The night over Braxton City was unnaturally still.Smoke still drifted lazily from the upper floors of Braxton Tower, carried away by the wind like the remnants of a nightmare that refused to fade. Security barriers surrounded the building, drones patrolled the perimeter, and specialized engineers worked through the night to stabilize the damaged floors.But inside the bunker-level command room, the atmosphere was far colder than the air outside.Leanna stood at the central console, staring at the holographic projection of the tower’s schematics…every floor rendered in precise glowing lines, every damaged section pulsing red.She hadn’t slept. She refused to.Korrin and Tessa sat on opposite sides of the table, reviewing data feeds and intercepted system logs. A handful of Dominion analysts stood at the edges of the room, awaiting orders.But no one spoke.Not until Tessa slammed her palm on the table.“This isn’t a normal breach. The entire security grid was rerouted through a ghost

Braxton City had seen many dark days…days of smoke, of fear, of silence so loud it felt like its own kind of storm.But nothing compared to this moment.Word spread faster than any alarm….Ethan was missing. Vanished.One minute he had been preparing to leave for a routine inspection of the eastern district. The next, the tower’s security feeds cut out, the comm lines went dead, and Ethan’s tracker stopped responding.At first, the council tried to stay calm.Then they tried to pretend they weren’t panicking.Finally….they exploded into chaos.But Leanna did not.She stood in the center of the council chamber, her eyes sharp, steady, burning with a cold fire that made everyone else look away.“Run it again,” she said.And the technicians did…for the tenth time.The screen replayed Ethan walking down the lower corridor… then a flash. Not light….interference, static, something artificial. Then nothing.“This wasn’t an accident,” Leanna said. “This was a controlled blackout.”The council

Leanna hit the bottom hard, her boots skidding over loose gravel as she rolled to break the fall. Elara landed a second later with a painful grunt.“A warning next time,” Elara muttered, pushing herself up.Leanna didn’t answer. Her flashlight swept across the underground hall they’d fallen into. It wasn’t a tunnel anymore…this was something older.Much older.An ancient chamber built from stone and reinforced with metal ribs. Their lights flickered against dark murals etched into the walls…strange, swirling symbols that looked nothing like Braxton engineering.Elara stared. “This… this predates the tower.”Leanna touched one of the carvings. It felt cold, almost humming.“We’re not in Braxton’s tunnels anymore. We’re in whatever existed before them.”Her voice echoed across the wide chamber.Then she froze.There…on the ground near the center of the room was a streak of blood.Fresh.Elara knelt and touched it. “Still warm.”Leanna’s heart clenched.“He’s close.”A low metallic creak

Leanna and Elara sprinted down the corridor, boots pounding against metal grates that vibrated from the failing power grid. Warning sirens thundered overhead. Lights flickered madly, casting the walls in stuttering flashes of red and white.A timer blinked on the emergency panels..CORE MELTDOWN IN 27 MINUTESElara cursed loudly. “We have less than half an hour before this whole place becomes a crater!”Leanna didn’t slow.“Then we get Ethan out in twenty.”The hallway ended at a massive reinforced door….thick, armored, humming with power. Even in the chaos, it looked untouched. As if whatever lay behind it was protected above all else.“Korrin’s final lab,” Elara whispered.The panel beside the door glowed faintly, displaying lines of code and a biometric seal.Elara stepped forward. “Let me try to hack….”“No,” Leanna said quietly.She pressed her hand against the metal, as if feeling for a pulse.“Korrin won’t let anyone in. Not from the outside.”“So what do we do?”Leanna drew a

Morning came, but Braxton City barely felt it. The sunrise smeared pale gold across the skyline, but the light couldn’t cut through the weight that had settled over the city overnight. News of the Sector Ten convoy bombing had spread faster than any official announcement. People whispered, panicked, speculated. The reconstruction zones slowed. Workers looked over their shoulders. Entire districts felt like they were holding their breath.Inside the Sector Six Relief Hub, Ethan, Leanna, and Sebastian stood in the command room surrounded by screens and maps. Every monitor displayed the same symbol burned into the street…Korrin’s twisted spiral,like a taunt, a reminder, a promise.Ethan braced his hands on the edge of the table. “If we don’t get ahead of him now, he’ll tear the whole city apart piece by piece.”Sebastian nodded grimly. “I’ve pulled reports from the past two months…fires, collapses, outages, transport failures. At first they seemed random. But now…”Leanna stepped closer.