"What?!"
Vahari exhaled sharply, tilting her head. "You weren't listening? He's dead." She repeated in a matter-of-fact way.
Amara felt her stomach twist. A cold weight settled in her chest. Behind them, a clean-up crew had promptly arrived at the scene and begun their operations. Clearing debris and carefully disposing of the chunks of bone and black meat that used to be a towering monstrosity.
They wore hazmat suits as protection from its blood and other bodily fluids that seemed to carry mild acidic properties. The clean-up crew moved in tight formation, dragging hoses and containment crates behind them, already neutralizing the acidic trail the Brute's remains had left behind.
"But… the medical team…" Her voice wavered. "I thought they were going to resuscitate him. You said he wasn't dead"
"I said he wasn't dead yet," Vahari cut in, her words precise. Her gaze flickered for a moment.
"And that's not what happened to him."
A beat of silence. Then she added, "He got caught up in an Abyssal Zone."
Amara's breath hitched. "An…Abyssal Zone?"
She was aware of their existence, but only had limited knowledge regarding them. So she probed the Revenant for more information.
Vahari studied her for a moment, then sighed.
"Aren't you a Revenant yourself? You should be more knowledgeable than anyone else."
"I have, uh… unique circumstances."
Amara fell silent, refusing to explain herself further.
Vahari folded her arms, expression unreadable. She continued, realising that probing won't help.
"They're like Marauders — spontaneous and unpredictable — but much rarer. One second, everything's normal, and the next…" She snapped her fingers. "The world caves in. Space twists, folds and swallows whatever was there, leaving behind a black, void-like mass. If you're caught inside, that's it."
Amara felt her pulse hammer inside her ribs. "Really…that's it?"
She shook her head.
"People have made it out before, right? People like you."
Vahari didn't answer immediately. She remained silent for a bit, carefully organizing her words before speaking:
"Let me put it this way then…"
"The zones distort space itself in order to manifest, leaving behind trace amounts of radiation. That radiation is then measured and quantified into 'Echo Levels'. Ranked from 3 to now, 0."
"What does that have to do with what you said before?"
Slightly irritated, the Revenant shot a cold glance at Amara. She took that as a sign to shut up and let Vahari continue:
"This part is kept from the public but, you're not exactly a civilian anymore, are you?"
Amara gulped. For some reason, that statement had more weight behind it than it needed to.
"Each and every Revenant — besides you, I guess — has gone through personal 'Trials' in the zones, spending a torturous amount of time trying to clear them. If they manage to survive and clear the Trials, they escape back to Earth…"
She pointed at the markings spiralling beneath her eyes.
"…marked as Revenants and 'blessed' with power."
Amara let that information wash over her as she attempted to digest it. She knew some of that information already. From what she could recall:
Just over a decade ago, way after the first Marauder outbreak, the Revenant Society — which is comprised of the five major Companies and overseen by the major Continents — released public information regarding Revenants and their abilities in order to ease the public's growing fear of them.
In these documents, Revenant abilities were given the name 'Aspects', as in, 'The Aspects of Existence'. They tried to give these other-worldly powers semi-scientific explanations so that they don't seem as scary anymore to the average Joe and Jane.
The documents dove even deeper into the topic but Amara couldn't be bothered to dedicate hours of her time reading something without a plot.
A choice that she deeply regrets now, of course.
But she did remember the different 'Schools of Philosophy' related to Aspects:
FLUX - The School of Change and Transformation.
TEMPUS - The School of Time and Sequence.
NEXUS - The School of Connection.
VITAE - The School of Life and Growth.
GRAVITAS- The School of Force and Motion.
LUMINA - The School of Light and Perception.
ANIMA - The School of Soul and Consciousness.
TERMINUS - The School of Boundary.
When developing and cultivating their Aspects, Revenants would pick a School and try to 'Align' it with their Aspect. The process is deeply personal and intuitive. For example, a fire-based Aspect might seem to naturally belong in the 'Flux' School, but depending on how that ability manifests — perhaps as light manipulation rather than actual combustion — it might better align with 'Lumina'.
And that's as far as Amara's knowledge extended.
'Wait, what were we actually talking about?'
The young girl had gotten lost in her thoughts.
'Right! The man from the subway.'
Returning to her senses, she finally asked:
"From what you said, it sounds like there is still a chance he might return. You said he's dead. Like you were sure of it. Why is that?"
