Veins Beneath the Vaultline

There was no sunrise in the trench.

Which… yeah. Of course there wasn't.

No sun, no sky, no cycle. Just the old wiring in the walls trying to pretend it still remembered how to glow. Sometimes it worked. Mostly it didn't. One flicker here. A gap. Then another, way too late to match the rhythm of the first. Like an exhausted lung trying to cough itself awake.

Not real light. Just enough to remember that something was still on.

Or that you were still on.

Alive. Sort of.

Nahr stood at the mouth of the slope, boots on metal that wasn't quite metal anymore. Floor stretched out ahead like… maybe a throat. Not a path. Wide at the top, too wide, then pinching down like the trench wanted you to regret fitting through.

Some chemical smell crept up from below. Not poison. Not rot. Familiar. Something burnt and recycled and burnt again. Like old armor. Or failure.

He didn't say anything. Didn't need to. The Galieya on his back was heavier now, and it wasn't from material. Memory weighs weird.

He looked back once, like maybe the echo

from the last layer was still there. It wasn't. Of course not.

He moved forward.

The trench didn't narrow. It leaned in.

Thirty meters down—maybe more, maybe less, trench didn't exactly keep meters honest—the path snapped left. Sharp. Not a slope you ease into. A correction. Meant to trip you if you were too fast. He let his left foot slide out wide, kept the Galieya angled to catch a wall he never touched.

Something moved behind the stone. Or inside it.

Not sound. Not even vibration. Just—shift. Like the air inhaled.

He didn't stop.

At the bottom, the trench forgot what shape it was going for. Chamber opened—kind of a room, if you stretched the definition. Plates overlapped in ways that didn't seem designed, just... settled. Like someone had poured metal and let gravity sculpt it halfway.

Two figures.

One standing. One not.

He walked in. No words. No reason.

Didn't draw the Galieya, but his frame tightened up anyway.

The one standing turned halfway, didn't speak. Long limbs. Flexible joints. That kind of elegant posture that made Nahr's shoulders ache just looking at it. Spiral veins, blue around the edges. That was new. Or… maybe not new. Just rare.

Then he looked away again. No threat. Just watching something the rest of them hadn't caught yet.

The seated Core finally spoke.

"Late."

Static in the voice. Not damaged—just... old. Like the words had traveled too far to stay clean.

"Name?"

"Nahr."

"Hm."

The seated Core pointed lazily at the tall one. "That's Hero." Then tapped his own chestplate. "Maldrin."

Nahr looked between them. Maldrin's armor was thicker. Broader across the torso. His Galieya leaned against the wall like it had been set down a long time ago and no one had dared to move it. One of the spiral veins blinked red. Wounded maybe. Or just giving up.

Hero didn't speak.

Didn't even nod.

He never really did.

Nahr had heard of that before. Rumors. A Core who only talked when silence got too dangerous. Or maybe when his thoughts turned into something worse than noise.

Maldrin chuckled. "He's quiet. Not because he's wise. Just hates the sound of his own thinking more than most."

Nahr didn't answer.

"You're one of those, huh?" Maldrin tilted his head.

"One of what?"

"The silence-equals-strength types."

Nahr almost shrugged. "Doesn't it?"

Maldrin's smile was tired. "No. It means you're scared of what you'd say if you tried."

That stung more than it should have.

Hero raised his hand. Two fingers, straight.

Signal.

Movement.

Maldrin sighed like he'd been waiting for that. "Well. So much for introductions."

They moved out.

The trench tightened around them—not physically, but mentally. Shoulder width, barely. Galieyas had to be carried front or behind. No lateral swings.

If something came for them now…

Well, that was the point.

It was a kill zone built out of patience.

The walls buzzed sometimes—no, not buzzed. Hummed. Like old signal trails buried under six layers of rewritten code. Data burns from prior runs. Most dead. One or two still trying to ping the surface.

Nahr's sensors ran the path. Nothing flagged. Which didn't mean safe.

Just meant the trench was thinking.

That was worse.

Hero halted. No sound. No flash. Just the kind of full-body stillness that spread backward like cold water. Maldrin followed. Nahr crouched slightly, adjusting posture.

Something ahead.

Collapsed frame. Crumpled by the wall.

Another Core.

Dead.

Nahr approached. Chestplate was wrecked. Bent inward, not sliced. Galieya shattered. Wires in the ribs were twisted into what might've been knots once.

Maldrin stepped beside him, real quiet.

"That's Cresk."

"Yours?"

"Not anymore."

"Friend?"

Maldrin looked at the wall. "Shared oil. Shared silence. That's close enough."

Nahr didn't say anything to that.

He bent closer.

"Crushed from behind."

Maldrin nodded like that was normal. "That's how most of us go."

Hero didn't speak. Just stared.

Nahr logged the damage pattern. Not because he wanted to. Reflex. No scorch marks. No signal imprint.

Not a Core.

Not a construct.

Something else.

He didn't want to name it.

They moved on.

They kept walking.

Because what else could they do?

No one said a word. Not Hero. Not Maldrin. Not even the trench, though Nahr swore the walls had started breathing different. More impatient.

Like they were trying not to roll their eyes.

