(click to enlarge)
STORYLINE:
1-one thousand, 2-one thousand, 3-one thousand...
“Come on,” Plague growled, pressing down on her chest. “Come on, Minjo... Breathe.”
His palms rose and fell in a steady rhythm, centered and controlled, just enough pressure to wake her heart without cracking her ribs.
Minjo’s skin looked alien and translucent in the faint, sickly glow of the sewer tunnel. She looked terrifyingly small beneath him, and strangely… unfinished. Like there was something missing. He pushed that thought away. The only thing that mattered was the silence of her heart.
4-one thousand...
Breathe.
“Come on, Minjo,” he gritted out, his voice cracking with the ache in his own oxygen-starved lungs. “Don’t you dare do this. You’re the smart one. Don’t die in a sewer.”
A faint green glow pulsed in her throat. He tilted her head and swept the sludge out with trembling fingers, rolling her just enough for the filth to drain. His mind raced, cataloging the gunk coating his hands. Not sewage. Runoff from the Forbidden Zone.
If she didn’t die from cardiac arrest, an infection could finish the job.
5-one thousand...
She risked everything. She lit the fire. She can’t go out like this.
Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his chest. The freezing slime soaked through his jeans. He wasn’t pressing hard enough. Or was he pressing too hard? He was going to break her ribs.
Screw it.
He pinched her nose, tilted her chin, and leaned down to breathe air into her lungs.
SNAP.
Her eyes flew open.
They weren’t hazy. They weren’t confused. They were wide, dark, and filled with a lethal, laser-focused fury.
She stared at his descending face with an expression that clearly screamed: If your mouth touches mine, I will dismantle you at a cellular level.
Plague froze, hovering inches from her face.
Sludge bubbled past her lips.
She convulsed, rolled onto her side, and retched, coughing up black water and bile. The sound was ragged and wet and absolutely grotesque.
Plague sat back on his heels, his hands hovering uselessly in the air. He let out a hysterical, breathless laugh that bounced off the dark stone walls.
“Oh, thank god,” he wheezed, wiping the toxic slime from his own chin. “I really didn’t want to have to explain to your mom why her little robotics patent manufacturer died in a drainage pipe, and especially not because she was chasing a boy.”
Minjo gasped, wiping her mouth with a trembling hand. Water dripped from her choppy bob. She squinted at him through wet lashes, breath hitching between coughs.
“Do not…,” she croaked, “tell my mother about this.”
“Oh, absolutely not,” he scoffed. “She’d probably send a drone strike.”
Minjo made a tiny noise that might have been a cough or the ghost of a laugh.
A strangled gasp tore across the chamber. Echo.
Plague looked around the dark, stone shelf where the current had deposited them. They had washed up in a junction where the sewer widened into an overflow catchment.
A few feet away, Kyle Baek, the man who treated joy like a personal insult, was on his knees. He was soaked, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, and he was holding Echo.
She was hyperventilating, her hands clawing blindly at Kyle, her eyes squeezed shut as she sobbed, a high, thin sound of pure terror. She was shaking so violently her teeth clicked together audibly.
“I can’t… I can’t breathe… it’s still in my lungs…” she choked out, thrashing as if the water were still pulling her down.
“Hey. Hey, look at me,” Kyle rumbled. His voice was unrecognizable, stripped of its usual venom and replaced by a desperate, rough tenderness.
He didn’t scowl. He didn’t tell her to toughen up. He wrapped his large arms completely around her, pulling her shuddering frame against his chest, rocking her back and forth.
“You’re out,” Kyle whispered, pressing his chin to the top of her wet head. “I got you. I’m not letting go. Just breathe. In… out.”
Echo buried her face in his chest, clutching him like a lifeline. Slowly, the panic attack receded, leaving her limp and trembling in his arms.
Kyle looked up, catching Plague’s wide eyes. His expression was fierce, protective, as if to say, Don’t you dare say a word about this.
Plague nodded solemnly, then scanned the black throat of the tunnel they had just exited. The rope that tied them all together trailed into the dark water.
“Where’s Ghost? And Lisa?”
As if summoned, the safety rope jerked taut.
A hand slapped the slimy stone edge. Then another.
Ghost hauled himself up from the rushing water, his movements heavy but precise. He didn’t climb out immediately. He anchored himself, reached back down, and pulled.
Lisa Liemawr emerged like a drowned rat.
The influencer was gone. Her eyeliner ran in streaks down her face like war paint, and she was coughing violently. She collapsed onto the stone, shivering.
Ghost climbed up after her. He didn’t move away. He knelt beside her, unclipped the safety line, and placed a steadying hand between her shoulder blades. Firm, professional, and anchoring her.
Lisa looked up, her usual manic energy replaced by raw exhaustion. She looked at Ghost, then at the others.
“I…” she coughed, spitting out water. “I officially log out… from physical journalism.”
