The air itself quivered, vibrating like the skin of a drum. The abyssal figure's hollow mask hovered only a few paces away, the chains inside Lin quivering in reverence. Every instinct told him to kneel, to surrender, to let the void decide for him. But Min-joon's hand was still pressed against his own, warm and human and defiant.
Lin sucked in a ragged breath, his throat raw from screaming. His voice came out hoarse but sharp.
"No. I'm not your vessel. I won't open your door."
The plaza fell into a silence so deep it felt like the whole world had stopped breathing. Even the wind stilled, dust frozen in the air.
For a heartbeat, it seemed the figure had vanished. Then the resonance slammed into him like a tidal wave.
"Refusal."
The single vibration rang through every bone. Lin's teeth rattled. Min-joon staggered but held his ground, his fingers digging into Lin's arm like anchors. Keller's knees bent as he fought to stay upright, spitting blood onto the ground.
Hwan was the first to drop to one knee, clutching his head. "It's… it's inside me—!"
Lin tried to steady himself, but the resonance multiplied, focusing on Keller this time.
Keller froze mid-step, his rifle falling from his grip. He convulsed as if invisible claws had hooked into his ribs. His eyes went wide, pupils dilating until they nearly swallowed his irises. He screamed—not in pain, but in the raw terror of losing himself.
"Observe," the abyssal figure intoned. "A tether may be cut. Easily."
The resonance twisted deeper, and Keller's scream turned to a strangled choke. His hand clawed at his own throat as if trying to stop something from tearing free.
"No!" Lin shouted. He tried to surge forward, but his chains pulled him back. Half of them lashed toward the figure in eager obedience, half coiled around his body to restrain him from acting against it. He was both prisoner and accomplice.
Min-joon, teeth gritted, shoved past the pressure and grabbed Keller, holding him upright with one arm even as blood trickled from his own nose. "You don't get to take him! You don't get to take anyone!"
The hollow mask tilted toward Min-joon again.
"Defiance persists. Dangerous. Yet useful."
Lin's vision blurred. He could feel Keller's terror thrumming inside his own chest through the resonance, as though his friend's soul were being unraveled in real time.
"Stop it!" Lin roared. His chains flared outward, sparks of abyssal light dripping from their tips. "Take me if you want, but leave them alone!"
For a moment, the figure stilled, resonance faltering just enough for Keller to collapse into Min-joon's arms, coughing and gasping.
The void's attention swung back to Lin.
"You offer. But offering is unnecessary. Door does not need consent. Marrow strains against cage. It will split. You will descend."
Lin's stomach clenched. He could feel it—deep inside, the marrow chains grinding against his soul, pressing outward, searching for cracks. His refusal had not stopped the abyss. It had only angered it.
The ground beneath them quivered. Hairline fractures spread through the plaza, glowing faintly with the same abyssal light as Lin's chains. Dust fell from shattered walls. The ruins themselves seemed to echo the figure's will.
But the chains were no longer listening.
Half of them whipped outward, obedient to the abyss, latching into the cracks in the earth like roots seeking water. The other half coiled around Lin protectively, shielding him from the resonance's direct weight. He was caught between them, each tugging him in opposite directions.
Lin screamed as his body bowed under the strain. His vision split—half filled with the hollow mask and its promise of descent, half filled with Min-joon's desperate eyes.
Hwan forced himself to his feet, though his body shook violently. "We—we have to move! The ground—"
Too late.
The fractures widened with a shuddering crack, splitting the plaza open. Chunks of concrete fell into black nothingness, swallowed by a depthless pit.
Keller staggered back, cursing. "It's dragging the whole damn place down!"
Min-joon tightened his grip on Lin. "Then we don't let go."
The abyssal figure extended its hand once more, palm open as if inviting. The chains obeyed instantly, lashing deeper into the cracks. The ground buckled, tilting beneath them.
Lin gasped, clutching Min-joon's wrist. "Don't—don't stay. You'll die with me."
"Then I die," Min-joon said without hesitation, his voice raw but steady. "I told you—I'm not letting go. Not now. Not ever."
The abyssal figure's resonance rippled, almost curious.
"Stronger than marrow. But fragile. How long before it shatters?"
The ground gave way entirely.
The plaza collapsed in a thunderous roar, a cascade of stone and steel plunging into the abyssal pit. Lin's chains whipped wildly, trying to anchor, but only served to drag him deeper.
Min-joon clung to him with everything he had, arms wrapped tight even as debris tore across his back. Keller grabbed for them, but a falling slab of concrete forced him and Hwan to leap aside, separated by the chaos.
Lin's last glimpse of the surface was Keller's face twisted in rage and fear, shouting something he couldn't hear over the roar. Then everything went black.
They were falling. Not through air, but through resonance itself. The abyss was not a place—it was a direction, a pull, a demand. Lin's stomach twisted as the marrow inside him tore at its cage, unspooling into the darkness.
He clutched Min-joon with one arm, the other wrapped in chains he couldn't control. Their descent wasn't endless, but it wasn't natural either. Space folded and unfolded, scenes flickering past like broken film reels—laboratories lined with marrow crystals, drowned cities echoing with silent screams, endless rows of kneeling figures chained in unison.
Min-joon's voice cut through the nightmare, close to his ear. "Stay with me, Lin. Don't let it take you."
"I—I'm trying," Lin choked, his body convulsing. His veins glowed faintly, marrow burning inside him. "But it's… it's splitting me in two—"
The abyssal figure's voice followed them, not shouted but felt, resonant in the marrow of their bones.
"Refusal does not matter. Descent is inevitable. Door will open."
Lin clamped his eyes shut, clinging to Min-joon like the only solid thing in existence. His mind frayed at the edges, pulled apart by the chains' divided will.
And then—impact.
They struck something solid, though it wasn't earth. It was soft and cold, like the skin of some vast creature. They bounced and rolled, coming to rest on a surface that pulsed faintly beneath them.
Lin coughed violently, his lungs burning. Min-joon pulled him upright, brushing debris from his hair with trembling hands. Around them stretched an impossible landscape—towers of bone spiraling upward, rivers of black liquid flowing against gravity, skies that bled light through fractures in reality.
The abyss. Not metaphor. Not dream. The real thing.
Lin's chains hissed in unison, trembling like worshippers before a shrine.
And high above them, suspended in the bleeding sky, the hollow mask watched.