Chapter 4: Past the grid

Chapter 4: Past the grid

The corridor swallowed them in silence.

It wasn't just absence of sound it was the kind of quiet that pressed in around the bones, thick and heavy like the world had forgotten this place existed. The walls were old alloy, overrun with creeping vines of obsolete cabling and clusters of dead lumens. Each step echoed too loud, like they were trespassing through a mausoleum of the city's discarded past.

Kellan held the pendant tightly, its glow faint now, dimmed to a soft throb at the center of his palm. Still alive. Still leading.

Dex trudged beside him, muttering under his breath. "Dead zones. Abandoned tunnels. Possibly haunted dimensional crossroads. All in a day's work, huh?"

Kellan didn't answer. His thoughts were knotted.

Everything Aria said still rang in his head like distant bells: The Veil is unraveling. You're not just a carrier. You're a key.

He'd spent years believing the arcane was a myth, propaganda, tech-fueled mysticism for the unstable. Now? Now a part of him was convinced he was walking into the jaws of something ancient and real.

They reached a rusted bulkhead sealed with a sigil not paint, not etched, but woven into the metal itself. The symbol from the pendant. As Kellan stepped forward, it pulsed, and the door responded, gears groaning as it unlocked with a shudder.

Dex raised an eyebrow. "So that's a thing now."

Kellan offered a tight nod. "Apparently."

The air changed. It was colder not just temperature, but something deeper. Like the world ahead was less solid, less anchored. The architecture bent unnaturally, angles just slightly wrong. The corridor twisted into a spiral path that defied logic, floor folding into walls, light dripping like water from unseen seams.

Dex slowed his pace. "Okay, seriously. Are we even in Technopolis anymore?"

Kellan didn't answer. His eyes were locked ahead.

The pendant pulled harder now, tugging gently like it knew the way. Somewhere beyond these warped halls was the Echo Gate. And whatever truths waited with it.

They followed the spiral path as it twisted deeper, gravity tugging in strange directions. Kellan's boots clanged against metal that occasionally shimmered like water. Sometimes the floor was water, reflecting the path ahead before turning solid again. The boundaries of matter and memory seemed to blur here.

Dex stopped, squinting at a set of wall markings barely visible beneath grime and dust. "These symbols… they look like system scripts but corrupted. Or ancient."

Kellan knelt beside them. "Not corrupted. Woven. Just like Aria said." His fingers brushed the edges of the glyphs, and the pendant in his hand warmed.

A nearby bulkhead shimmered and then unfolded.

Not slid open. Unfolded.

The metal peeled back like petals, revealing a chamber hidden behind the architecture itself. The air within it smelled old, like ozone and forgotten data.

They stepped inside.

The room was circular, humming with dormant energy. At the center stood a pedestal of obsidian-like alloy. Upon it, a fractured sphere floated midair half-mechanical, half-organic, veins of crystal and circuitry coiled in and out of its shell. As they approached, it flickered to life, projecting a rotating holo map of the city only, it was the city as it had once been. Before the Spire. Before the Great Collapse.

Dex leaned in. "What is this…?"

Kellan's eyes narrowed. "A record."

The sphere pulsed again, and a voice echoed in the chamber. Not Aria's. Deeper. Older.

"You who hold the Arcane fragment… know this: the Veil was torn first by ambition, not magic. The Enclave rose not to protect the realm but to harvest what slipped through."

Dex stiffened. "Did it just say harvest?"

Kellan nodded slowly. "I think this place… it was a warning system. Left behind before the Arcane disappeared."

Suddenly, the hologram shifted. The map zoomed to an area far below the city's foundations. A cavernous sector labeled only in broken characters:

[GATE//E.Ω]

STATUS: BOUND

ACCESS: RESONANT

THRESHOLD SIGNAL: ACTIVE

The pendant in Kellan's hand blazed white-hot for a second. Then cooled.

Dex took a step back. "Whatever that place is… it's awake now. You lit the fuse."

Kellan's mouth was dry. "And we're running out of time."

A low hum began to rise from the walls. Not mechanical alive. Kellan turned, eyes wide. Across the doorway, black tendrils of static were seeping in slow at first, then faster. The same kind that had surrounded the faceless Enclave figures.

Dex pulled a shock pistol from his belt. "We've got company."

Kellan gritted his teeth. "We need to move. Now."

As they dashed out of the room, the folded corridor began to collapse behind them light shattering, angles screaming. The path was tearing itself apart, folding in reverse.