“Good. We’re all here,” Plague breathed, the adrenaline finally crashing. “We actually made it.”
Ghost unpacked their bundles, casting off his wet clothes. Minjo was already moving. She crawled toward the center of the ledge, where the bioluminescent moss gave off just enough light to be insulting.
“Location,” she demanded, voice rough but commanding. “We need to know where the current dumped us.”
Ghost stood, water streaming from his tactical gear, and tapped his wrist-mount. The stolen chip glowed faintly beneath the cracked casing.
He frowned. Tapped again.
Nothing.
“It’s dead,” Echo whispered. “Zone damping field.”
Plague frowned.
Minjo was blinking hard. Her hands were feeling along the ground. Her posture was wrong.
That was when it clicked.
Her face looked bare.
“Minjo,” Plague said quietly.
“Not now.”
“Your glasses.”
Her hands stopped.
The silence stretched, thin and awful. The sound of rushing water filled it greedily.
“They’re gone,” she said.
The words were small. Almost polite.
Plague’s chest tightened.
“My AR Specs,” she continued, more to herself now. “My second brain. Quad-sealed. Four magnetic redundancies. They weren’t supposed to fail.”
She finally looked up at him. No overlays. No scrolling data. Just her eyes, wide and unshielded.
“Chaos is winning,” she whispered.
Cold dampness crept under their skin, like the tunnel was slowly noticing them.
Water dripped in a slow, patient rhythm.
Kyle sniffed the air. “What the hell is that awful stench?”
Ghost struck a match, lighting an analog brass lantern. He waved the sulfur smoke away.
“Not sewer gas,” Minjo murmured, squinting. “More like death. But also gunsmoke… gasoline…”
Ghost lifted the lantern, the light sweeping a slow arc. What it revealed made their stomachs drop.
It was a crash of two realities.
Part Art Deco sewer, part accident scene from another era.
Pavement over limestone. A bent streetlamp bolted into the underworld like it belonged there.
And a 1929 Ford coupe sat crumpled against it, still dusted in smoke, as if the crash had happened seconds ago. The whole moment looked like it had been plucked out of history and slapped into the sewer’s maintenance corridor.
Dollar bills lay scattered across the stone like dead leaves.
A Tommy gun glinted near the curb.
Plague exhaled, disbelieving. “Please tell me we didn’t just walk onto the set of The Untouchables. If a guy in a black tuxedo pulls a baseball bat, I’m out.”
“I know this,” Echo whispered. She reached down and touched a blood-soaked dollar bill like it might bite her. “We’ve seen this before."
"The Chronal Resonance Viewer…” Minjo nodded, her blurry eyes flicked to the coupe. “The day Monstrum was born.”
Lisa stared at them like they’d all lost their minds. “Excuse me… what?”
Urban legends talk about alligators in the sewer, but a wrecked gangster car from 1929? lol The very cool scene is by Dirty Rat. Wrecked car, bent lightpost, steaming engine, busted headlight, flung bag of money on the ground, Tommy gun, and a newspaper. This is just a wonderful scene. A story in itself. ... I used the Dirty Rat Sewer for the scene too, it was perfect with its Art Deco theme that matched perfectly with the backstory. ...But let's talk about Ghost's awesome outfit by Voiddrip. He is wearing the Fatpack Bonus, with the open shirt and bonus texture. The armor on the legs and arms are separate ontop of the suit. Corporate Knight Core. ...Adding a bit of mystery is the Oya fade tattoo by Lilithe. It comes with lots of options, plain and decorative, upper and lower themes. ....The Lantern is part of the Brassman set from Starlit Endeavor. The lantern projects light, has left and right handed versions, hold aniamtion, and the hud has a wealth of PBR textures. ...Creating the wet look, I used the Shine appliers from Blaxium wet, with Abyssal's Justice Cybertech with BOM cyber lines. The face wet effect is part of the Lelutka hud. And dripping wet hair is Argrace's Natsume.
On him, Ghost:
Outfit: VOIDRIP - Obsidian Nightwarden, fatpack bonus [mesh](Midnight Order)(1500L)
Lantern: Starlit Endeavor - Brassman Lantern [mesh](Midnight Order)(600L)
Tattoo: Lilithe - Oya Tattoos set, Lower [BOM](Midnight Order)(350L)
Shine: ABYSSAL - Wet Version Justice Cybertech With 3d Shine [applier][BOM](499L)
Shine: BLAXIUM - Sweaty Body Shine [applier](325L)
Hair: ARGRACE - Natsume [mesh](300L)
Body: TheShops - [BODY] Athletic Meshbody (Legacy)(m) (1.7.1) [mesh](5000L)
Pose: Poseidon - Ice 3, gacha
Setting:
Car scene: Dirty Rat - The Botched Job [mesh](Midnight Order)(449L)
Scene: Dirty Rat - Sewer [mesh](549L)
BONUS IMAGES: inworld raw shots, hi-res, midday sky :
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