The second burst of poison was worse than the first, Ethan’s scream shredded into the chamber, but the sound was stolen before it left his lips. The music swelled within him; the orchestra seizing control of everything. Strings plucked at his nerves, making his muscles twitch on the wrong beat. Brass notes blared through his skull, telling him to kneel, to rest, to let go, to obey. The percussion hammered down his spine, each strike a command to give in.

  Stop fighting. Stop bleeding. Stop the pain. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop

  He felt phantom hands on his shoulders: Reyes, Varma, Maria, Patel.

  Their faces swam out of the dark, familiar and ruined. Their mouths opened in time with the music, but the jaws opened too wide, splitting to the hinge as if their skulls had forgotten human limits. Threads of red resin pulled taut through their cheeks and down their throats, jerking the movements like marionettes. Their eyes did not blink; they rolled like loose glass, rattling in sockets, yet still begged him to surrender. A burst of static chirped from somewhere close, trying to cut through the nightmare. But every thought was so foggy, it didn't feel real. real real real.

  Ethan snarled through blood and bile, forcing the sound out even as the song tried to twist it into silence. “Not real,” he rasped. “Not… you.” His voice cracked, but the words cut jagged through the puppet chorus, enough to stagger the rhythm inside him for a beat. Whatever the goal of this hallucination it failed. The idea of Maria being dead was unfathomable.

  Maria? At once the name felt crystal clear, but far away as if it were on the verge of his vision, just out of sight.

  Through bleary eyes, Ethan saw Miro’s gaze flare, twin coals glowing too bright to face. His jaw ground open far too wide just like the others, teeth gleaming like stone ridges. “Yes…Julian, Yes. fight if you must. The hymn always finds its way. Your body already sways with it. Every vein, every nerve, every note belongs to us.”

  Julian? The name felt so foggy in his mind. He couldn't quite place it. Was that his name?

  The hooks in Ethan’s arm twisted again, the barbs grinding against bone. His body convulsed a final time as the last payload of resin was injected. He dropped to one knee, axe slipping loose from his trembling fingers.

  The music inside him surged triumphantly, violins screeching in glee. There. Down. Stay down. Be still. Be ours.

  Miro straightened to his full monstrous height, shoulders plated in shifting resin, cannon glowing faintly at his side. He spread his arms wide, as if the chamber itself bowed to him. The veins in the walls dimmed in time with his stance, resonant with his command.

  Across the floor, the Veslayan Ore had rolled to a stop beside the ruined husk of CelestOS. Its green light pulsed sharp against the red gloom, a stubborn beacon no longer in Miro’s grasp. Even broken, CelestOS’s shell reflected the glow, making the relic look like a shard of hope. Ethan didn't know why, but he needed that ore. He felt a driving urge to reach for it. As if it would clear away the painful fog.

  Through the blur, the glimmer sharpened. The sight of it cut loose a memory of Maria, defiantly declaring to her family that she loved him, despite his flaws. Her strength standing firm when everything else faltered. He clung to that image, as a pang of longing flooded his heart.

  He dragged in a breath that tasted of blood and copper steam. His arms shook violently as he reached for the axe again, the haft slick with his own sweat and blood and whatever the fuck else. The orchestra screamed inside him, louder and louder and louder, battering his skull with horns and timpani; a cacophony of never-ending sound, but he forced his hand closed around the weapon. The solid weight of it grounded him against the lies. He began to tap out a small but steady beat.

  Miro leaned down, close enough that Ethan felt the heat radiating from his body. “Do you know what they made of me? Niether scientist nor pioneer. No, they made me a pawn. A disposable piece in Celestitech’s great game.” His voice rattled like a broken choir, half a dozen pitches spilling over one another discordant with the controlling orchestra. “They wrote me into the ledger as an expendable Asset, and called it progress.”

  Ethan gritted his teeth at the words expendable. They bounced and bounced in his head, keeping time with the steady heart-beat he kept on his axe. The world a cloud of red, and pain, and noise, felt different. He lifted his head eyes locked on Miro. His vision was still swimming, an unsteady whirlpool; his limbs half his own, half hijacked by the hymn in his blood. But the defiance in his eyes burned hotter than the pain. He tried to say, “Then I’ll show you what expendable really means.” But the very words were stolen out of his mouth. He spat out a bloody cry, unable to speak.

  Miro’s laughter shook the walls, resin walls bursting in wet applause. The choir inside Ethan roared with it, but beneath the cacophony, Ethan clung to one stubborn truth: his own heartbeat, ragged and irregular, but his; he continued to tap alongside his heart. The off-kilter beat discordant with the fucked up orchestra became his driving thought. And as he focused on that beat, things slowly became clear.

