Chapter 14: The Residue and the Echo

They didn't speak as they left the ruined facility.

Only the flickering light from Prion's shoulder module illuminated the way through the warped access corridor. Metal groaned above them. Their boots crunched over broken glass and rusted cabling. Each sound seemed louder than it should be, as if even the silence was watching.

Prion walked ahead at first, deliberate and controlled. But Eros noticed it—his walk, a fraction off. His breathe a little too shallow. That subtle tremble beneath his composure.

Prion was pushing himself.

Eros didn't comment. He didn't offer support either. He just shifted his own pace, walking slightly behind and to the side—close enough to catch him if he fell, distant enough not to shatter the illusion of strength.

"You're slowing down," Eros murmured after a long stretch of silence.

"Correction," Prion replied without looking at him. "The environment has slowed. I'm just matching."

Eros narrowed his eyes. "Don't give me that."

But Prion kept moving, pressing deeper into the dim hallway. The air felt heavier now. Not in temperature. In tension.

"You burned yourself out with that override," Eros said again, firmer this time.

"It's not the override." Prion's voice was low. "It's the residue. Of being overwritten, of resisting it, of... surviving when I shouldn't."

There was something bitter in the way he said surviving. Not pride. Not even defiance. Just exhaustion.

They turned another corner—walls narrowing, shadows curling along the edges.

Suddenly, Prion staggered.

It wasn't dramatic. Just a short misstep. But it was enough.

Eros moved fast, his arm catching Prion's elbow before gravity claimed him.

He didn't say anything. Neither did Prion.

For a moment, they stood close—closer than they had in hours. Prion's weight leaned into Eros, barely, like he hadn't realized he'd been falling. Like his body had moved on its own to accept the help.

Then, just as quietly, he straightened.

Eros let go. Slowly.

Prion's voice was almost a whisper.

"I'm fine."

"You're lying again."

"Good. That means I still remember how."

Something cracked beneath their feet—a metal pipe, splitting with decay.

And then it came.

A sound behind them.

A low mechanical scrape against concrete.

Then another.

Deliberate. Measured. Inhuman.

Eros turned sharply, already pulling the small blade at his hip. But Prion didn't flinch.

He only turned his head, eyes distant.

"We're not alone anymore."

"You think it's them?" Eros asked, muscles coiled.

"No." Prion's voice was too calm. "I think it's worse."

They stood in silence, listening.

And then—

Footsteps.

Not random. Not chaotic.

Calibrated.

Tracked.

"Whatever's following us," Eros said quietly, "it's not just after you anymore."

Not everything that chases you wears a name. Some things wear your silence.

The corridor stretched endlessly, darkness swallowing their steps.

They didn't run. Not yet. Running would mean panic, and panic triggered traceable signatures. Instead, they moved with precision—Prion setting the rhythm, Eros scanning the shadows behind.

But the presence didn't fade.

It followed.

Sometimes a click.

Sometimes a scrape.

Sometimes… nothing.

But it was there.

"It's not a drone," Prion said finally.

"How can you tell?"

"Because I designed the drone patterns," he muttered. "And this one's off."

Eros didn't argue. He knew better now.

For all his fragility, Prion carried an arsenal of knowledge. Data, layouts, broken protocols, backdoors. He wasn't just dangerous—he was prepared. Always three moves ahead. Always playing the long game.

They rounded a sealed junction. Prion stopped suddenly, hand pressed to a control port buried in the wall.

"We shouldn't stay here," Eros said.

"I'm not staying. I'm opening a blind passage. Old evac line."

Prion's fingers trembled slightly as he worked. Not from fear. From overexertion. His systems were strained, and it showed—in the tightness of his breath, the sweat along his brow.

Eros watched.

For once, he didn't ask questions. He just stood close. Close enough that if Prion collapsed, he wouldn't hit the ground.

A soft click. Then a hiss.

A panel slid open.

A narrow shaft yawned beneath them, steep and rusted.

"You first," Prion said.

"You can barely stand."

"Exactly. I'll slow them down if I fall first. You go."

Eros stared at him.

"You're willing to die here?"

"I'm willing to calculate the better odds. And if you die before I reach the bottom, none of these matters."

That wasn't an answer. It was a defence mechanism. A wall.

But beneath it, something else was there. The tremor in his voice. The way he avoided looking directly at Eros.

"I'll go last," Eros said, stepping past him.

He dropped into the shaft.

When Prion followed, the noise behind them stopped.

Dead silence.

Like it was waiting.

Watching.

Once they reached the narrow landing below, Prion sagged against the cold metal wall. He didn't speak. Neither did Eros.

They just stood there, breathing.

Then, a quiet voice broke the stillness.

"The thing chasing us…" Prion began, "It doesn't want to kill me."

Eros turned. "What does it want?"

"Confirmation."

"Of what?"

Prion's eyes flicked upward.

"That I'm still human."

Not all predators want to devour. Some want to see what survives when you're broken.

The emergency shaft closed above them with a low, metallic groan.

