Page 50 of Echoes From the Void
Leo and Matteo hit the wall together, combining strength with shadow manipulation. The concrete cracks—not fast enough. Never fast enough. Just like every other escape attempt in this place.
The thing behind us screams again, that digital shriek that sets my teeth on edge. Through our connection, I feel Finn’s horror matching mine. Those children. Those twins. They could have been us. Would have been us, if Valerie had succeeded.
“Frankie.” Dorian’s voice cuts through my spiral. “Focus.”
Right. Leader now, breakdown later.
“Bishop, status on the data?”
“Secured.” He’s running beside me, Guardian marks blazing. “But Frankie, there’s more. The other facilities?—”
The corrupted essence slams into the ceiling above us. Debris rains down, but Finn’s light creates a barrier, deflecting it. Our twin bond pulses with shared determination—we survived this place once. We’ll survive it again.
“Show off,” I mutter.
“You’re just jealous your shadows aren’t as pretty.”
“They’re not supposed to be pretty, they’re supposed to be—DUCK!”
A tendril of twisted essence whips through where our heads just were. The gold veins pulse like infected lightning, carrying echoes of what these children used to be.
Matteo and Leo finally break through the wall, revealing the facility’s grounds. Freedom. Almost there. But the thing behind us is learning, moving faster. Those golden veins spread like cracks in reality, reaching for us with desperate hunger.
“It’s evolving,” Dorian shouts. “The fusion of essence and human DNA is creating a feedback loop of?—”
“NERD. LATER.” Leo grabs his arm, pulling him through the breach.
I push Finn toward the opening. “Go!”
“Not without?—”
“That wasn’t a request!”
The corrupted essence rears up like a cobra, its core pulsing with that awful merged light. And in that moment, I hear them—two children’s voices overlapping with Valerie’s, a chorus of agony and madness:
Help us.
It hurts.
The experiment must continue.
Make it stop.
Project Gemini will succeed.
Please.
My shadows react instinctively, reaching for the twisted mass. For a moment, I feel it—the agony of being torn apart and fused back together wrong, the desperate need to end it all. Just like what Valerie tried to do to us. What she would have done, if she’d succeeded.
“Frankie!” Multiple voices scream my name.
Matteo’s arms wrap around my waist, yanking me back as Finn’s light creates another barrier. Bishop’s magic seals the breach while Leo pulls me through.
“Don’t you dare,” Matteo growls in my ear, fangs sharp against my skin. “Don’t you fucking dare try to save them.”
“But they’re like us,” I whisper. “They’re just kids who?—”
“They’re gone.” Dorian’s voice is gentle but firm. “What’s in there isn’t human anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time.”