But ahead just ahead another symbol pulsed on the wall. A handprint.

The pendant in Kellan's grip pulled like a magnet.

He didn't hesitate. He slammed his palm against it.

The wall split.

Beyond it, a vast chamber opened up dark, immense, and filled with ancient tech that hummed with a heartbeat like rhythm. Blue light pulsed across runes carved into the floor.

In the center stood a gate.

It wasn't open not yet but its surface shimmered like a veil of water stretched thin. The same symbol from the pendant was etched into its frame. Waiting.

Dex caught his breath. "Is that…?"

Kellan stepped forward, slowly. "The Echo Gate."

Behind them, the static roared.

The corridor swallowed them in shadow.

Cold, damp air curled around their ankles as the sealed hatch hissed shut behind them, cutting off the humming glow of Dex's loft. For a moment, the silence was so complete it felt weaponized.

Kellan held the pendant close. Its pulse had quieted to a faint throb against his palm, more like a warning than a guide.

"This is insane," Dex muttered, his voice muffled by the curved metal walls. "I build illegal drones and hack corporate ledgers. I don't spelunk into haunted subway hellscapes chasing ancient magic."

Kellan didn't answer. He was listening to the air, to the deep hum of old power lines buried beneath the city. This corridor wasn't on any map. No signals. No cameras. It felt like something Technopolis had forgotten or maybe tried to forget.

The walls were etched with glyphs faint, half-faded lines that shimmered briefly as they passed. Not just markings. Warnings.

"How deep does this go?" Dex asked.

Kellan adjusted the pendant. "She said it leads past the grid's edge."

Dex stopped walking. "You heard what she said about the Veil, right? And the Echo Gate? We're heading toward the exact thing those nightmare things are trying to find."

Kellan turned back to him. "You can leave if you want."

Dex scoffed. "And let you die horribly while some reality ghosts feast on your soul? Nah. I'm in. Just complaining for balance."

They pressed forward, deeper into the dark.

As they walked, the corridor changed. The smooth walls gave way to rougher architecture carved stone beneath plating, old world veins bleeding through the city's synthetic skin. Roots hung from the ceiling. Moss glowed faintly on the ground, reacting to their footsteps like sensors or memories.

Kellan ran a hand along the wall. "This is older than Technopolis."

"Way older," Dex said. "This feels like Old World tech. Bio-syncretic layering. I've only seen this in ruins. Stuff they classified after the Collapse."

A distant vibration made them freeze.

Not footsteps.

A thrum low, resonant, growing stronger the deeper they went.

Then a light flickered ahead.

Not artificial.

Bioluminescent. Blue. Pulsing like a heartbeat.

Dex reached for his sidearm. "Whatever that is, we don't go toward it, right?"

Kellan was already walking.

The chamber pulsed with energy, the sphere at its center glowing like a fragment of a dying star. It hovered above the dais, suspended by web-like strands of blue light that seemed to vibrate with a rhythm older than memory.

Kellan approached it slowly, drawn by a pull he couldn't name. The pendant on his chest had gone white-hot, every glyph lit in blinding sync with the sphere. It was no longer a question of curiosity. It was need.

Dex called after him. "Kellan wait, man. I don't think this is something we touch."

But Kellan didn't stop.

The hum grew louder. The light flared brighter.

He raised his hand, fingers trembling, and reached

"Kellan, don't!"

Aria's voice cut through the chamber like a blade, echoing from behind him. She stumbled into view, wild eyed and bleeding, panic flaring across her features.

But it was too late.

His fingers met the surface.

There was no impact. No burn.

Only immersion.

A blinding surge of energy erupted from the point of contact threads of blue and gold whipping outward like lightning made of memory. The room vanished. So did Dex. So did Aria's cry.

Kellan was falling.

But not down.

Inward.

Through layers of light and thought and sound. Through forgotten places. Past cities not yet built. Past worlds cracked open and stitched shut again.

He saw a sea of mirrors, all reflecting different versions of himself some fractured, some whole, some monstrous. He saw the Echo Gate in flames. The Veil torn wide. And behind it… a presence.

Watching.

Waiting.

It whispered his name.

Kellan…

Then the world snapped back.

He collapsed to his knees, gasping. Smoke curled from his fingertips. The pendant was dark.

Aria reached him just in time to catch him as he swayed. Her voice trembled with fury and fear.

"You have no idea what you've just done."

His eyes met hers and everything went dark.