Fractured Echoes

The collapse wasn't like falling. It wasn't even like being pulled. It was as if reality itself had unraveled beneath them, and they were tumbling through the gaps.

Yumi barely had time to process the sensation before she landed hard on solid ground. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs, and for a second, all she could hear was a distant ringing.

She pushed herself up, her body aching. Around her, the others were stirring—Eli groaning as he rolled onto his back, Arjun clutching his head as if trying to steady his mind, and Azrael, who had already risen, his stance rigid, his eyes narrowed.

But it was the place that took her breath away.

They were no longer in the flickering ghost city. This was something else entirely.

The sky above them was fractured, split into countless shifting shards of color, each one showing glimpses of different times, different places. The ground beneath them was smooth, featureless, stretching into the horizon, yet the texture kept changing—sometimes stone, sometimes liquid, sometimes something in between.

And then, there were the echoes.

All around them, shadowy figures flickered in and out of existence. Some walked, some stood frozen in place, others repeated the same motions over and over again, as if caught in a loop. Their faces were blurred, their voices whispers on the edge of hearing.

Arjun exhaled slowly. "This is…"

"A memory plane," Azrael finished. "We are inside the Echo itself."

Yumi swallowed hard. "Then we're not just seeing history—we're inside it."

Eli stood, dusting himself off. "Okay. Cool. So, how do we leave?"

Before anyone could answer, the static figure from before materialized again, standing at the far end of the fractured plane.

It lifted its head. "You were warned."

And then, the echoes turned.

For the first time, Yumi saw their eyes.

And they were empty.

Then they attacked.