Chapter 60: The Voice Below

The elevator descended without making a sound.

Kai stood in the center of the metal cabin, one hand gripping the crimson sword and the other pressed against his wounded side. Every few seconds, the red light beneath his skin pulsed. The needle inside his stomach was still there, spreading a numbness through his muscles.

Across from him, Dorian leaned against the wall. His torn robe was soaked with rain, and the black veins beneath his skin had begun to spread toward his neck.

"You’re getting worse," Kai said.

Dorian glanced at him. "You’re very observant."

"I’m asking how long you can stay alive."

"Long enough."

"That wasn’t the question."

Dorian smiled without humor. "Long enough to regret helping you."

The elevator shook.

From somewhere below, hundreds of people began to breathe at the same time.

Sarah looked toward the floor. "That sound is coming from under us."

"No," Dorian said. "It’s coming from the walls."

Kael raised his sword. "What does that mean?"

"It means the plant knows we’re here."

Kai looked at the dark metal doors. "Plants don’t know anything."

Dorian’s expression became serious.

"This one does."

The lights went out.

A woman whispered from the other side of the doors.

"Kai."

His fingers tightened around the crimson sword.

The voice sounded exactly like his mother.

"Kai, open the door."

Sarah moved beside him. "Don’t answer."

The voice came again, softer this time.

"Kai, I’m cold."

Kai stared at the doors.

He remembered his mother sitting beside him when he was sick as a child. He remembered her hands, rough from years of work, placing a wet cloth on his forehead. He remembered her telling him that fear became smaller when someone stayed beside you.

His chest tightened.

"Kai," the voice whispered. "Please."

He stepped toward the doors.

Sarah grabbed his arm. "That is not your mother."

Kai looked down at her hand.

For a moment, he almost pulled away.

Then he heard another voice from behind the doors.

"Kai, don’t listen to it."

It was Elara.

His sister’s voice shook with fear.

"Please, Kai. It’s inside the walls."

Kai raised the crimson sword.

Dorian caught his wrist.

"If you open that door, the plant will enter your mind."

"My family is on the other side."

"Your family is above us."

"You don’t know that."

"I know because I was the one who built the first binding chamber."

The elevator stopped.

The doors opened.

A corridor stretched ahead of them, narrow and wet. Red liquid dripped from pipes along the ceiling. Every drop hit the floor with a slow, steady sound.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The walls were covered with hundreds of small windows. Behind each window, a face stared into the corridor.

Men. Women. Children.

They all had pale skin and open eyes.

They all whispered the same name.

"Kai."

Sarah stepped backward. "What are they?"

"Residents," Dorian said.

"They’re alive?" Kael asked.

"Some of them."

A hand struck one of the windows from the other side.

A little girl pressed her face against the glass. "Please let me out."

Kai stopped.

The girl looked no older than ten. A thin red line circled her neck.

"Dorian," Kai said, "open the window."

"We don’t have time."

"Open it."

Dorian shook his head. "That is not a person."

The girl began crying.

Kai looked at her face. There was fear in her eyes. Real fear. His mother had looked at him with the same fear when he came home covered in blood.

"I don’t care what you call her."

He swung the crimson sword.

The window shattered.

The girl fell through the opening and landed on the floor. The red line around her neck flashed, and her body jerked violently.

Sarah rushed forward and placed both hands over the mark.

"Hold her down!"

Kai grabbed the girl’s shoulders. Her bones felt too light beneath his hands.

Sarah’s healing light spread across the mark, but the red line resisted. It crawled across the girl’s skin like a living thread.

"I can’t break it," Sarah said. "It’s connected to something deeper."

Dorian walked toward them. "Move."

Kai turned on him. "If you hurt her—"

"I’m not going to hurt her."

Dorian placed two fingers against the mark. Black light passed through his hand. The red line tightened, and the girl screamed.

Kai reached for Dorian’s throat.

"Stop."

The Executioner did not look at him. "If you want to save her, you must let me cut the connection."

"Then do it."

Dorian closed his eyes.

A thin black line appeared across his fingers. He dragged it through the air above the girl’s neck.

The red mark snapped.

The girl fell unconscious.

At the same moment, Dorian staggered and coughed blood onto the floor.

Kai caught him before he collapsed.

"What did you do?"

"I removed one thread."

"One?"

"There are thousands in this district."

Kael looked at the windows. "Then we can’t save everyone."

The faces behind the glass continued whispering.

Kai looked down at the unconscious girl.

"No," he said. "But we can save the ones we reach."

A violent roar passed through the corridor.

The walls bent inward.