  Miro’s voice crashed over the moment, raw with scorn. “I was never their scientist,” he thundered, vertebrae snapping into place as he reared his head toward the cavern roof. “I was their sacrifice, just like all of us.”

  His words echoed through the room, bouncing back warped and doubled, as though the walls agreed. He swept a hand outward and another sac burst, spraying ichor that hissed against the floor like acid rain.

  Miro was practically screaming now “I was not the first, and I was never meant to be the last. They sent wave after wave into Veslaya’s throat. Men, women, soldiers, surveyors—” his voice cracked wide, soaring into a preacher’s cry—“all swallowed. All forgotten. And every time, they left me to tally the losses from afar. I was the mathematician of their slaughter. The accountant of their crimes. But enough was enough. They sent our teams in to figure out what was going wrong...”

  Miro slowed his ranting, crouching low, vertebrae creaking like old timbers under strain. He sank closer, vertebrae grinding one by one, his eyes alight with a zealot’s triumph as he stared Ethan down. His words dropped into a quieter register, almost intimate, before building again with manic cadence.

  “But do you hear us now? Do you hear what Celestitech left behind? The resin remembers. The choir sings with every drop of blood, every scream carved into these walls. They gave me silence, Julian--" There was that name again. Who was Julian? "--And I filled it with song. My song. My dream. My calling.”

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  The chamber roared in agreement. Above, sacs ruptured one after another, showering ichor in glowing curtains. It smoked and hissed on the glassy floor, the sound like a thousand faint voices whispering in chorus.

  He crouched against the tide of heat and smoke, and pressed his hand to Harold’s chassis, eyes locked on the faint green spark across the chamber. The world narrowed to tiny point of light, a fragile anchor against the storm of Miro’s song. And then, as he beat the pattern one final time... The fog broke. The axe slipped from his grasp and clarity took its place.

  His chest burned, every breath shallow, but he forced himself upright. His muscles shook like frayed wires as he braced both hands on Harold’s turret. He loosened his grip just enough for the mount to shift in its cradle, not lifted yet, only primed.

  His throat rasped raw. “Trust me, buddy,” he whispered to Harold.

  The drone twitched closer, lamp cracked and sputtering, turret clicking like a dying engine. Ethan’s fingers closed around the mount, and with a wrench he tore the turret free. The drone shrieked static, body rattling in protest as its frame was ripped open. Sparks spat across Ethan’s arms. Harold staggered, his lamp flickering dangerously, ready to go out at any moment.

  Ethan pressed the turret’s weight into his palm, bracing. It vibrated with a charge, heavy and hot, the casing buzzing like a hornet. Across the chamber, Miro’s towering frame swayed, his sermon climbing toward its crescendo. His vertebrae cracked one after another, resin plates splitting wide to expose the slurry beneath.

  “You are not my enemy,” Miro intoned, voice doubled and trebled in the resin walls. “You are only the last note in the hymn. When you fall, when your bones crack, our voice will not stay in these chambers. It will carry back across the void. And Celestitech will hear us Si—"

  Ethan hurled the turret.

  It spun end over end, catching the chamber light, a crooked star. Mid-flight the safety tripped and the auto-fire locked on. The barrel sputtered, then spat a furious chain of rounds. His head snapped back, voice cutting off mid-word, the hymn severed. The resin walls echoed the silence like a gasp.

  Ethan didn’t watch to see if there'd be damage. He was already running, boots slipping on ichor, eyes locked on the cannon. The resin floor heaved beneath him, buckling as veins flared bright red. He lunged, dove, wrapped both hands around the weapon’s frame, and tore it free with a howl that scraped blood from his throat.

  Momentum carried him into a roll. His shoulder slammed the floor, pain flaring white, but he kept moving, dragging the cannon against his chest. Ahead, near CelestOS’s crumpled frame, the Ore had jarred loose in the chaos. Its green light pulsed weakly, a heartbeat against the chamber’s red haze. Ethan rolled again, scooping it up. The stone was hot in his grip, buzzing like it had a pulse of its own.

  He grabbed CelestOS next, fingers locking under her scorched frame. Circuits sparked against his skin, but he heaved her up anyway, cradling AI and Ore together. Her optics flickered once, but it was enough.

  The chamber convulsed. Resin sacs erupted in a chain reaction overhead, bursting one after another. Ichor rained down in molten sheets, each impact sending up a screaming hiss of vapor. The walls throbbed as if in spasm, veins glowing so bright they seared the eyes.

