Darkness. Cold. Silence.
Leo floated in nothing. No pain. No thoughts. Just… empty. Was this death? Peace?
Then, a sound. Faint at first. A steady, rhythmic beep… beep… beep…
It grew louder. Closer. Along with it came muffled voices, the scrape of something metal, a low hum of machines.
He felt… pressure. On his chest. Around his arm. Something cool against his skin.
He tried to open his eyes. Heavy. So heavy. Like stone lids. He forced them.
Blurry white light. Shapes moving. A face swam into view above him. Pale. Worried eyes. Dark hair.
Mia?
"Leo?" Her voice cracked. "Leo, can you hear me?"
He tried to speak. His throat felt raw, full of sand. Only a weak groan came out.
"He's awake! Medic! He's waking up!" Mia yelled, her voice trembling with relief.
The blurry shapes moved faster. A man in a white coat leaned over Leo. A bright light shone in his eyes. Leo flinched.
"Pupils reactive," the man said. "Good sign. Chen, can you squeeze my hand?" Something warm closed around Leo's fingers. He tried to squeeze back. His hand felt weak, clumsy, like it didn't quite belong to him. He managed a faint pressure. "Motor response present. Cognition… unknown."
Leo blinked. The world slowly came into focus. He was lying on a narrow bed in a small, clean room. White walls. Bright lights. Machines beeped beside him, wires snaking to pads stuck on his chest. Mia sat beside the bed, holding his hand, her face streaked with dried tears but smiling weakly.
He was in Bastion's medical tent.
Memories crashed back. The Fracture. Silvana's betrayal. The cave-in. The terrible cost. ⌈ SANITY: 2% ⌋ The number pulsed weakly in the corner of his vision, a dull red ember. He felt… hollowed out. His thoughts were slow, thick, like wading through mud. Colors seemed washed out. Sounds felt distant, muffled. He saw faint, ghostly after-images trailing behind the medic's hand as he moved. The whispers were gone, replaced by a deep, unsettling silence inside his own head. A silence that felt fragile. Breakable.
"Leo," Mia whispered, squeezing his hand tighter. "You scared me. You were… gone. For days."
Days? He tried to speak again. "M...Mia?" His voice was a rasp.
"Yes! I'm here! You saved us," she said, tears welling up again. "The cave-in… it buried Silvana and Thorn. Vance and Brennan pulled us out just in time. The Fracture… it's sealed. Collapsed."
Leo remembered the falling rocks. Silvana vanishing. Thorn crushed. The ⌈ DATA FRAGMENT ⌋ lost. He looked at Mia. "You… okay?"
She nodded quickly. "I'm fine. A few bruises. Nothing like…" She trailed off, looking at him with deep worry. "You… you look different, Leo."
The medic finished his checks. "Vitals are stable. Remarkably so, considering." He looked at Leo with professional curiosity. "Severe neurological trauma. Sanity depletion off the charts. Rest is crucial. Minimal stimulation." He turned to Mia. "Keep him calm. I'll inform Commander Vance he's conscious."
The medic left. Silence settled, broken only by the beeping machines. Mia leaned closer. "Leo… what happened down there? At the end? You touched the Fracture with your mind, didn't you? I felt… something. A huge snap."
Leo closed his eyes. The memory of that final push was a raw wound. The shattering pain. The feeling of his mind tearing apart. The cost. ⌈ LIFESPAN REDUCTION: 6 YEARS ⌋. He felt older. Weaker. Like something vital had been ripped away. "Had… to stop her," he managed. "Hurt… you."
Mia's expression hardened. "She was using me. Draining something… inside me." She touched her chest. "When you broke the connection, when the cave-in happened… something else happened. To me."
Leo forced his eyes open. "What?"
"When the rocks fell… Brennan was pulling us out. A huge boulder came loose right above us." Mia's voice dropped to a whisper. "I… panicked. I threw my hands up. Not to push it… just… instinctively." She looked at her palms. "And… white light came out. Bright, pure light. It… it *pushed* the boulder away. Just enough for Brennan to drag us clear."
White light? Leo stared at her. ⌈ OBSERVE: MIA CHEN - STATUS: ANOMALY (QUARANTINE REMNANT). SYSTEM FLAG: ACTIVE. NEW ABILITY DETECTED? ⌋ The Observe flickered, struggling.
"The Disciples said the System locked power inside me when it flagged me," Mia said, her eyes wide. "Silvana was trying to steal it. But when you broke her control… when I was scared for you… it just… came out."
Power. Mia had power. Real power. Not glitching reality, but pure, defensive light. Was it the System's doing? Or something else? Hope warred with fear. Power made her valuable. And a target.
The tent flap opened. Commander Vance strode in, Sergeant Brennan right behind him. Vance's face was grim, his eyes sharp as they fixed on Leo. Brennan looked tired, his expression unreadable.
