Kai stood still, leaning against the cold wall of the abandoned lab, feeling the energy of the newly-collected stone pulsing between his fingers. The core in his chest seemed to react to the contact, vibrating at an uncomfortable, almost frightening rhythm, as if his whole body was just an extension of that strange object. The room was shrouded in bluish dimness, only broken by the annoying glow of the moss on the walls and the restless flicker of the stone in his hand.
The whispers returned, stronger this time. Kai took a deep breath, trying to ignore the scattered words, the names and phrases that made no sense, but sounded dangerously familiar. For a second, he swore he heard Lina's voice, very soft, mixed into the cacophony echoing through the metal and dust. "It's just in my head," he told himself, but even he didn't believe it. Every corner of that place seemed to want to push him deeper, always further in, and his footsteps echoed as if he wasn't alone there.
He decided to search the room, alert for any sign of movement or traps. The rusty machines and broken cables were remnants of some past experiment, but now only useless parts remained. In the center of the room, a round platform was covered in moss, old wires hanging down, and in the middle, a cracked panel with symbols that scrambled before his eyes. Kai tried to decipher them, but it was all too strange, letters that seemed to move whenever he wasn't looking straight at them.
While inspecting the dust-covered workbenches, he found two more energy stones, small but vibrating with unusual strength. He put the stones in his pocket, feeling the weight double, the core in his chest becoming more restless. The cold was biting, but cold sweat ran down his back. Kai looked around, trying not to give in to panic. The door behind him was still locked, and the silence returned, heavy, almost solid.
Suddenly, a sharp noise broke the silence, a crack from the ceiling. Kai flinched, raising the knife, ready for the worst. But nothing fell, nothing moved. The fear was growing from within, as if it had been injected into his blood. The core seemed to want to burst from his chest, pulsing stronger than ever, and every whisper in the walls became more insistent, more demanding.
"It's not real. I just need to get out of here," he muttered, trying to find the courage to cross the room to the opposite door, half-hidden by shadow and moss. Every step made the floor creak, and even the air seemed to get tighter. Kai felt his injured leg ache, the cut on his knee burning again, but he had no choice. The exit might be just an illusion, but it was better than standing there.
When he touched the doorknob, a wave of cold shot through his arm, so intense it almost made him drop the knife. The door opened with a long creak, revealing an even darker corridor, where blue mist gathered like heavy smoke. Kai entered slowly, stepping lightly, hearing only the sound of his own breathing and the frantic beating of his core.
The Nexus corridors seemed to change as he moved forward. The moss on the walls formed strange patterns, symbols and faces that vanished whenever he tried to look directly at them. The floor vibrated, sometimes gently, sometimes like a distant thunder rolling underfoot. In some stretches, the ceiling was so low that Kai had to crouch, ducking under wires and cold drips from above.
Up ahead, a shadow moved, fleeting. Kai stopped, heart pounding in his throat. He thought about shouting, but stayed quiet, only gripping the knife tighter and moving forward. The shadow disappeared through a crack in the wall, as if it had never existed. Silence returned, suffocating. Kai smelled rust, mold, and a sharp note he couldn't identify.
He kept walking, guided by the intermittent glow of the stone still in his hand. At each turn, the whispers grew louder. It was as if the corridors themselves wanted to talk, trying to convince him to stay. At a certain point, the passage became so narrow that Kai had to crawl, scraping his elbows, feeling his clothes soaked with cold sweat. One pocket snagged on a crooked nail, tearing the fabric and nearly letting the stone roll to the floor, but he caught it in time.
When he managed to stand up again, he realized he had reached a fork. The old map he took from the previous room was now useless. Nothing matched, everything seemed to have shifted. One way led downward, old stairs covered in slime, the other continued straight but disappeared into mist so thick he couldn't see more than a few feet ahead.
Kai stood still, undecided. The core pulsed hard, as if pushing him to the right, toward the stairs. "It's just my head, nothing else," he repeated, but decided to trust his instinct. He went down slowly, feeling the steps give under his weight. The air was colder there, and the smell of rot grew stronger.
On the last step, he almost tripped over a dry, skeletal body tangled in wires and rocks. Kai swallowed his shock, looking away, but couldn't stop a deep shiver. His hand trembled, his steps hesitant, each second harder than the last. But the sense of being watched kept growing, as if the Nexus itself was judging every move.
Farther on, the corridor opened into a larger room, with an arched ceiling, walls covered in incomprehensible symbols and drawings. It was a chamber, different from anything Kai had ever seen. Cracked glass tanks lined the walls, covered in moss and dead wires. In one corner, corroded machines, remnants of a past impossible to understand. And in the center, a low pedestal, surrounded by blue mist, held a black object, the size of a fist, pulsing with a dull light that seemed to suck all the brightness from around it.
Kai felt his core stir, as if a second frequency invaded his chest, forcing him closer to the pedestal. Each step was like crossing a force field, the whispers getting so loud they no longer sounded like voices, but muffled screams from some far-off place. The air grew heavy, almost impossible to breathe.
He reached out, hesitant, touching the pedestal with his fingertips. The black object vibrated, the light flickered, and for an instant, the walls seemed to tremble. Glimpses of open eyes in the dark, tentacles, and unknown faces flashed through Kai's mind, as if someone, or something, was watching everything from afar. The world spun quickly, his vision blurred. His body gave out and he fell to his knees, the cold floor draining his last strength.
Kai tried to fight off the faint, but the voices were too many, the screams growing louder. Everything went dark. For an indefinite time, he only sank, unable to grab hold of anything, lost in an abyss where there was no name, no body, no will.
When he woke up, he was lying on the chamber floor, his face pressed to damp moss, the energy stone still clutched in his hand. The black object remained on the pedestal, pulsing slowly, and the feeling of being watched increased every second. His head throbbed, his chest felt heavy. Kai got up with difficulty, hearing the whispers fade into echoes. He knew he needed to get out of there, but something about that object, and that place, promised answers. Or something even worse.
With his body shaking, Kai dragged himself to a wall, trying to catch his breath. His mind, muddled, kept showing him images of impossible places, memories that weren't his, names he didn't know where they came from. The iridescent core beat irregularly, trying to match the strange rhythm of that room. The cracked tanks seemed to hide secrets far too old to be unearthed.
His hand was drawn, out of his control, to the pedestal. The black object responded, glowing brighter, and Kai felt a wave of heat rise up his arm, as if something inside him was being pulled out. A blue flash filled his vision, blinding everything for a second.
When he managed to open his eyes again, the feeling of being watched was so strong it felt physical, like dozens of eyes hiding in the shadows. The air in the chamber was heavy, and the whispers, even quieter now, didn't stop. Kai didn't know if he had awakened from a nightmare or just stepped into another.
All he could think was that something, or someone, was waiting for him there, in the center of the Nexus. And for the first time, the fear felt greater than any hope of escape.