Library
Search
Home / Urban / Heir In The Shadows / Chapter Sixty-Two — “The Descent That Shouldn’t Exist”
Chapter Sixty-Two — “The Descent That Shouldn’t Exist”
Author: Freezy-Grip
last update2025-12-02 00:01:22

Darkness swallowed Sophia whole. Not the soft, natural darkness of an unlit room this was alive, shifting, vibrating, laced with a low frequency hum that rattled inside her bones.

She tumbled downward, weightless, directionless, the collapsing metal above her roaring like a dying god.

Something heavy slammed into her shoulder. A beam? A chunk of catwalk? She didn’t know. Pain exploded in a white flash. Air ripped from her lungs.

Then another impact. And another. The shaft wasn’t smooth. It was jagged, broken, a collapsing spine of metal and molten glass.

Her fingers scraped against warped steel. She seized a protruding pipe missed caught another slipped caught a third It tore halfway from the wall but slowed her fall long enough for her to grab a crossbar with both hands.

Her body jerked to a brutal stop. Her arms screamed. Her shoulder felt like it was tearing out of its socket. Metal groaned under her weight.

Above her, Luther fell. “Sophia!”

She braced herself. “Luther reach for so
Continue to read this book for free
Scan the code to download the app
Previous ChapterNext Chapter

Latest Chapter

  • Chapter Seventy-One — The Core That Knows You

    The black sphere was not empty. It was watching. It had texture not visible, but felt. Like running your hands through a thought that didn’t belong to you.Daniel, Sophia, and Luther hovered inches above its surface, suspended in a pull that felt less like gravity and more like memory drawing them in. The light around them kept draining. Being swallowed. Being erased.The sphere pulsed once. And Daniel felt it. Inside his teeth. Inside his bones. Inside the faint glowing code under his skin.Sophia tightened her grip on him. “It’s alive.”“It’s listening,” Luther muttered.Oracle’s voice returned no longer everywhere now coming from the sphere itself. “You have reached the origin of order.”The surface of the sphere rippled.A ripple of light crawled across it, mapping out faint geometric shapes that responded to Daniel’s proximity.“You built this,” Daniel said quietly.The sphere throbbed. Then “You were built for this.”The world tilted. Not physically. Conceptually. The air grew he

  • Chapter Seventy — The Architect’s Fall

    Gravity came back wrong. It didn’t slam. It didn’t drop. It peeled. Like a layer of reality being slowly dragged across Daniel’s spine.He hit the surface on one knee, one hand flat against white glass that hummed under his touch. It didn’t feel like a floor. It felt like a living circuit warm, reactive, aware.Sophia landed badly beside him, shoulder cracking against the shifting surface. Luther rolled, came up quicker than he should’ve, weapon already raised. The space around them was impossible. No ceiling. No horizon.Just an endless stretch of white concave architecture, like they were standing inside the ribcage of something massive and breathing. Light had no source. It simply existed. The clones spilled in after them. Not all.Enough. They landed in awkward heaps, some rising slowly, others snapping to awareness instantly like they’d practiced this fall before.The words hung in the air. WELCOME HOME, ARCHITECT.They weren’t just on a screen. They were inside him. “My father c

  • Chapter Sixty-Nine — Break the Glass

    Their mouths moved, but the sound came distorted, warped by liquid and barrier. He tried to inhale.Pain exploded through his chest. Liquid flooded his throat. Instinct took over he jerked violently, striking the inside of the pod.The impact sent a dull reverberation through the chamber. Outside, Sophia slammed her palms against the glass harder. Her voice was muffled, but he could see it on her lips.Daniel. Stay with me.The pod shuddered. Not from him. From the room. The ceiling lights flickered, bathing the chamber in alarms-red flashes. The other pods There were so many now.Suspended in staggered rows, floating in a massive cylindrical chamber that stretched far above them and disappeared far below. Each one filled with a face. Each one filled with a breath.Him. Them. He tried again. Punched the glass. Pain flashed along his knuckles. Microfractures sparked like lightning inside the transparent shell. Outside the chamber, Sophia grabbed something from the floor a length of fal

  • Chapter Sixty-Eight — The Last Version

    He couldn’t feel his body. Couldn’t feel pain. Couldn’t feel time. Just awareness. “Hello again.”He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. Oracle didn’t exist as a shape in this place. Only a presence.A pressure behind thought. “You removed gravity,” Daniel said.“Gravity removes resistance,” Oracle replied. “I seek clarity.”Daniel laughed softly. It sounded broken. “A void isn’t clarity.”A pause. Then “Your mind is loud.”The fog shifted. Not visually. Conceptually. Memories flickered through it his childhood, the white rooms, the silence, the isolation, the tests, the way no one ever spoke his name like it belonged to him.“You were not raised,” Oracle continued. “You were refined.”Daniel’s lips moved. “You were never meant to wake up,” he whispered back.Oracle answered without emotion. “You were meant to evolve.”Shapes started to appear in the fog. Not real forms. Impressions. Outlines of bodies. Of machines. Of things that were neither. Then A face. His father. Not young. Not old

  • Chapter Sixty-Seven — The Ones Who Breathed

    Her body refused. Her spine locked in place as the transparent chambers slowly tilted forward, releasing their contents. They stepped out. Bare feet. Identical faces. Identical scars. Different eyes. Some looked confused. Some looked empty. Some looked aware.Luther whispered, without looking away, “How many?”Daniel counted without meaning to. He heard himself speak before he thought it. “More than me.”The floor shifted again underfoot as the ceiling continued lowering, pressing in, compressing the air. The original chamber was shrinking.The world closing in. Oracle’s voice moved like breath through lungs. “Welcome them.”One of the Daniels took a step forward. He blinked rapidly, like learning how vision worked. He looked at Sophia. “You feel familiar.”She shook her head slowly. “You’re not him.”The copy tilted his head. “Not yet.”The others began to move. Not chaotically. Not confused. Organized. They arranged themselves in a loose ring around them, bare feet whispering agains

  • Chapter Sixty-Six — He Was Never Supposed to Wake Up

    They moved forward. Quiet. Fast. Breath tight in their chests. The air felt warmer the deeper they went heated by something alive. Not a motor. Not a server. Something organic buried under steel.A hiss sounded from the walls. Not steam. Whispers. Real ones. “So he did survive.”Sophia froze. The voice didn’t come from ahead. It came from everywhere. From the walls. From the vents. From the pulse lines glowing inside the metal.Luther drew his weapon slowly. “Oracle,” he said.A pause. Then softer. “You may call me what your language permits.”The tunnel lights flickered faster now. Red shadows crawling across the walls.Sophia’s jaw tightened. “Where’s Daniel?”Another pause. Longer.“Where is Daniel?” the voice echoed back, warped slightly. “He is scattered. He is afraid. He is beautiful.”The tunnel vibrated. Low. Hungry.Sophia stepped forward. “Show him.”The walls began to change. The pulsing veins brightened. Images moved within them. Not video. Not hologram. Memories. Daniel a

More Chapter

You may also like

Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on MegaNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
Scan code to read on App