Pain snapped me back into reality.
The cold bit into my skin as I gasped for air, sprawled across the hard ground. My body ached—bruised from the fall, but I was alive. Barely.
"Tony! Tony, respond!" Kane's voice crackled through the comm, frantic.
"I'm here," I managed, groaning as I forced myself upright. My limbs felt like lead, and my head pounded, but I didn't have time to rest.
The air around me shifted.
Wrong. Something was wrong.
I turned.
And there he was.
Echo.
Or what was left of him?
His body glitched uncontrollably, his limbs phasing in and out of existence. Pieces of him stretched, then collapsed inward, folding in impossible directions. His face—what remained—was locked in a silent scream, eyes wide but unseeing.
I swallowed hard.
"Echo…"
He twitched violently.