The windows shattered one after another, and pale figures crawled out onto the floor. Their bodies were thin and twisted, covered in red lines. Some still wore sleeping clothes. Others wore work uniforms. A few carried pieces of furniture as weapons.

The girl’s eyes opened.

She looked at Kai and screamed.

"They’re coming!"

The figures charged.

Kai stepped forward.

The first man swung a metal pipe at his head. Kai blocked with the crimson sword, but the impact forced him back. His injured side burned, and his legs nearly gave way.

The man attacked again.

Kai ducked and struck his knee. The joint shattered, but the man did not fall. The red lines around his body pulled his broken leg straight.

"Healing themselves," Sarah said.

"No," Dorian replied. "The plant is moving them."

A woman leaped from the wall and attacked Kael with a broken chair leg. Kael blocked the blow and pushed her back, but three more residents surrounded him.

Jax disappeared into the crowd.

A second later, two red lines snapped, and a resident collapsed.

"Hit the marks!" Jax shouted. "Not the bodies!"

Kai slashed across the chest of the man in front of him. The crimson sword cut through the red lines without cutting the flesh beneath them. The man fell instantly.

Another attacked from the side.

Kai twisted away, but his injured leg slipped on the wet floor. The enemy’s fingers closed around his throat.

The pressure crushed his windpipe.

Kai struck the attacker’s elbow. Nothing happened. He struck again. His vision blurred.

The resident opened his mouth, and his voice became the voice of Kai’s mother.

"Kai, why did you leave me?"

Kai froze.

The grip around his throat tightened.

"You promised you would come back."

His mother had said those words before he entered the Tower.

A second voice joined the first.

Elara.

"You always leave us."

Kai’s hands began to shake.

The resident’s face changed. It became his mother’s face. Then Elara’s. Then his own.

"You don’t belong anywhere," the creature whispered.

Kai’s fear turned into anger, but the anger did not make him stronger. It only made his breathing harder.

He remembered what the Adjuster had said.

Anger makes you simple.

Kai stopped trying to break the creature’s arm.

Instead, he reached behind it and grabbed the red line connected to the wall.

He pulled.

The line cut into his palm. Blood ran down his fingers.

The creature screamed.

Kai pulled harder.

The red thread came free from the wall, tearing through the creature’s back. The resident collapsed, no longer moving.

Kai fell to one knee, coughing and clutching his throat.

Sarah ran toward him, but a wave of figures blocked her path.

"Keep going!" Kai shouted. "Don’t stop for me!"

"You’re bleeding!"

"I’ve been bleeding all day!"

Kael smashed two residents into the wall. "He’s right! We need to reach the core!"

Dorian pointed to the end of the corridor.

A massive iron door stood there, covered in red symbols. Behind it, something beat like a giant heart.

"The control chamber," he said.

Kai rose slowly.

His throat hurt. His side was wet with blood. His injured hand could barely close around the sword.

But he moved forward.

The group fought their way through the corridor. Sarah freed the trapped residents whenever she could. Kael held back the strongest ones. Jax cut the red connections from the shadows.

Dorian walked beside Kai, each step becoming more difficult.

"You’re weakening," Kai said.

"So are you."

"I asked first."

Dorian looked at him. "The Company placed a piece of the plant inside me years ago. Every connection I cut passes through my body before it breaks."

Kai stared at him. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"You didn’t ask."

"You’re going to die."

"Eventually."

"That’s not an answer."

Dorian stopped before the iron door.

"It is the only answer anyone gets."

The door opened by itself.

Beyond it was a vast circular chamber.

Thousands of red threads stretched from the ceiling into the darkness below. Each one disappeared into a glass container. Inside every container floated a human memory: a child’s first smile, a wedding, a funeral, a mother holding a newborn, a man laughing beside his friends.

The memories were being pulled apart and turned into red light.

At the center of the room stood a woman in a white dress.

Her back was turned to them.

Kai took one step forward.

The woman slowly turned around.

She had his mother’s face.

But her eyes were completely black.

"Kai," she said. "You came home."

Sarah raised her staff.

Dorian drew his remaining blade.

Kai stood still.

The woman smiled.

"Did you miss me?"

Kai looked at the red threads connected to her body.

Then he looked at the containers filled with stolen memories.

His grip tightened around the crimson sword.

"No," he said quietly. "You’re not my mother."

The woman’s smile vanished.

"Then prove it."

Every thread in the chamber pulled tight.

The containers shattered.

Thousands of stolen memories exploded into the air, and the voices of the entire district filled the room at once.

Kai raised his sword.

The woman opened her mouth.

The core began to beat.

The second plant had awakened.