A slab above sagged. Just enough to brush their heads when they passed. Maldrin ducked anyway. Hero didn't. Nahr followed, shoulders half-turned. He didn't know why. Habit, maybe. Or because the pressure changed when he walked upright here — gravity always felt fake around structural collapses.

The tunnel dipped. Spiraled. Kind of like it forgot how straight lines worked.

Data fungus lit the walls now — bright in a way that looked too green to be helpful. Some yellow veins too. Nahr didn't touch it.

Maldrin did.

His fingers barely brushed the wall and his elbow snapped back like he'd grabbed heat.

"Hot," he muttered. Like he was surprised.

"Don't touch things in the trench," Hero said.

Everyone stopped walking.

Hero hadn't said a thing since slope entry. Now he sounded like a system alert with dust in its lungs.

Maldrin turned, eyebrows lifted. "He speaks."

No response. Hero just stared forward again.

Nahr didn't smile.

There wasn't time for smiling. There never really had been.

The trench darkened — subtly. Just enough that the walls lost texture. The fungus dimmed too, like it got embarrassed. Or scared.

They descended another kilometer. Maybe more. Hard to tell. Every marker strip had been chewed off the floor or burnt out of the walls.

Hero stopped. Raised a hand. Backward.

Danger.

Nahr flanked right. Maldrin up behind.

The tunnel opened.

Big chamber. Wide. Circular maybe. The air felt — still. Not calm. Just… too tidy. Like it had been swept recently and then forgotten.

Then something moved.

Not fast.

A shape walked forward. Core-shaped. But wrong.

It had limbs. Shoulders. Even a visor.

But the plates were too loose. Like someone made a suit and then stretched it.

Its Galieya wasn't strapped or sheathed — it was fused into its arm. Bone-deep. Melted.

Its spine kept twitching. Not malfunction. Like it was trying to shrug something off.

Nahr didn't breathe.

Didn't signal.

Didn't need to.

Mimic.

But worse. Not the kind you trained against. This one had no training signals, no false movement cues.

Just… hunger.

Hero didn't wait.

His Galieya flared and met the mimic's blade mid-step. No banter. No warning.

Just motion.

Sparks flew.

Maldrin veered right. His form was good — if slow. But this thing didn't fight on the same axis. It bent around angles it shouldn't've had.

Its shoulder twisted backward.

It smiled.

And sprinted at Maldrin.

Too fast.

Nahr stepped in.

Didn't swing. Just dropped his weight.

Used the Galieya like a battering wedge.

Connected.

The mimic stumbled. But only back. Not down.

Then Hero struck again.

No pause.

Blade straight through the chestplate — clean, practiced.

Like he knew exactly where to aim.

The mimic screamed. Not like pain. Like static.

Then colapsed.

No blood. No wires. Just a crumple.

And then, faster than it fell, it decomposed.

Gone before it hit the ground.

Maldrin wiped coolant from his neck. "Didn't like that."

Nahr didn't answer.

He was watching the air — where the mimic had been. The space still felt… occupied.

Like it had shaped itself around that thing and hadn't un-shaped yet.

Another kilometer. Give or take. Probably less.

No one measured.

They reached a fork.

One path sloped up. Bare light flickering.

The other: down. Into full dark.

"Which way?" Maldrin asked, breath lighter now. Almost joking.

No answer at first.

Then Hero nodded left.

Into the dark.

Nahr stepped forward. "No. This time I choose."

Hero turned, slightly. Waited.

Nahr didn't explain.

He just went right — toward the light.

They followed.

The heat started before the light fully did.

Warmth. Not fire. Just… movement.

By the time the chamber opened, it was obvious.

Four Cores fought inside.

Two vs. two. Spiral flashes. Impact echoes.

Their Galieyas clashed like they were making music.

Except they weren't.

This wasn't a duel.

It was a loop.

Nahr recognized the patterns.

Too perfect.

Too clean.

Memory echoes.

Simulated reminders.

Then one looked up. Right at him.

Its face glitched. Then smoothed.

Then vanished.

The other three turned to ash.

All of it — fake.

Nahr said, "This layer teaches by reminder."

Hero: "Or by threat."

Maldrin didn't comment.

They moved again.

Later — could've been minutes, could've been hours — the walls tightened. Too close for side-by-side.

Single file now.

Hero first.

Then Maldrin.

Nahr took the rear.

They kept it quiet.

Until Maldrin didn't answer the next turn.

Nahr paused.

Looked back.

Nothing.

No sound.

Just a faint smear across the floor.

Coolant.

No motion. No footstep.

Just—

"Bait."

Etched into the wall. Diagonal. By hand.

No tool would've written it that rough.

Hero turned back. His whole posture changed.

Nahr stepped to the mark.

"No," he said. "We go back."

"If he wrote that," Hero replied, "then he made a choice."

"I don't leave him."

Hero looked at him.

"You do now."

That one hurt.

But Nahr nodded.

Once.

And they moved on.

[TRIAL EXTENSION TRIGGERED]

[CONDITIONAL BURDEN UNLOCKED]

[ISOLATION MODE: ENGAGED]

The trench stopped offering options after that.

It only gave slope.

And weight.

And nothing to carry it with but silence.