#Fracture Lines
#015
The corridors twisted like veins through the Deep Storage labyrinth.
Asher ran.
Not in panic—but in cold, burning focus.
Every step hammered the plan into his skull: Find Eden. Find Juno. Get out.
The Ghosts' shrieks still echoed behind him, mechanical and human sounds tangled together into a nightmare chorus. They weren't giving up. If anything, the static pulse trick had enraged them.
Asher stumbled through a maintenance hatch and into a cavernous loading bay, half-lit by emergency strips embedded in the floor. Crates were stacked two stories high, stamped with resistance symbols so old they had faded into myth.
Somewhere above, a vent cover clattered.
He glanced up—just in time to see Eden drop down like a hawk, landing lightly on the nearest crate.
"Asher!" she hissed.
He wheeled toward her, relief slamming into him like a physical force. "Where's Juno?"
"Safe. For now," she said. Her voice trembled slightly. "They're closing in."
"No kidding." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Ghosts. At least three. Maybe more."
Eden's mouth tightened. "Then we don't have long."
She motioned him toward a side passage—a narrow stairwell choked with rust and old bullet holes.
"Come on," she said. "There's a freight elevator at the end. Leads straight to the sub-surface lines."
Asher hesitated. "Sub-surface?"
"Old tramways. No signal. No Bliss coverage. If we can ride them far enough, we can reach the Edge District."
Asher nodded grimly. It was risky—those tunnels were barely stable, and Bliss had abandoned them for a reason—but they had no better option.
Together, they sprinted for the stairwell.
Behind them, the Ghosts howled.
Close.
The stairwell groaned under their weight as they plunged downward, deeper into the earth. Asher's lungs burned, every breath tasting like iron and static.
He thought they might make it—
Until he heard a sound he'd never forget.
A low-frequency pulse.
One of the Ghosts had activated a memory dampener—a device so crude and illegal even Bliss didn't officially admit they existed.
Instantly, Asher's mind started slipping.
Names blurred.
Faces shimmered and faded.
He forced his legs to keep moving, clinging to a single burning truth:
Eden. Juno. Get out.
He felt Eden stumble beside him, heard her grunt in pain. Her outline flickered, as if the dampener were eating her from the edges inward.
"No," he growled, dragging her upright.
He could see the elevator door ahead—a massive slab of rusted steel hanging half-open.
Almost there.
Almost—
A Ghost lunged out of the stairwell above them, cables whipping from its arms like flails.
Asher shoved Eden through the gap in the elevator door and turned to face it.
He had nothing. No weapons. No backup.
But he had something the Ghosts didn't.
Memory.
Not stolen or fragmented—but chosen.
As the creature bore down, Asher remembered every lesson Juno had ever muttered in their endless strategy sessions, every moment Eden had pushed him to run faster, think sharper.
He sidestepped the first strike, grabbed a loose length of rebar from the stairwell debris, and drove it upward under the Ghost's jaw.
Sparks exploded.
The Ghost spasmed—and fell.
Asher didn't wait. He hurled himself through the elevator door just as Eden hit the emergency lever.
The ancient freight platform groaned and began sinking.
Asher collapsed against the wall, breathing raggedly.
Eden slumped beside him, eyes closed.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Only the grinding of rusted gears filled the air, and the distant, fading shrieks of the Ghosts above.
Finally, Eden spoke. Her voice was barely a whisper.
"They're not just after the truth anymore."
Asher turned his head. "What do you mean?"
She opened her eyes, haunted. "Bliss figured it out. It's not enough to erase memories. They have to break choice."
Asher stared at her.
Eden continued, words tumbling out faster now. "That's why the Ghosts exist. They weren't just victims—they were designed. Test cases. To see what happens when you rip away someone's right to remember who they are."
Her voice cracked.
"They made soldiers out of broken people. That's what they're planning for the city."
The elevator shuddered to a halt deep underground. A stale, freezing air rolled in through the opening—a forgotten subway line stretching into darkness.
For a moment, Asher let the horror settle.
And then, grimly, he forced it aside.
They weren't beaten yet.
He pushed to his feet, offering Eden a hand.
She took it.
"We find Juno," he said. "We find the others. We rebuild the truth from the ground up if we have to."
Eden nodded, a fierce glint sparking behind the exhaustion in her eyes.
They stepped out into the abandoned tramway.
Old rail lines gleamed faintly under their boots, leading deeper into the unknown.
Asher glanced once over his shoulder—up toward the labyrinth they had fled.
He didn't see the Ghosts.
But he felt them.
And beyond them, something worse.
The pressure in the air had shifted.
The fracture lines were spreading.
Memory, choice, identity—everything was under attack.
The city wasn't just waking up.
It was breaking.
And Asher knew:
If they didn't find a way to hold it together—
There would be nothing left to save.