”
RIVAL’S POV
I didn’t go looking for ghosts.
But they always found me anyway.
It started with another mark — smaller this time. Faded. Like whoever left it didn’t want it seen. I found it near the furnace shaft, behind a sealed grate nobody ever touched. It wasn’t just scratched in this time. It was burned in.
Fresh And very deep.
Which meant someone had time, not only time but tool also.
And balls, it has to be a guy.
So I followed it, the traces I saw Down.
Down the furnace wing and under the old supply path. The tunnel bent weird, like it was never meant to be accessed again. My fingers scraped old bricks, nails catching rust as I slipped between broken railings and past snapped pipes. The air thinned the deeper I went. My head buzzed.
But I kept going Because something just
