They moved quickly through the darkened halls, the echo of scraping metal following them like a predator. Aven kept glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting to see the shifting shadow from the projection tearing through the walls.
Rhea gripped her knife tighter. "Don't stop moving," she hissed.
In the dim light, they passed display cases shattered from the inside, glass crunching under their feet. The air smelled burnt, electric, as if the future itself was smoldering.
Aven whispered, "What if it finds us?"
Rhea didn't look back. "Then we find a way to fight."
They reached the control room, a small chamber lined with dusty terminals and humming cables. Rhea shoved the door shut and jammed a broken pipe through the handles. "That'll hold it for a minute," she breathed.
Aven panted, staring at the old screens. "What now?"
Rhea tapped frantically at a terminal. Glitches flickered across the screen—snippets of failed futures, fragmented images of cities flooding, towers collapsing, skies burning bright red. "I'm looking for a manual shutdown," she said. "If we can kill the archive servers, maybe we can stop whatever the museum is pulling through."
Outside, the scraping grew louder.
Aven pressed his back against the door, eyes wide. "Rhea… hurry."
"I know," she snapped.
The screen flashed one final message: MANUAL OVERRIDE UNLOCKED. Rhea slammed her fist onto the button. Instantly, the lights went out and the humming died.
Silence.
Aven held his breath, his heart thudding.
Rhea whispered, "Did we—"
The door exploded inward, flinging them both back. A black shape, shifting and crackling like a living shadow, poured into the room.
Aven screamed as the darkness surged toward them.
Rhea grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. "Run!" she shouted, dragging him into the chaos.