had swallowed him whole, and yet Sophia could feel him faint, fragmented pulses of energy resonating through the molten floor. She swallowed her fear and pressed forward.“We can’t wait,” Luther hissed. “Oracle’s taking him somewhere worse. We move now, or he’s gone.”Sophia nodded, voice tight but resolute. “I can feel him. He’s still in there somewhere. I won’t let him go.”The path ahead twisted, partially collapsed, lined with jagged metal and glowing molten seams. Every step was a gamble one slip and the molten abyss below wou

The molten chamber roared like a living beast. Every vent screamed, every pipe rattled, every beam trembled under the escalating internal pressure of the reactor.But Sophia barely heard any of it only the ragged beat of her own pulse, and the faint, impossible echo of another heartbeat underneath it.Daniel. He was gone. Yet something of him lingered.Luther dragged her backward as another support beam snapped and plunged into the molten stream below. Heat blasted upward in a violent plume. They shielded their faces as sparks exploded around them.“We move now!” Luther barked. “This collapse won’t stop until the whole sublevel is swallowed!”Sophia’s hands shook, but not from fear. From recognition Daniel’s signature, faint but pulsing, scattered across the airwaves like a heartbeat stitched into static.“He’s here,” she whispered, breath trembling. “In the system in the reactor somewhere.”Luther didn’t argue. He had seen the impossible enough times with Daniel to know doubt was a l

Darkness swallowed everything. Not the flickering kind. Not dim. Not shadowed. A total blackout so complete it felt thick, pressing against Sophia’s face, her hands, her lungs. Every breath sounded too loud. Every heartbeat felt exposed.Then Metal footsteps. Fast. Uneven. Hunting. Sophia grabbed Luther’s sleeve by instinct. He tensed beside her, gun raised though he couldn’t see a single inch ahead.The footsteps stopped. Silence stretched. Then the voice came again closer this time. Much closer.“Sophia”Sophia’s breath stuttered out. “That’s not him”Luther whispered low, teeth clenched, “Don’t answer it.”But the voice already answered itself. “don’t run”A slow exhale drifted through the darkness. It brushed the back of Sophia’s neck like cold fingers. She spun, hand flailing through empty air.Nothing. A soft creak of metal echoed behind them again. The thing was circling.Luther’s fingers found her elbow. “Forward. Slow. Don’t make noise.”They moved shuffling, sweeping the gro

They didn’t hit the ground. They hit something softer. Not solid.Not real. A surface that gave under their weight like memory instead of matter.Sophia’s breath burst out of her as she rolled over, scrambling on hands and knees. The air felt wrong down here thin, metallic, carrying a static charge that made her teeth ache.Luther landed beside her, coughing. “We’re not dead.” “Yet.”The darkness wasn’t empty. It watched.The floor beneath them began to glow, faint blue lines spreading like neon cracks through invisible glass. A grid. A map. A constructed space.“This isn’t a chamber,” Luther murmured. “It’s a layer.”The walls rose slowly from nothing tall, curved, bent in ways architecture shouldn’t survive. They weren’t walls. They were the idea of walls. Fake. Programmed.The air shifted. And someone stepped out of it. Not Oracle. Daniel. Real. Whole. Breathing.Sophia froze. “Daniel?”He looked wrong. Not distorted. Not glitched. Just empty. Like someone wearing a familiar face