CHAPTER 13 — The Echo Beneath the Glass
946 Words
The wind scraped along the steel corridor like the plucked string of an over-tightened instrument. Every step Aera took echoed faintly on the frosted glass floor, each footfall glinting with the faint purple haze leaking from the energy core below. The reactor chamber of Station Model-09 had never behaved like this. It felt alive—breathing, trembling, listening.
Aera sensed it more clearly than any sensor array ever could. Ever since the Sixth Mark etched itself onto her skin, every energy structure within five hundred meters had begun speaking in pulses and tremors—subtle, rhythmic, almost like quiet heartbeats trying to synchronize with her own. But underneath that familiar hum was a distortion, a disturbance that felt like fingers prying open a sealed door.
“Kai,” she murmured into her comms, trying to steady her breath, “I’m entering the sub-layer descent. My readings are useless. Everything’s spiking.”
His voice flickered in through static—strained but controlled.
“Aera, you’re in the energy trough. Don’t resist the backflow pressure. Let it pass through you. If you push against it, the whole chamber could implode.”
She let out a thin, humorless laugh.
“So comforting, Kai. Really.”
Still, she followed his guidance.
Three more steps down, and the invisible pressure struck her chest like a silent hammer. The blood-forged mechanical sword at her hip jerked violently. A crimson line down its spine brightened—pulsing, matching the distortion beneath the glass.
Not responding to her.
Responding to something else.
Aera’s breath caught. “The sword’s reacting on its own.”
“I know,” Kai answered, voice taut.
“Whatever’s down there… it’s strong enough to h****k its resonance layer.”
She didn’t like the sound of that.
Then the floor beneath her boots flared to life—light spiraling into a moving sigil, a vortex of crimson and violet. Not static, not random. Purposeful. Watching.
Aera froze.
“Kai… I think something just looked at me.”
The silence on the line was worse than any alarm. Except for the faint static, she heard nothing for two long heartbeats.
Then Kai exhaled, defeated.
“It isn’t just watching, Aera. It’s deciding.”
Before she could ask deciding what, the entire chamber shuddered. Red light bled up the walls, casting her shadow three times longer across the twisting floor. The glass beneath her boots vibrated—once, twice, then a deep, resonant hum rolled through the room like a buried roar awakening from centuries of rest.
Then a voice—wordless yet articulate—slid into her mind like cold water down her spine:
— Bearer of the Sixth Mark.
Have you come to wake us?
Aera stiffened.
“…Us?”
— The stars once locked inside their own bones.
You walk upon our grave, child of the fractured era.
The temperature dropped instantly. Frost crawled along the metal rails. Aera’s breath fogged the air. She felt the world tilt, as though gravity bowed to this ancient intelligence.
Kai’s voice finally pierced through, harsher than before:
“Aera, don’t answer it directly. Entities in the sub-lattice don’t communicate like—”
Too late.
The presence surged forward, filling her vision with flickers of star maps and fractured worlds.
— Do not blame your guide.
He does not know what you carry.
The Sixth Mark is not a key.
It is a verdict.
The sword ripped itself from her holster, floating between her and the spiraling sigil. Energy veins wrapped around the blade like serpents of molten light. It vibrated so violently she feared it would shatter.
“A verdict for what?” she demanded, stepping back.
— Whether your world deserves to restart.
Or collapse.
A tremor rolled beneath her feet. The glass cracked—not outward, but upward, as though something beneath pushed to reach her. Aera stumbled but gripped a railing just in time.
“Kai! What do I do!?”
His response was a mix of fear and precision.
“Anchor yourself. Channel the Mark outwards. Don’t let it choose your pulse.”
She lifted her hand. The Sixth Mark flared, its lines spiraling into a hovering sigil. Her arm trembled as the pressure intensified.
The entire chamber fell silent.
Airflow ceased.
Light froze mid-flicker.
Even her heartbeat stuttered.
Then the entity whispered:
— You wield it without understanding.
You should not exist.
Aera grit her teeth.
“That makes two of us.”
She slammed her palm downward.
The sigil detonated with a soundless shockwave—light spiraling outwards in a radiant burst, shredding the red fog. The sword snapped back into her hand, syncing with her pulse like a living creature.
For a single breath, everything felt still.
Then—
A thin glowing c***k appeared on the far wall.
It spread like a fracture across reality itself.
Kai swore under his breath.
“Aera… the entity’s breaching the surface layer—something is crossing over!”
The c***k widened.
A silhouette leaned through—a tall, humanoid figure, its form eroded like stone battered by time. It had no face, only a single luminous line where eyes should be.
Its presence distorted gravity. Her knees buckled. She forced herself upright.
The entity raised its head.
— The Sixth Bearer has been located.
The cycle must begin again.
Aera felt her heartbeat slam against her ribs. She lifted her blade, though her hands trembled—not from fear, but from recognition. Somehow, she knew this being. Or rather, something deep within the Mark did.
“Kai…” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away,
“I think our real enemy just walked through that wall.”
- Writer
