They didn't run.
They walked.
The alley swallowed them behind, the warped man's grin lingering like smoke on the air. Dani kept to the flank, shoulders tight, launcher still clutched loosely like a casual threat. Kenton had taken point, notebook jammed under one arm, muttering to himself in data fragments no one else could decipher. Lance drifted between them, quiet, his breath shallow, his hand always brushing against Dario's fur like a tactile lifeline.
Hollow Reach didn't open like a town—it tilted. As they moved, the streets seemed to slope gently downward, even when flat. The houses leaned inwards, as if listening. No signs. No cars. Just the sound of footfalls and the occasional soft thrum from nowhere.
"Don't talk," Kenton muttered, eyes flicking between alleys, windows, shadows. "They triangulate through language. Every word pulls you closer."
"So I'm guessing karaoke's out," Dani whispered.
Kenton didn't laugh. He didn't even flinch.
The road curved, and they passed a diner shaped like an enormous curled hand, its fingers forming arches over cracked windows. Inside, a woman sat perfectly still at a booth, staring at a bowl of soup. The soup didn't steam. The spoon hadn't moved. And her reflection in the window... didn't match her posture.
Lance looked away.
He was unraveling by inches.
His breath was milk-warm. His sweat left faint white smears on his collar. His shoes squelched with every step, like they'd walked through something soft and organic, even though the pavement stayed dry.
And then came the sound.
Distant. Like an engine stalling in reverse. A whining that dopplered through concrete. It made his teeth ache.
They turned down a narrow corridor between two buildings. A sign above read:
SPINAL ROW – TRAVELERS WELCOME
The sign blinked.
Then blinked out.
They stopped at a rusted chain-link gate, behind which loomed a descending staircase that didn't belong.
It spiraled downward into the earth, lit by oil lamps that hadn't burned oil in decades. The steps weren't stone or steel. They were bone. Worn smooth. Carved with markings that shifted when no one looked directly at them.
"This is worse," Lance whispered.
"No," Kenton said, too quickly. "This is closer."
"To what?" Dani asked.
"To the original seam," he said. "The place where Hollow Reach was first... punctured. Where they tried to store it."
She sighed. "Every time I think we've hit the bottom, you find a trapdoor made of teeth."
Kenton glanced back at Lance. "You okay?"
Lance didn't answer.
He was watching the buildings.
One across the street had windows filled with faces—human, unmoving, like wax mannequins pressed close to the glass. They were smiling. But their eyes didn't match. Each set looked in a slightly different direction.
He blinked.
The windows were empty.
Dario pressed against his leg. A small, anchoring weight.
Lance touched his dog's fur, nodded faintly, and stepped through the gate.
The descent was quiet at first. Not silent—quiet in that peculiar Hollow Reach way, where sound filtered sideways and your footfalls sometimes echoed before you moved.
The spiral grew tighter. Walls constricted.
Then the lamps changed.
They went from flickering orange to a deep, fluorescent blue—uncomfortably bright, like hospital lights underwater.
The bone underfoot softened. Slightly. It was still hard enough to walk on, but now gave a little. Like gum. Or cartilage.
Lance's breath stuttered. He ran a hand down his face.
His palm came back wet.
"Milk-guy?" Dani asked. She was just above him, peering down the steps.
He didn't respond right away. He was staring at the smear on his hand. Pale. Slick. Like milk and mucus.
"Are you leaking?" Kenton asked from below, as if taking inventory.
"No," Lance said too fast. "I don't—maybe—I don't know."
He hated that Kenton didn't even flinch at the idea.
The staircase ended in a hollow chamber, low and wide, lit with mismatched neon signs stolen from stores that no longer existed. The glow buzzed faintly. A mural stretched across one cracked wall—a mural of something like a saint, except its arms were branches, its mouth was sewn shut, and its halo was made of receipts.
Lance's knees buckled slightly.
There were sounds in the corners of the room. Things shifting behind the walls. Mechanical? Biological? He couldn't tell. His ears rang with a frequency that didn't stop.
"We rest here," Kenton said, crouching and pulling out a device that looked like a broken toy glued to a watch battery. "This area's been used before. Might still hold."
"By who?" Dani asked.
Kenton's expression flickered. "Caretakers. Failed ones."
Lance sat down, Dario beside him, head pressed against Lance's thigh like a weighted blanket. The dog didn't bark. He didn't whine. He just watched.
Dani knelt and began setting up glyphs along the walls—small metal sigils from her lunchbox that hissed when activated.
Then Kenton knelt beside Lance. Hesitated.
"You ever had memory echoes?" he asked.
"What?"
"Like... a thought you didn't think, in your voice. A memory that wasn't yours."
Lance didn't answer.
His eyes had gone opaque again. A slow, pearly film. His heartbeat stuttered. He was cold and feverish at the same time.
Kenton reached into his coat and handed him something small.
A hard candy.
"Sugar helps. With perception drift."
Lance took it. Didn't eat it. Just held it in his hand until it warmed.
Dani glanced back at them. "You really believe we'll find answers down here?"
"No," Kenton said softly. "But I believe it will."
Dani raised an eyebrow. "What's it building, Kenton?"
He looked at Lance. Looked down at the candy.
"I think it's trying to reconstruct a person," Kenton said. "But it doesn't understand people. Just echoes of them. So it's building him out of everything it thinks a 'Lance' is supposed to be."
"Which is what?" Lance croaked.
Kenton met his eyes.
"I don't know yet. But it's using your regrets as blueprints."
A sound above.
Loud.
Wrong.
Footsteps.
They all froze.
Dani stood, grenade launcher in hand. Her face unreadable.
Kenton activated the hissing perimeter field.
Lance didn't move.
The steps passed above them. Paused.
Then a voice.
"You can't walk deeper than your guilt."
The steps moved on.
Silence returned.
But something in Lance's chest had cracked.
Not broken.
Just... loosened.
And the thing inside had a little more room to grow.