"Two weeks earlier."
Lynora (confused)
The world had no sky anymore.
Only gray light hanging in the air like ashes – too heavy to float, too slow to fall. It dripped like fog, thick, sluggish.
Lynora lay motionless. Her body was burning. Her lungs felt sore, as if she had screamed for hours. But she remembered nothing. No scream. No fall. No fight. Only silence.
Then came the echo.
A metallic pulse – as if something deep underground was alive. Or dying. Or both.
Slowly, she sat up. Every muscle trembled. Her clothes were torn, a cut on her leg was bleeding, but she was alive.
The ground beneath her looked like molten metal, laced with ruptured veins – as if skin had been stretched over a machine.
Her gaze swept across the landscape – an endless, frayed chasm, scattered with crystal spikes and broken, pulsating objects.
Lynora (whispering)
"Black Mark…"
Her voice was barely more than a breath.
Then she saw him.
Utak.
Injured, but alive. Just a few meters away. His right shoulder was torn open, blood seeping into the ground – and being swallowed by it.
Utak (weak)
"You… you're awake…"
His voice was faint.
Utak (gasping)
"Zayne… he saved us. I don't know how… I… I pulled you… out…"
Lynora leaned over him, pressing her hands on the wound, even though she knew it wouldn't help. His eyes were glassy.
Lynora (quietly)
"Who… else is here?"
Utak (broken)
"I… saw Kyro. And Rex… but they—"
He stopped. Coughing. Blood.
Then something moved on the horizon.
A dark figure. Human. Staggering.
Lynora jumped up. Her heart was racing.
Zayne.
He dragged himself onto a plateau. His armor was shattered, his right arm hung lifeless. Behind him: a twitching beast made of resonance shards and twisted limbs.
Zayne turned. Fought. Took a hit. Fell.
Lynora (screaming)
"ZAYNE!"
She ran. The ground trembled beneath her feet.
When she reached the top, there was a body lying there.
But it wasn't Zayne.
It was Kyro.
His chest was split open, his skin blackened like it had been burned, his face frozen in pain.
His dagger lay beside him.
It was unmistakable. Kyro.
Lynora dropped to her knees. Pressed her hands against his wound – mechanically, without knowing why.
Lynora (desperate)
"No… not you… you were— you weren't supposed to—"
He jerked. One last time.
His eyes opened.
Kyro (whispering)
"Lyn…"
Then he stopped breathing.
She stayed with him. Too long.
Because in the distance, the next thing happened.
Rex.
He stood in the center of a deformed crater made of crystal and steam. The resonance glowed around him. He hurled energy, shouted – raw power, raw determination.
Rex (yelling)
"GET BACK, LYNORA!"
Then came a tentacle made of black light.
It pierced him.
A second one tore his torso apart.
Lynora saw his head drop to the side – not slowly, but like a switch had been flipped.
He fell.
Stayed down.
She ran.
But she was too late.
His body was still warm. The blood still fresh.
Lynora (screaming)
"WHY?!"
Then she saw Rioji.
In the distance.
Fighting a spider-like creature with a human face.
He roared. Struck. Got thrown back.
He called out to her.
Then he was split from the inside – as if something had exploded inside him.
Blood.
Organs.
Real.
No light. No illusion.
It was real.
She saw it.
And as she tried to reach him – there was only dirt.
As if the ground had swallowed him.
Utak had vanished.
No blood. No trail.
Only silence.
Lynora stumbled on.
Through a landscape shaped like pure horror.
The sky vibrated.
The ground cried.
The world was a nightmare.
But not a dream.
Everything was real.
Every death.
Every corpse.
She was the last.
Everyone else had fallen.
Then – finally – she saw someone who was still breathing.
Echo.
Collapsed under a crystalline boulder, trapped, her clothes bloody – but alive.
For a moment, Lynora froze.
The thought that Echo might be dead, too, paralyzed everything in her.
But then – movement.
Slow. Weak.
Echo (softly)
"You… are really here."
Her voice was shaky but calm.
Echo
"After we landed… I was pulled here. Like a vortex. I have no idea where the others are."
Lynora sank to her knees beside her.
She couldn't speak.
Could barely breathe.
Echo smiled faintly.
Echo
"It's good… not to be alone. Even if… everything is falling apart."
Lynora closed her eyes. Just for a moment.
Echo was still here.
The last one.
The only one still alive.
And Lynora knew –
She wouldn't lose her.
Not her too.