  Ethan staggered through it, shielding CelestOS, the cannon, and the Ore against his chest. The heat blistered his back, the floor pitching beneath him like a living thing trying to shake him loose. Behind, Harold limped after him, frame sparking, turretless but unbroken. The little drone’s lamp flickered across the steam, guiding Ethan forward in jittering arcs of light.

  Ahead, the resin wall warped and split. Veins flared, pulling back into ridges. An iris of flesh spiraled open, a round maw opening wide. The air whooshed outward, rank and damp, as though the chamber itself exhaled.

  Ethan didn’t think. He bolted. The roar behind him shook the chamber, reverberating straight through his chest as the song clawed to restart. Every step was agony, legs cramping, lungs on fire, but he threw what little remained of himself into momentum. Not gonna make it. Fuck. Not gonna make it.

  The whole gaped wider, strands of resin tearing like tendons. Ichor streamed down the edges in greasy rivulets. Ethan lowered his shoulder, teeth bared in a grimace, and hurled himself into the opening.

  Behind him, Harold limped after, frame rattling, lamp flickering. Sparks burst from his joints with each step, but the little drone kept moving, kept following, never once falling behind.

  Miro’s roar followed him through. It was more than sound. It was pressure, a living shockwave that slammed into Ethan’s skull and rattled his teeth in their sockets. The roar tore through his ears until everything went muffled, the walls themselves rippling with the vibration. Resin veins bulged and recoiled, as if recoiling from the rage of their chosen prophet.

  Darkness swallowed him. He landed hard, tumbling, everything he carried flying loose. CelestOS crashed against stone with a hollow clang, sparks sputtering from her frame. The cannon clattered away, its echo hollow and vanishing into black. Only the Ore stayed with him, searing against his palm, sticking in place, and pulsing green with every jagged bounce of his body across the floor.

  Ethan clawed after the rest blindly, panic surging hotter than the pain. His hands scraped wet resin and slick ichor, slipping uselessly across the floor. His breath came short, chest collapsing in on itself. He pawed through emptiness, through heat, through the stink of blood and copper, until at last his fingers closed on cold metal.

  The cannon.

  He yanked it close, rolling onto his back, just as the iris ruptured.

  Miro forced his way through, his frame a grotesque silhouette filling the threshold. Resin strands tore like tendons around him, snapping wetly, spraying ichor as he pried the opening wide with his plated arms. His eyes blazed furnace-bright, burning red in the dark.

  Ethan didn’t aim. He didn’t have time to. He just jammed his thumb on the trigger and let the fate decide.

  The cannon screamed.

  A beam of red light erupted point-blank, detonating through Miro’s chest. It punched through the armor plates, through resin ribs, through the thick slurry beneath. The blast split the chamber like a fault line snapping open. Resin veins exploded along the walls, shattering in a chain reaction of fractures that raced into the distance. The constant hum of the choir broke apart in a single seismic crack, the silence that followed heavier than any sound.

  Miro convulsed in the doorway, the beam carving him open. His resin armor shattered outward in shards, spraying the ground with burning fragments. His scream split high, shrill, and then broke.

  For a moment he staggered, his frame twitching, vertebrae grinding out of rhythm, resin pouring from the ruptured gaps. Then his body collapsed backward, crashing into the chamber behind him. His bulk slammed the ground with such force that the walls shuddered.

  Ethan lay sprawled, cannon limp across his chest. The weapon’s glow dimmed, its fury spent. His arms trembled around it, unable to release, as though it was the only anchor holding him above the abyss. But even as the cannon slid from his grip, his left hand never let go of the Ore. The stone burned against his skin, pulsing faint green in rhythm with his own ragged heartbeat.

  CelestOS flickered nearby, her optics stuttering with faint red sparks. Harold crawled into view, dragging himself on failing legs. His lamp was cracked, its halo crooked and faint, but still shining. He pressed close to Ethan’s side, frame rattling with static whines, turret gone but presence intact. The little drone’s glow wavered across Ethan’s face, fragile, stubborn.

  Ethan’s chest rose and fell in violent heaves. His breath scraped his throat raw. His vision tunneled, narrowed, edges closing in. He turned his head toward the Ore blazing in his hand, toward CelestOS’s faint glow, toward Harold’s stubborn lamp. Three lights in the dark, barely holding.

  That was enough.

  His arms went slack, the cannon slipping away, his body sagging flat against the floor. But the Ore stayed locked in his grip, searing his palm, refusing to be lost.

  Black pressed in, heavy and merciful. The last thing Ethan saw was the green spark still pulsing against his skin, alive in his hand, as if it refused to let him fall completely.