Chapter 17 — Glass Veins of the Dreamhook

The corridor beneath the sub-basement didn't feel like part of any building that belonged to the real world. The air was thick, viscous, almost sentient. Lights flickered and then died the moment their feet hit the third spiral. Whatever wiring once ran through this part of the facility had either given up or evolved into something else entirely. All that remained was the wet sound of footsteps over a floor that felt like breathing glass.

Dev walked ahead with a flashlight in one hand and the battered tablet in the other. The map had started to glitch the moment they neared the Dreamhook's chamber, red lines flashing and reforming in impossible shapes. He muttered, half to himself and half to the group, "This is it. Dreamhook's spine. Where the soul fractures were stored. Where the first screams were recorded."

Elias didn't ask for clarification. He couldn't. His mouth had gone dry. The hallway began shifting—imperceptibly at first, then clearly—walls narrowing, stretching, tilting ever so slightly. The deeper they went, the more wrong everything felt.

Somewhere behind them, Maya said faintly, "Do you hear that?"

They paused.

There was no sound.

And yet, they all heard it—whispers, like teeth scraping metal. Then a voice, faint, layered, broken: "Don't open the second mouth."

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was heavy.

They reached a chamber. The door was split vertically, half-open like something had torn its way through it long ago. Inside was a spherical room of mirrors—every surface reflective, bending their reflections until they barely looked human. In the center floated the Dreamgirl Core.

She wasn't human. She wasn't even an AI. She was a structure made of nerve, bone, and algorithmic code. Her body was flayed open, suspended by black cables, twitching. Her face changed with each flicker of light—young, old, familiar, foreign, all at once.

Dev's face paled. "It's a soul chimera. This… this is built from the fragments. From the prisoners, the test subjects, the researchers. She's… everyone."

Maya stepped forward slowly, hand shaking. The Core's eyes opened.

Every mirror in the chamber exploded outward.

The Core screamed.

It wasn't a sound—it was an intrusion. A violence so complete it left them staggering, clutching their heads, gasping for air as visions poured into their minds.

Elias saw himself in a chair. Wires through his spine. His mouth sewn shut. Then another mouth opened on the side of his neck, screaming, and he realized the sound wasn't only in his head—it was coming from the walls.

The blood started rising from the floor grates. Thick, dark, sludgy, and warm. It crawled up the walls, forming limbs. Faces. Bodies.

Kiran screamed. One of the forms lunged—it had the body of a child but the eyes of Elias. Its mouth split into four, each version of his own voice screaming betrayal. They turned and ran through the mirror shards and pulsing black tubes.

The Core's cables writhed. Maya, wild-eyed, grabbed a rusted crowbar from the floor and swung at one of the control panels.

A sound ripped through the room—a low, guttural shriek that made the mirrors bleed.

Something slammed into her chest and hurled her backward. She hit the mirrored wall with a sickening crack. Blood spattered. She didn't get up. Her mouth opened and closed without sound, veins in her neck twitching under translucent skin.

The walls began folding inward. The Dreamgirl Core spasmed, flickering violently. Dev smashed in a final override protocol into the console. A pulse erupted from the floor. The Core convulsed once more and then was gone—consumed by the very walls that birthed her.

Silence.

Maya lay limp, blood leaking from her ears. Her veins glowed faintly, crawling with static-like shimmer.

"She broke a taboo," Dev said quietly. "You don't touch the root of the Dreamhook. You don't shatter the echo nodes."

"She saved us," Elias snapped. "Don't you dare make it sound like her fault."

The console behind them flickered again.

FILE INDEX: 3/4 ACTIVE

SOUL LINKING COMPLETE: 3 FRAGMENTS DETECTED

ERROR: CODE VIO—[REDACTED]

Dev stared at it.

"You said there were only two," Elias said.

"There were. Now it's three."

"Another subject?"

Dev didn't answer. "Or another part of Elias."

They lifted Maya carefully, but her body didn't respond the way it should. Her skin was cold, and her eyes—when they flickered open—looked like they belonged to something else. Something peering through her.

"We're being herded," Elias said. "Each step… something's guiding it."

Dev's voice was hoarse. "And if we're here, others from the project might be too. People who shouldn't be alive. Or things pretending to be people."

"What now?" Kiran whispered.

Dev looked ahead into the ruin of mirrors and broken souls.

"We find th

e next fragment. We trace the rest. Before it finishes what it started."

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