"Chen," Vance stated. "You're awake. Good. Saves me the trouble of hauling your unconscious body to interrogation." He pulled up a stool, sitting down heavily. "Report. Everything. From the moment Thorn took you underground. Leave nothing out. Especially concerning the artifact and Silvana."
Leo looked at Mia. She nodded slightly. He started talking. His voice was weak, his words slow, but he told Vance everything. The temple. The Aperture. Seeing Mia in the white room. The Agents. Escaping back. Silvana's offer of "healing." Her betrayal. The attempt to drain Mia. His desperate, mind-breaking push to collapse the Fracture. The white light Mia used to deflect the boulder. He left nothing out. What was the point? Vance would find out anyway. ⌈ SANITY: 2% ⌋ left no room for clever lies.
Vance listened intently, his face like stone. Brennan shifted his weight, his eyes occasionally flicking to Mia with a new kind of assessment.
When Leo finished, Vance was silent for a long moment. The only sound was the beeping machines and Leo's ragged breathing.
"Silvana is presumed dead," Vance finally said, his voice flat. "Buried under tons of rock. The Fracture is sealed. The Disciples are scattered, leaderless. That's the only positive outcome of this disaster." He leaned forward, his gaze boring into Leo. "You, Chen, are a walking catastrophe. Your power is a scalpel dipped in neurotoxin. You use it, you damage yourself, and you endanger everyone around you. You brought a System Agent down on us. You nearly unleashed the Fracture. You are responsible for the deaths of at least five Militia soldiers in that cave-in."
Leo flinched. The guilt was a physical weight. He had known the risk. He had done it anyway. For Mia.
"Commander," Brennan spoke up, his voice low. "He also stopped Silvana. He saved his sister. He collapsed the Fracture. That thing was a ticking bomb."
"He is the ticking bomb, Sergeant!" Vance snapped. "Look at him! He's barely functional! Sanity at 2%? What happens at 1%? At zero? Does he explode? Does he open another Fracture by thinking too hard?" He stood up, pacing. "And the girl." He looked at Mia. "Now she's manifesting unknown powers? Flagged by the System? She's a beacon for more Agents!"
"What do you want us to do, Commander?" Mia asked, her voice surprisingly steady. "Lock us up? Throw us out?"
Vance stopped pacing. He looked at Leo, broken and hollow on the bed. He looked at Mia, scared but defiant. He rubbed his temples. "Locking you up is a waste of resources we don't have. Throwing you out is a death sentence… and potentially hands valuable anomalies to whatever else is out there." He sighed, a sound of pure frustration. "You're Bastion's problem now. Like it or not."
He turned to Brennan. "Sergeant. They're your responsibility. Find them secure quarters. Away from the main population. Double guard rotation. Chen is confined to quarters until medically cleared and deemed mentally stable… if that's even possible. Chen," he looked back at Leo, "you do nothing. No using your… ability. Not even a flicker. You focus on resting. On not losing what little grip on reality you have left. Understood?"
Leo managed a weak nod. Rest. Do nothing. It was all he could do anyway.
"Mia," Vance continued, "you will report to Research. Daily. We need to understand this light ability. What it is. What it costs. How to control it. No arguments."
Mia swallowed, then nodded. "Okay."
"Brennan," Vance finished, heading for the flap, "make it happen. And find me that damn artifact. If it's not buried under a mountain, I want it secured. It's too dangerous to lose." He left without another word.
The tent felt suddenly quieter. Brennan looked at Leo and Mia. "Secure quarters. Right." He sounded tired. "Let's get you out of Medical."
With Brennan's help, Mia got Leo into a wheelchair they scrounged up. He was too weak to walk. They moved through Bastion. People stared. News of the cave-in, the Disciples, the "anomalies," had spread. Leo kept his head down, focusing on the grey path beneath the wheels, fighting the dizziness and the ghostly trails.
Brennan led them not to the crowded shelter blocks, but to a smaller, isolated prefab hut near the inner shield wall. It was sturdy, with a solid door and a small, barred window. Inside was basic: two cots, a small table, a water jug. Spartan, but private.
"Home sweet home," Brennan muttered, helping Leo onto one cot. "Guards will be outside. Food will be brought. Mia, Research is in the blue prefab near Command. Report there at 0800 tomorrow." He paused, looking at Leo. "Rest, kid. Really rest. Don't… think too hard." He glanced at Mia. "That light trick… be careful with it." He turned and left, locking the door behind him.
Silence settled in the small hut. Mia sat on the other cot, facing Leo. "Are you… okay?" she asked softly.
Leo tried to smile. It felt stiff. Fake. "Tired." He looked at his hands. They trembled slightly. "Head… quiet. Too quiet." The absence of the constant whispers and pain was almost worse. It felt… dead inside. ⌈ SANITY: 2% ⌋ wasn't active madness. It was the hollow aftermath. A wasteland.