"Echo level Zero." Vahari cut in, her voice flat.
Amari blinked in confusion. "What?"
"Most Revenants emerged from Echo Level 3 zones and only a select few, like myself, escaped from Echo Level 2 zones. And only one person in history has ever escaped from an Echo Level 1."
Vahari took a beat to look up at the sky before continuing.
"Your 'hero' got caught in an Echo Level Zero."
Amara swallowed hard. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Up until now, it's been purely speculation and theoretical."
"Simply put. It shouldn't exist. Where ever he is now, I doubt he's coming back…"
***
An ambulance tore down an avenue, its sirens wailing in the stillness of a post-storm morning. The streets shimmered with puddles, flashing scattered reflections of fractured skyline and faded neon.
Inside the ambulance, the cabin reeked of blood and antiseptic. A man lay strapped to a gurney, his body convulsing with every uneven breath. His left arm was gone, torn off at the shoulder — jagged, exposed bone and cauterized flesh spilling red onto the metal floor. Two paramedics worked over him with frantic precision, one pressing a clot-gel injector to the stump while the other yelled vitals into the comm unit, voice trembling.
He wasn't going to last long.
"Pressure's not holding!"
"Start cortical stim! Now!"
In the front, the driver gritted her teeth, weaving through traffic like a thread through a needle. Towering skyscrapers loomed above, their surfaces alive with digital graffiti and shifting colours. A hovering drone blinked past overhead. The driver's jaw clenched as she swerved around a slow-moving delivery pod. Sweat gathered at her brow despite the chill.
Then it happened.
A shimmer appeared in the road ahead. At first, it looked like a heat mirage, impossible in the cool morning air. But it didn't fade. In fact, it did the opposite. It swelled like something ancient forcing its way into the world.
It tore through the air with a silent authority — perfectly round, a disc of void rimmed in pulsing glyphs that crawled like insects. The edges flickered, humming with indecipherable whispers that slithered straight into the skull. Inside was a darkness that seemingly had no beginning and end.
"What the hell is even that?"
The driver yanked the wheel, tires screaming against wet concrete.
But it was too late.
The ambulance clipped the edge of the portal. Instantly, colours inverted. Sounds muffled, then exploded. The scream of the siren stuttered into silence. The engine cut out mid-roar.
Time and space stretched until they became irrelevant.
Inside, the paramedics floated for a fraction of a second. Blood lifted off the floor in suspended threads. The injured man opened his eyes—and for the first time since they picked him up, he wasn't gasping.
On his exposed chest, right next to the missing limb, glyphs, and markings suddenly flared a bright violet and crimson hue. They seared multiple ancient symbols onto his skin like a branding iron, and then faded back into his skin.
Then everything snapped inward.
The ambulance vanished, swallowed whole by the void.
The street was quiet again. A faint breeze brushed through scattered leaves. The portal hung there for a moment longer, as if listening.
Then it flickered.
And was gone.
***
Rhys saw of a river that flowed almost endlessly, its waters thick and dark like ink.
It cascaded upward into a void concealed by a swirling grey mist, its depths stretching into an abyss that almost felt alive. And hungry.
He was in a state where wasn't even sure if he was dreaming or not. The obvious question lingered in his mind, of course.
'Am I dead?'
That was a perfectly reasonable question given the state his body was in. But in this place, Rhys had no physical body, therefore, he felt no pain. The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed more like heaven.
But after looking around, it was more like hell. Minus the eternal burning part, of course.
Then,
A cacophony of voices rose from the river — lamenting and wailing — but he couldn't understand what they were saying, but the emotions permeated his skull, seeping into his bones and marrow.
It started off as whispers, pleading and desperate. Then the whispers grew into cries of pain, eventually turning into screams of rage. Louder, louder and louder.
The surface of the river rippled, trembling as something began stirring underneath. Rhys stepped back. Or at least he thought he was. He soon realized that his movements were anchored to one spot.
That's when he felt it.
A presence that felt like it was everywhere and nowhere at the same time — watching him.
He didn't know where to look. Should he hide? But where could he hide to escape this being's gaze?
Then, as the voices continued growing louder and louder, the river suddenly burst alive, its waves crashing violently towards Rhys. He kept trying to run the opposite direction but he couldn't. Opening his mouth to scream also proved to be impossible.
'Goddammit, at least let me curse!'
And just like that, the currents picked him up and carried him upwards towards the void.