The vault door groaned open, exhaling a rush of air thick with rot and static.
Kael stepped inside, the cracked Dreamcore vial clenched in one hand, his blade in the other. Behind him, the masked woman remained silent, her body taut with tension.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped.
The room was circular, lit only by the flickering hum of a broken containment ring that buzzed faintly like a heartbeat. Scattered around the chamber were restraints—shattered. Medical equipment—melted. Screens—flickering with ghost images.
And in the center...
A glass sarcophagus.
Inside, floating in half-liquid stasis, was a figure.
A girl.
Her face was pale, her eyes closed, her dark hair drifting around her like ink in water.
Kael's heart slammed in his chest.
Renna.
It wasn't possible. It couldn't be.
She was dead.
He'd seen the fire. Heard her scream when the facility fell. He had clawed at the rubble with bloody hands until they dragged him away.
But here she was.
Unchanged. Untouched.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
He stepped closer.
And then—
Her eyes opened.
---
> "Kael…"
The word was soft, broken.
He stumbled backward.
It was her voice.
Exactly her voice.
But something was off. Something in the cadence. A delay in the blink. A twitch in the lip.
Like a recording pretending to be human.
He looked to the masked woman, whose stance had shifted subtly into a defensive guard.
"That's not Renna," she said coldly. "It's a Dream-Simulacrum. An Echo parasitically feeding off your memory of her."
Kael shook his head, dazed.
"It looks like her," he whispered.
"That's the point," she replied. "You were baited here by your own grief."
Inside the chamber, the sarcophagus hissed open.
Liquid drained. The girl stepped out, barefoot, expression serene. Her gaze latched onto Kael like a magnet, and when she moved, it was both graceful and wrong—like limbs learning motion by imitation.
> "You promised you'd find me," she said sweetly.
Kael staggered.
The Echo was perfect.
Even the scent was right—lavender and iron. She reached for him, eyes glistening.
Kael raised his blade.
He didn't want to.
Everything in him screamed to stop. To hold her. To believe.
But somewhere deeper…
The Eye of Silence flared inside him.
And the illusion shattered.
---
Renna's form convulsed—skin rippling, bones cracking—and then the thing screamed.
The voice splintered into hundreds, all versions of Renna's voice crying, laughing, sobbing, chanting his name. Her body twisted into a grotesque spider-limbed silhouette, half-human, half-reflection.
A Memory Echo. Ancient. Intelligent. Deadly.
And furious.
---
[Memory Echo: "False Renna" Engaged]
> Class: Whisper-Tier Aberration
Threat Level: High
Known Traits: Mind manipulation, illusion crafting, parasitic memory mimicry
---
Kael reacted instantly.
He hurled the cracked Dreamcore to the ground.
BOOM.
The vial exploded in a pulse of golden light, clearing the chamber of the Echo's miasma and anchoring Kael's sanity. The echo-blade in his hand shimmered as the Whisper of the Maw surged into it, psychic energy howling.
The creature lunged, limbs stretching unnaturally.
Kael ducked and slashed—cutting through one of the limbs.
It let out a shriek that fractured glass.
The masked woman moved beside him like a shadow, summoning her own Echo: a cascade of dark threadlike strands that wrapped around the beast's limbs, pulling tight.
"Now!" she shouted.
Kael darted forward, the Eye of Silence activating in his core.
For fifteen seconds, all sound ceased.
Total silence.
No screams. No thoughts. No interference.
Just movement.
He danced through the threads, blade glowing, and pierced the creature's heart.
---
The illusion exploded.
The beast writhed, disintegrating into shards of light and smoke.
When the silence ended, only the flicker of sparks remained.
Kael stood in the wreckage, chest heaving, drenched in cold sweat.
It was over.
But the hollow inside him didn't feel any smaller.
Just deeper.
---
The masked woman approached, inspecting what was left.
"Memory Echoes like that are rare," she murmured. "But they're increasing. More breaches. More anomalies. Dravemire's Dream-barrier is thinning."
Kael turned to her, voice low.
"Why was that one shaped like her?"
She paused.
"Because you were marked before you even entered the Labyrinth. Your loss... it made you vulnerable. It called to something. Something deep in the Dream."
Kael clenched his fists.
He had thought vengeance was his path.
But now?
It felt like the Dream itself had chosen him for something else.
---
As they stepped out into the ruined corridor, the woman finally spoke again.
"My name is Sera."
Kael looked at her.
"You're not just scouting, are you?"
Sera's eyes behind the mask were unreadable.
"No," she said. "I'm recruiting."
She handed him a folded black slip.
Coordinates.
A place.
A test.
"If you survive what waits there," she said, "the Pact will claim you. And you'll begin to learn what we're truly fighting."
Kael pocketed the slip, eyes burning with a new kind of fire.
One not of rage—
But purpose.
---
End of Chapter 8