The corridor behind them dissolved into darkness, swallowed by oppressive void. Seth glanced nervously over his shoulder as Lia, silent, advanced cautiously, weapon at the ready.
Mayu felt a strange prickle at the nape of her neck. A shiver—a warning.
Something—or someone—was watching them.
Each step seemed to echo louder than the last, as if the entire depths were holding their breath.
"It's weird…" Seth murmured, checking his thermal scanner. "I'm picking up moving shapes, but they vanish whenever we approach."
Mayu frowned. She wasn't surprised. She'd felt this sense of being followed, of prying eyes, since the beginning. But there was more than that.
A familiar presence, lingering at the edge of her memory.
They turned a corner and emerged into a vast subterranean chamber. The walls were lined with ancient servers, most offline. Only a few dying neon tubes cast a sickly green glow across the cracked floor.
In the center stood an old cage elevator, its doors open, inviting them deeper below.
Mayu halted. Her gaze caught an almost imperceptible trail: fresh footprints leading toward the elevator.
Heavy, deliberate prints. Not a guard. Not a creature.
Someone methodical.
Someone she knew.
She moved forward without thinking, as if drawn by an invisible thread.
"Mayu?" Seth called, anxiety in his voice.
She glanced back briefly, a new resolve in her eyes. "We have to go down."
They stepped into the creaking elevator. As the cage descended with a harsh groan, Mayu closed her eyes for a moment.
Fragments of memories returned: flashes of white light. A voice. A broken promise.
"I will come back for you. No matter what they do to me."
She snapped her eyes open. Seth and Lia watched her but said nothing. Perhaps they'd felt that same shiver in the stagnant air.
When the elevator halted, the rusted gate slid open onto a nightmarish scene.
A corridor torn wide open. Cables hung from the ceiling like vines. The metallic stench of blood and oil saturated the air. Everywhere, scratch marks, impact dents, signs of recent combat.
On one wall, scratched with a blade, was a single word:
"Move on."
Mayu reached out to touch the inscription without hesitating. She recognized that handwriting. Even after all these years. Even worn by time.
She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms.
She didn't know if it was an ally or a trap.
But one thing was certain: he was here, somewhere.
And he was waiting for her.
"Let's hurry," she said in a hard, choked voice, driven by an emotion she could not yet name.
They plunged deeper into the shadows, while above them, a faint whistling drifted through the rubble.
A muffled laugh—or perhaps a sigh from the past.