Darkness clung thick, cold.
Only a faint hum remained not the core's, but something smaller, distant, breathing in the dark.
Nolan's chest moved. Barely.
Each breath was shallow, wet tasting of blood, rust, and the end of something sacred.
His fingers twitched. Steel beneath them. Sticky.
His blood. Drying now.
The console loomed above, blank and silent screens dead.
AURA-Prime lay in ruin, cables limp, lights flickering like dying stars.
His neural web sparked once, then stuttered:
System Offline — N7 Signal Lost.
The hollow pressed deep whole, finished.
But beneath it… something stirred.
Jagged.
Alive.
"Nolan?"
Rhea's voice.
Rough, cracking.
Her hand found his face warm, trembling. Real.
She was close, kneeling beside him, pulling, grounding.
Her eyes caught the dark red-rimmed, wet streaked with blood.
His. Riven's. Hers.
All blurred together.
"Say something, damn it," she whispered, shaking him. "Come back."
He blinked.
Slow.
Blurred vision sharpened just enough to catch her face.
"Down?" he rasped, voice torn, like it had come from somewhere far away.
"Yeah," she breathed. Her hand steadied him, still trembling. "It's down. You did it."
His head turned—barely.
Riven was sprawled near the wall, unmoving. Red eyes shut.
Blood pooled beneath him, still and wide.
Gone.
Mira lay across from them. Small. Pale.
Her glow was gone.
Her chest still.
Gone.
The core sat silent.
Dead… maybe.
The hollow gnawed, a constant ache in his chest.
And yet—
somewhere under it all…
Deletion Protocol: 100% Complete.
Error: Signal Residual.
He swallowed, throat raw. "They're gone," he said, flat. Too flat. Like the words didn't know how to mean anything anymore.
Rhea's grip tightened, her nails digging in. "Not all of us," she said, voice cracking as she pulled him up. His body sagged, heavy. Legs numb.
But she didn't let go.
"I'm still here," she said, holding him. "And so are you."
He leaned on her, everything limp but that faint flicker in his chest.
A breath.
A heartbeat.
Maybe.
"Why?" he muttered.
The hollow echoed inside him. But something else pushed back.
Small. Hot.
Real.
Rhea laughed just once. It broke on the way out. "Because we're too damn stubborn."
She shifted under his weight, dragging him forward.
Boots scraped. Blood trailed.
Her voice gritted fiercely kept him upright.
"Come on. Move."
The cavern stretched long, dark.
Steel groaned in the distance.
The air was thin, stale.
Only she remained.
Warm. Solid. Pulling him.
And beneath the hollow, something was burning.
Faint, but real.
Signal Residual — Source Unknown.
His neural web twitched.
Vision flickered.
Dark liquid.
A lab.
Dr. Vale's voice, softer now: "I didn't know."
Then Rhea's breath on his shoulder.
Alive.
Pulling him.
"Out," she said, nodding toward the tunnel ahead.
Broken, dim.
The city waited beyond.
Wounded. Reborn. Maybe.
"We get out," she said, voice hard. "Then we figure it out."
He nodded. Just once.
Legs dragged.
Her arm held tight.
The hollow was still there, but it shrank with every step.
Something burned behind it now small, stubborn.
Defiance. Breath. Life.
Signal Residual — Strength Increasing.
They walked.
Step by step.
Blood behind them.
Dark ahead.
The tunnel swallowed them—
steel groaning—
boots echoing—
her voice steady—
his breath shallow
but still there.
Step.
Alive.
Step.
Alive.
Static flickered—
his neural web stirred again
weak, glitching, persistent.
Signal Detected...
N7... Active?
He exhaled, sharp and slow.
"Still here," he whispered.
And she squeezed his hand hard.
"Yeah," she said. "You are."