[LOCATION: SECTOR 13 – DEAD ZONE BORDERS]
Static rippled across Lin's Reactor Ring the moment they crossed the collapsed security threshold. The entire zone pulsed with decayed resonance—like a city caught mid-scream.
Their footsteps echoed through crumbling tunnels beneath Sector 13. Concrete bled rust. Wire vines snaked overhead, twitching faintly with residual energy.
Nel touched a wall. "It's like the place is… breathing."
Lin didn't answer. He was already sweating. His Reactor Ring was flickering, struggling to maintain sync. His fingers trembled.
"The core field's rejecting us," he muttered.
Nel activated a secondary filter. "I can stabilize mine—barely."
But his wasn't stabilizing. Every pulse felt like his blood was vibrating wrong.
---
[20 MINUTES DEEPER – ABANDONED RESEARCH TRAMWAY]
A long-forgotten maintenance tram rested derailed on one side of the tunnel. Blood stains—old, dry, smeared. Child-sized handprints dragged across metal.
Nel stopped cold.
"Lin… look."
They turned.
From the far end of the tunnel, shapes emerged—lanky, twitching silhouettes dragging mutilated limbs.
No eyes. No mouths. Reactor cores embedded where their hearts should've been. Flesh woven with exposed cables.
Wraiths.
Failures.
Cybernetic Reactor-beasts created from failed children—orphans who hadn't survived Nocturne's singularity trials.
Lin flinched. He knew these things.
"They're drawn to broken resonance signatures," he muttered.
And his was failing.
They ran.
---
[CHASE SEQUENCE – TUNNELS BELOW SECTOR 13]
They weaved through shattered ducts and open shaft corridors, the Wraiths shrieking in static bursts—like corrupted lullabies. Nel fired pulse shots to buy time, but the Wraiths adapted.
One lunged at Lin. It almost crushed his chest before Nel tackled it off him.
He stared at her—blood trickling from her side.
"Damn it, Nel!"
"I'm not letting you die in a place you never wanted to return to!"
She clutched her stomach, trying to stand. He grabbed her, yanked her behind a broken barrier.
The Wraiths closed in.
And in that moment—
He kissed her.
Hard. Desperate. Not to promise anything—but because if they died, he wanted this.
She stiffened—then melted.
But the moment was brief.
An explosion knocked them back.
Nel screamed—dragged into the shadows by unseen arms.
---
[NEL – CAPTURED]
When she awoke, it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Her bindings were soft—made of some resonance-nullifying fiber. She was suspended midair, floating.
Then came the voice.
Familiar. Beautiful. Wrong.
"Still breathing. Brave little ghost."
Nel turned.
Rune stood a few feet away—unaged, glowing faintly. Her eyes… white flame, flickering with buried fury and melody.
"Rune?" Nel whispered.
She tilted her head. "You know me?"
"I… know what you were to Lin."
Rune walked closer. "Everyone thinks I'm dead. But death is a song. I just learned how to sing it better."
Nel shivered. "Why bring me here?"
Rune's smile faded.
"Because I needed to ask him… why he always chooses someone else."
---
[LIN – TRACKING THROUGH SECTOR CORE]
Lin followed a weak signal—Nel's transponder frequency. His body ached; his Ring barely functioned. But he moved like a ghost through the old pipes.
Then he heard her voice. She was singing.
No—someone was singing through her.
He turned a corner—and froze.
Rune.
Standing in the dark. Holding Nel aloft in one hand like a puppet.
"You came."
"Put her down, Rune."
Her smile was sad. "You used to say my name like a promise."
He raised his weapon.
"Please," she whispered. "Do you even know what they did to me? What I had to become to survive?"
Nel groaned. "Don't listen to her—she's changed."
Rune's flame eyes narrowed. "He never listened."
She stepped forward.
"Come with me, Lin. We can end all of this—Nocturne, the Reactor-born war, the Command's betrayal. We can become the new resonance."
He looked between them. Nel—wounded, scared, real.
Rune—still beautiful, still sacred in memory, but now something other.
His voice cracked. "I loved you."
Her eyes dimmed.
"But I won't let her die for that love."
Rune closed her eyes.
Then she let Nel fall.
Lin caught her—barely.
Rune turned away.
"You'll wish I stayed dead."
---
[AFTERMATH – ESCAPE ROUTE THROUGH SECTOR 12 SEWAGE LINE]
They stumbled into the rain aboveground—muddy, broken, but alive.
Nel leaned on Lin, bleeding but breathing.
He stared at the sky.
She touched his hand. "You chose."
He didn't answer.
But she saw the guilt in his eyes.
And it hurt.
---
[FINAL SCENE – NOCTURNE CHOIR CHAMBER]
Rune stood before Mael and Severin.
"She let them go," Mael said, disgusted.
"She tested them," Severin corrected.
Rune touched her own chest—where her human heart once beat.
"They still hum," she whispered. "The frequency isn't finished."
Mael asked, "What now?"
Rune opened her eyes—bright as ever.
"We make them hear the rest of the song."
---
TO BE CONTINUED...