The earth groaned above us, and the fractured air in the chamber trembled with every shudder of the distant machines. Dust rained from the ceiling, a fine powder of ash and grit settling onto the map the boy had spread out before me. I brushed it away, though my hands trembled.
"We don't have time," the woman with the scarf whispered. "They'll be moving to reinforce the machine. Once the fracture grows, it'll pull the ground itself apart. This whole sector will fall." She knelt, tracing a finger along the jagged lines of the map. "Here. There's a tunnel beneath the slag fields. It leads toward the Heart. It's half-collapsed, but it's the only way left."
I swallowed, the memory of the machine's hum still vibrating in my teeth. "How far is it?"
"Far enough to be dangerous," the boy muttered. "Too far if we don't move now."
I nodded, tightening the frayed straps of my jacket. The fracture in my bones pulsed again, a deep ache like a tooth root gone bad. My vision swam briefly, shadows peeling back from the edges. I saw the circle of the machine again, the woman with the stitched lips and hollow eyes, her humming bleeding into the world like a poisoned lullaby. I forced the image away.
The woman glanced at me. "What's your name?"
For a moment, I hesitated. My name felt distant, a relic from another life, but I dredged it up from beneath layers of ash and memory. "Riven."
Her lips tightened into a thin line. "Riven. If you're going to help us, you'll need to be ready for what's waiting on the other side. This isn't just about stopping them. Once we cross the threshold, there's no turning back. The fracture doesn't just take pieces of the world—it takes pieces of you."
The boy rolled up the map. "Come on. We'll have to move fast."
The journey through the tunnels was a nightmare of shifting shadows and half-heard whispers. The ground pulsed beneath us, sometimes shaking hard enough to knock us off our feet. Rusted pipes snaked along the walls, dripping black fluid that hissed when it touched the slag-strewn floor. The faint light from the lanterns barely pushed back the dark.
At one point, we passed a collapsed section where a ribcage of twisted steel jutted from the walls like a maw. Bones were scattered beneath it—old bones, picked clean by time or something hungrier. I caught the boy's glance, and he just shook his head, as if to say, Don't ask.
After what felt like an eternity, the passage widened into a natural cavern, its walls slick with mineral deposits that glistened faintly in the dim light. A low hum filled the air, stronger here, making my skull ache. The woman touched the wall, her expression grim. "We're close."
I felt it too. The fracture pulsed louder now, not just in my bones but in the very air. The cavern walls seemed to pulse with it, like a heartbeat synced to something vast and terrible.
We emerged onto a ledge overlooking a chasm. Below, the remnants of an old industrial complex sprawled like a corpse, its metal bones twisted and half-swallowed by the earth. The Heart stood at its centre—a machine larger than anything I had yet seen, its surface webbed with fissures that bled faint, poisonous light. Shadowed figures moved around its base, setting up cables and pylons. Above, the sky churned, a vortex of black clouds pulling inward toward a central point.
The woman beside me whispered, "They're nearly ready. Once the breach opens, we won't be able to stop it from swallowing this sector."
I swallowed thickly. "What do we do?"
"We have to reach the control spire," she said, pointing to a rusted tower that leaned precariously near the Heart. "If we can overload its core, it might destabilise the breach long enough to shut it down."
I nodded, though doubt coiled tight in my gut. "And if it doesn't?"
"Then we die," the boy said flatly. "Better than being swallowed whole."
We descended into the ruins, picking our way through shattered debris and pools of stagnant, foul-smelling water. Shadows flickered at the edges of my vision, the fracture tugging harder with every step. I could feel the seams in the world thinning, threads pulling apart, and something vast pressing against them from the other side.
As we neared the Heart, a wave of heat rolled out, heavy with the scent of scorched metal and sulphur. My breath caught in my throat, and I stumbled. The boy caught my arm. "Stay with us."
The woman gestured for silence. Figures were moving nearby—sentinels clad in mismatched armour, their faces hidden behind mirrored masks. They moved like clockwork, their weapons humming faintly. The woman whispered, "We'll have to split up. They'll expect a frontal approach."
I followed the boy as we broke off, circling the edge of the complex. We crept through the ruins, the air growing thicker, the hum louder. The fracture inside me screamed for release, and I bit down hard, tasting blood. My vision wavered. For a heartbeat, I saw something vast and serpentine coiling beyond the walls of reality, its many eyes watching.
The boy hissed, pulling me behind a rusted pillar as a sentinel passed. Its head turned sharply, as though sniffing the air, but it moved on. We waited, breath held, until it disappeared into the shadows.
Finally, we reached the base of the control spire. The woman and the others emerged from the opposite side, waving us forward. Together, we climbed the crumbling ladder, the metal groaning under our weight. The pulse from the Heart was deafening now, a thrumming beat that made my teeth chatter.
At the top, the woman pried open a rusted panel, revealing a mass of cables and controls. Sparks flew as she worked, her hands steady despite the tremors shaking the tower. "I need cover," she said. "Hold them off."
Figures were approaching from the shadows, alerted by our presence. The boy handed me a weapon—a makeshift spear tipped with jagged metal. I gripped it, heart pounding.
The woman's voice was calm. "Hold them long enough, and I'll overload the core."
I planted my feet, ready to face the oncoming threat. As the first sentinel lunged, I met it with the spear, the fracture singing through me, and in that instant, I understood—
I wasn't just fractured. I was a weapon waiting to be broken.