Mia reached out, taking his trembling hand. Her touch was warm. Solid. Real. "We'll get through this, Leo. Together. Like always." She took a deep breath. "My turn to look after you."
Leo closed his eyes. He wanted to believe her. But the cost felt too high. The mountain of rock on his mind felt too heavy. He drifted, not quite asleep, not quite awake, floating in the numb silence of his broken self.
***
Days blurred. Leo slept. Ate bland nutrient paste. Slept more. Mia went to "Research" every morning. She came back looking tired, sometimes frustrated, but unharmed. She told Leo snippets. They ran tests. Made her try to summon the white light. It didn't always work. It felt like flexing a muscle she never knew she had. It tired her out. They scanned her. Studied her blood. Asked endless questions about the white room, the Agents, the feeling of the System mark.
"They don't know what it is," Mia whispered one evening. "They just know it's powerful. And it scares Vance."
Leo just nodded. He spent his time staring at the wall, watching the faint ghost trails, trying not to think. Thinking felt dangerous. Like poking a sleeping beast inside his shattered mind. ⌈ SANITY: 2% ⌋ was a fragile truce.
Brennan visited once. He brought extra rations. "No sign of the fragment," he reported gruffly. "Buried deep. Vance isn't happy." He looked at Leo. "You look… slightly less like death warmed over."
Leo managed a weak grunt.
Brennan hesitated. "That final push… collapsing the Fracture. That took… something big, didn't it? More than just Sanity?"
Leo met his eyes. He saw the understanding there. The sergeant had seen the cost. Leo nodded slowly. "Years," he rasped.
Brennan's jaw tightened. He didn't ask how many. He just gave a curt nod. "Rest up, Chen." He left.
One afternoon, Mia came back from Research later than usual. She looked pale. Shaken.
"What happened?" Leo asked, forcing his sluggish mind to focus.
"They… they brought in a prisoner," Mia whispered, sitting down heavily. "Not from Bastion. Someone they found outside after the last Pulse. He was… raving. Talking about eyes in the dark. About static that eats thoughts." She shivered. "They think he encountered a Void Reaver. Like the one that got inside. His mind… it was gone, Leo. Just… broken. Like…" She trailed off, looking at him with sudden horror.
Like me, Leo thought. At 2%. On the edge. He saw the fear in Mia's eyes. Fear for him. Fear of what he might become.
"It's okay, Mia," he said, his voice rough but gentle. "I'm still here."
But the fear lingered. In Mia's eyes. And deep inside Leo's hollow core. The Void Reaver victim was a glimpse of his possible future. A mindless husk, consumed by the very instability he could manipulate.
That night, Leo couldn't sleep. He lay on his cot, staring at the ceiling. The ghost trails were faint. The silence inside was deep. Too deep. He felt a terrifying… nothingness.
He thought of Mia's white light. Pure. Defensive. A power that protected. Not like his own. His power broke things. Cost him pieces of himself. Cost him years of his life. Was that all he was? A breaker? A glitch destined to burn out?
A small spark flickered in the emptiness. Not a thought. A feeling. Weak but persistent. Protect Mia.
He couldn't break things anymore. Not without destroying himself. But maybe… maybe he didn't have to. Maybe, in this broken silence, he could learn to be still. To endure. To be the anchor Mia needed, even if he was a cracked one.
He turned his head. Mia was asleep on the other cot, her face peaceful. He watched her breathe. In. Out. Steady.
**⌈ SANITY: 2% ⌋**
The number hadn't changed. But the hollow silence felt… different. Not just empty. Waiting. For what, he didn't know. But he would wait. For Mia. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sound of her breathing. A fragile anchor in the quiet dark. The climb wasn't over. It had just become a different kind of struggle. One fought in stillness, not with breaking power.
***
Far away, deep beneath the collapsed mountain where the First Fracture screamed its last, a faint purple light pulsed. It emanated from a figure encased in rock and dark energy, barely alive. Oracle Silvana. Her body was broken, crushed. But her violet eyes glowed weakly under the rubble. Her mind, fractured but resilient, touched the fading echoes of the Veil.
She felt the distant pulse of white light. Mia's power. Unlocked. Untamed.
She felt the hollow silence where Leo Chen's mind had once roared like a storm. Now, a fragile ember.
And she felt… something else. Cold. Ordered. Relentless. Approaching Bastion. Drawn by the surge of anomaly power. The escaped System Agent wasn't gone. It had returned. And it wasn't alone.
Silvana's cracked lips curved in a faint, painful smile within the darkness. The game wasn't over. The Veil wasn't finished. And the key… the fragment… it was still out there. Waiting. The silence wouldn't last. The storm was coming back. And this time, the broken glitch and his shining sister were right in its path.