Arman finally felt the pain as the adrenaline drained from his system.
The bullet wound in his shoulder.
The impact of a 12-meter fall.
Sure, the cargo drone had absorbed most of the momentum, but it still hurt like hell.
And then there were the burns from the explosion.
"Guess I won't be going back to Leith anytime soon," Arman muttered.
Then—his head split open with pain.
A high-pitched whine filled his skull. The world bleached into monochrome. Time slowed to a crawl.
For a single, disorienting second, he saw her—a woman in 18th-century garb, watching him from the shadows.
Then, just as suddenly—gone.
"Who the hell was that? A hallucination?"
But the hallucinations weren't done.
A chorus of murmurs erupted inside his head, mechanical and endless:
"Level-up confirmed. Scan function unlocked. Press [E] to initiate scan."
Over. And over. And over.
"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP—"
Arman clamped his hands over his ears, but the voices weren't coming from outside. They were embedded in his mind , crisp and alien—nothing like his own thoughts. More like… someone else speaking directly into his brain.
Five minutes of this. Five minutes of madness.
Then—silence.
He tried to stand.
His vision swam. His knees buckled.
The pressure in his skull had spiked his blood pressure. One of the smaller vessels in his brain ruptured. Blood trickled from his nose.
The last thing he saw before blacking out: the pavement rushing up to meet him.
The last thing he heard:
Footsteps.
Then voices.
"He actually escaped the Leith enforcers?" —Tavish.
"Chief, what do we do with him? If we leave him here, he'll cause more trouble for Old Town." —Ewan.
Tavish and Ewan seemed to be addressing someone else. Then—a raspy, aged voice cut in:
"Never thought some smart-mouthed brat would bring this much heat down on us… We take him with us. A death on our land would look bad for business." —Callum.
Then—nothing.
Darkness.
---
Questions left hanging
- Who the hell are Tavish and Ewan?
- What's the deal with the old man they called "Chief"?
- How did they know about his run-in with the cops?
- Were they tracking him the whole time?
- And those voices in his head—what were they?
Too many loose ends.
Hope we get answers someday… Hope so.