They wait until the city exhales.

  Sector Four never truly sleeps, but it loosens its grip around this hour — generators dropping into a lower hum, patrol routes stretching thin as shifts change. The rain has softened into a damp mist that clings instead of falling, turning metal slick and concrete dark.

  The tower looms ahead of them, skeletal and quiet.

  Razan grins like he’s already won something. “I’ve seen it,” he says, voice low but buzzing with that familiar reckless energy. “The Gate-Tree. Plenty of times. From the ground. Looks even bigger up close.”

  Marek doesn’t answer right away. He studies the building’s lower levels, counting broken windows, dead angles, collapsed stairwells with quiet precision. “I want to see it from the top,” Razan adds. “From where the city looks small.”

  Keene glances up. The building’s spine disappears into fog. “Then we don’t rush,” he says quietly.

  Razan scoffs softly. “I wasn’t planning to.”

  They move the way Marek taught them — slow, staggered, no two sets of footsteps landing together. Arin keeps the rear, quiet for once, eyes darting at every shadow. Keene stays center, watching hands and faces, adjusting when someone’s pace falters. Lsael bounces along beside him, trying to lighten the mood with a goofy whisper.

  “Bet you ten credits something stupid happens before we hit the tenth floor.”

  Keene doesn’t take the bet. He just shakes his head, a faint smile tugging at his mouth despite everything.

  The first obstacle comes early.

  A stairwell caved in sometime during the last winter surge, concrete slanted inward like a broken jaw. Marek kneels, tests weight with a foot, then gestures.

  “Single file. Lightest first.”

  Arin opens his mouth.

  Keene points at him. “Don’t.”

  Arin closes it with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. But if I fall, someone better catch me. Preferably with snacks.”

  They pass without incident, but the climb steals their breath. The air grows thinner, colder. The city’s noise fades into a distant, hollow echo, replaced by the building’s own voice — metal creaking, wind threading through exposed beams like a low warning.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  On the twelfth floor, a door blocks their path.

  Rust-sealed. No handle.

  Razan leans in, shoulder pressing. Nothing. “Come on, you rusty piece of—”

  Marek shakes his head. “Noise.”

  Keene scans the frame, notices the warped hinge, and slips a blade into the gap. He twists, slow and patient, feeling for give. The door opens with a soft groan.

  Arin exhales. “I knew bringing him was a good idea.”

  Keene doesn’t answer. He’s already watching the corridor beyond — long, narrow, lined with broken offices. The floor is littered with glass and old paper, footprints preserved in dust that no one’s disturbed in months. Something about the silence feels wrong. Watched.

  They move through like they’re borrowing time.

  Halfway up, they pause in a room with half a wall missing. City lights spill in through the open wound. Razan leans against the edge, breathing hard, and laughs under his breath.

  “Look at it,” he says, voice softer now. “Sector Four stretches below us — grids of yellow and blue lights, patrol paths threading like veins through concrete. And beyond it, rising from the haze…”

  The Gate-Tree.

  Massive. Ancient. Its roots glow faintly where they pierce the city’s skin, light pulsing slow and steady like a patient heart.

  Keene feels it in his chest. Not awe. Recognition. Like something inside him already knew this place.

  Razan’s smile softens. “From up here… it doesn’t look like it’s watching us.”

  Marek glances away. “That’s because it is.”

  Lsael leans out beside Razan, eyes wide with that goofy wonder. “Whoa. It’s like the city has a spine. A really creepy, glowing spine.”

  Arin nudges closer, voice sweet but edged with nerves. “Kinda beautiful though. In a ‘don’t touch it or it’ll eat you’ way.”

  They don’t linger.

  The higher they go, the quieter it gets. The air tastes metallic now, cold enough to sting lungs. The stairwell narrows, railing half-melted, steps uneven and treacherous.

  Arin slips once. Keene catches him by the arm without a word.

  “Thanks,” Arin whispers.

  “Watch your feet.”

  “I am.”

  Keene doesn’t say what he’s thinking: Watching isn’t always enough.

  They reach the top floor just before midnight.

  The room opens wide, windows blown out long ago, wind pouring through. The city is a sea of dim light below them, the Gate-Tree rising in the distance like a monument that never asked permission to exist.

  Razan steps forward, quiet now. He doesn’t speak. Just stares.

  For a moment, everything feels… still.

  Then Razan turns.

  “There’s another room.”

  Marek stiffens. “We don’t need—”

  “It’s right there.”

  A side corridor leads off the main floor, door intact, faintly glowing at the seams. Not light exactly — more like a deep, muted violet that doesn’t illuminate so much as exist.

  They exchange looks.

  Keene leads.

  The door opens easily.

  Inside, the room is smaller than expected. No furniture. No markings. Just a structure set into the far wall, sealed behind thick panes of purple glass — smooth, flawless, untouched by time. The glow hums faintly, vibrating against bone.

  Arin swallows. “Okay. That’s… new.”

  Marek doesn’t step closer. “Don’t touch anything.”

  Razan does.

  Not the glass — never the glass — but the metal railing beside it. He peers in, eyes narrowing, as if trying to see past the surface.

  Keene feels the air tighten. Like pressure building before a storm.

  “We should go,” Marek says.

  Razan nods, distracted. “Yeah. Just—”

  The sound comes from behind them.

  A sharp whistle of metal cutting air.

  Keene turns —

  —and the rod punches through the glass behind Razan, shattering it in a spiderweb of cracks before continuing forward.

  Straight into Razan’s hand.

  The impact pins him to the frame.

  For a heartbeat, no one moves.

  Then Razan screams.

  Blood runs down his arm, splashing against the floor in thick, dark drops. The rod vibrates once, then stills, buried deep.

  “RAZAN!” Arin shouts.

  Keene lunges forward —

  —and stops.

  Because the glass didn’t explode outward.

  It opened.

  Perfectly.

  And the air behind it feels wrong.

  Razan’s breath comes in jagged bursts. He grips the rod with his other hand, teeth bared, trying to pull it free.

  “Get—get it out,” he gasps.

  Marek’s eyes flick to the doorway.

  Then the windows.

  Then the ceiling.

  “Keene,” he says quietly. “We’re not alone.”

  The building groans.

  Footsteps land somewhere above them.

  Controlled. Measured.

  The wind dies.

  And the city below keeps breathing.

  ---

  End of Chapter 7