Silence followed—heavy and unnatural.

It wasn't safety. Just a pause between heartbeats.

Prion leaned forward slightly, one hand pressed against the wall. His hoodie clung to his frame with damp tension. Sweat glistened along the line of his throat, barely catching the low flicker of the emergency strip-light that hummed behind a broken panel.

Eros turned back toward him. "You're burning out."

"I've burned worse."

"That's not an answer."

Prion didn't reply. He didn't need to. His breath was shallow, his limbs taut. But his expression hadn't changed—still distant, still quiet. The look of someone calculating odds, not emotions.

"Do you even care if you die down here?" Eros asked suddenly.

That question hung in the air like smoke.

Prion tilted his head—not at the insult, but as if analysing the algorithm of it.

"They made me care once," he murmured. "Then punished me for it. I don't… let myself anymore."

He stepped forward, and Eros didn't move—until Prion was too close. Closer than comfort. Closer than safety.

A hand brushed Eros's chest—just lightly. Not a threat. A search.

"You're still wearing the trigger," Prion whispered. "They can override you from here."

"I know."

"And you let yourself follow me anyway."

"I didn't say I trust you."

"You never have to. You just have to choose."

Eros's pulse kicked, instinct warping logic again. For a second, the line between hunter and hunted blurred—and what settled in its place was something far more dangerous.

Recognition.

The kind of recognition that hurt.

"You said it's confirmation they want," Eros said. "That thing following us. You think it's a person?"

Prion finally pulled back. The moment passed, but the weight lingered.

"I think it used to be," he said. "But they hollowed it out until it was just system code. And now… it's trying to make sure I didn't survive the same way."

Eros frowned.

"You think it's a failed subject?"

"No," Prion said. "I think it's what I would've become. If I hadn't—"

He didn't finish.

But Eros saw the flicker in his eyes. Not fear. Pity.

Not for the thing chasing them.

For himself.

For whom, he almost became.

"We need to move," Prion said sharply, realigning his posture. "The corridor ahead leads to an archive cache. I need something from it before they wipe the access logs."

"And if that thing catches up to us?"

"Then I hope you still hesitate."

They moved again, this time without speaking. Their steps louder now. More deliberate.

And behind them…

The thing moved too.

The corridor narrowed ahead, collapsing into twisted steel and half-melted tiles. The walls pulsed—dim red signals flowing like artificial veins, sluggish, like the system itself was hesitating.

Prion didn't.

He pressed his palm to the side panel.

The metal hissed. An ancient seal disengaged.

Eros stayed behind him, hand near his weapon, breath silent. Even now, even after everything—he wasn't sure if Prion was leading them into safety… or a trap.

The archive room yawned open with a low exhale of cold air.

Inside, rows of old data cores—half-dead, some shattered—blinked in silent protest. Dust swirled. The scent of old coolant, iron, and scorched synaptic wires coated the air.

Prion stepped inside like he belonged there.

Eros didn't follow immediately.

"You knew this place was here."

Prion didn't answer. He was already walking the line of cores with calm precision, tracing his fingers along each identifier.

"What is this place?" Eros asked.

"What they erased," Prion murmured. "Fragments too unstable to upload, too human to keep."

His hand stopped on a rusted core marked in a language Eros didn't recognize. Symbols—not code.

He unlatched it. The system lights dimmed—recognizing the breach.

"This one was mine," Prion said softly. "One of the first backups. Before the rewrites began."

"Why do you need it?"

"Because it's the only one they didn't get to rewrite. The only version of me that remembers… everything. Even the part they couldn't map."

"What part?"

Prion turned, eyes almost unreadable.

"You."

Eros's breath caught—but only for a second.

He stepped forward, ready to speak—but the lights shattered above them with a single sharp bang.

Both froze.

Then that voice returned.

Low. Glitching. Echoed like it was wearing someone else's throat.

"Asset breach confirmed."

The walls trembled.

"Reclaimer anomaly identified. Anchor proximity: unstable."

A shape dropped from the rafters. Not human. Not machine.

Something between.

Its face looked like it had once been a face.

And it spoke in Eros's voice.

"You were never meant to escape him."

Eros pulled his gun. But the hand that stopped him wasn't the enemy's.

It was Prion's.

"Don't shoot," Prion said quietly.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because if it is echoing you, then firing now… will trigger every override in your spine. They built you to collapse the moment you turned on yourself."

Eros's fingers trembled.

"So what do we do?"

"We walk past it," Prion whispered. "We show it what it could never become."

"And if it follows?"

"Then we remind it… that I'm not the anomaly anymore. I'm the aftermath."

He turned to the thing—and walked straight past it.

Eros followed. Slowly. The shape didn't move.

But it watched them. And when they reached the door, it whispered—

"Anchor... offline."

The lights returned.

But none of the warmth did.

What happens when your shadow forgets how to follow?

If a machine copied your memories, would it still make your choices?

The closer they get to the truth, the less human their pasts seem.