They left the square in silence.

  Elian hadn’t spoken since the man vanished. She just kept walking, steady and fast, like if she stopped moving the world might snap. Casen followed, unsure if he was guiding her or being guided himself.

  They cut through forgotten streets and shattered pedestrian tunnels. No trains ran anymore, but the city still pulsed with hums and flickers, remnants of its past self. Eventually, they slipped into an old maintenance corridor beneath the station—the kind of place no scanner dared to look.

  Only once they reached the bottom platform did Elian finally stop.

  “What is this place?” Casen asked.

  “Where my memories echo,” she said softly.

  She stepped onto the platform’s edge and stared down the dark tracks. This place wasn’t just a hiding spot. It was a place that waited.

  The lights buzzed overhead. Far above, the sounds of the city—distant engines, soft alarms, a child crying—echoed like ghosts of their own.

  Casen shifted, uncomfortable. “That guy… the one who waved. He looked like he knew you.”

  “He did,” Elian said. “Or he will. I don’t know which.”

  Casen stared at her. “You’re gonna have to stop talking like that eventually.”

  “I’m not trying to sound cryptic,” she said, kneeling. “I just… don’t have the answers either. Yet.”

  A beat of silence.

  Then she looked up. “Do you trust me?”

  Casen blinked. “What kind of question is that?”

  “The kind you ask when you know things are going to get worse.”

  “…Yeah,” he said. “I trust you. I think I did from the start.”

  She gave him a small, grateful smile.

  They spent the night in a long-abandoned train car on the far end of the tunnel. The seats had been torn out, the walls rusted, but it was safe. The kind of place time had forgotten.

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  Casen wrapped himself in an old curtain, while Elian sat staring at an old map carved into the wall. Her fingers traced its routes like they still mattered.

  “Why this place?” he asked.

  She hesitated.

  “I came here before,” she said. “In a memory. Or maybe it was a fragment. It was snowing. Someone gave me a coin and said, ‘The things that stay aren’t always real.’”

  “Philosophical ghosts now?” Casen muttered.

  She didn’t answer. She just kept tracing.

  In the morning, they climbed out and headed east. They needed supplies, answers, maybe even allies. But mostly they needed to understand how far the cracks in the world had gone.

  The ghost market was their first stop.

  It wasn’t a literal market. Not anymore. But in the underground districts, under flickering glowbulbs and hidden shields, there were always people selling what they shouldn’t have.

  Memories. Echoes. Data scrapes of the dead. All illegal. All priceless.

  Casen led the way. He had a contact there. A fixer named Marrow who trafficked in what the GCA called "ghost-contraband."

  The tunnel entrance was behind a fake vending machine. Casen punched in the right rhythm—two quick taps, pause, three slow—and the panel slid open.

  Elian followed him inside.

  The air inside was damp with cold neon. Market stalls lined the cracked concrete, some covered in tarp, others humming with soft plasma-light. People moved like whispers. Some wore masks. Others didn’t bother.

  They passed a stall selling voice fragments—recordings of ghosts reciting poems or screaming last words. Another sold sensory imprints: the smell of a grandmother’s house, the warmth of a lover’s goodbye.

  Casen found Marrow near the back, hunched over a screen.

  “Casen,” Marrow said, not looking up. “Didn’t expect you back after that mess with the proxy ID. Who’s the girl?”

  “No one you need to know,” Casen said. “I need information.”

  Marrow finally looked up—and froze.

  His eyes locked on Elian.

  Then he stood. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “Why?” Casen asked, instantly alert.

  Marrow leaned in. “Because I’ve seen her. Twice. Once in a memory trace… and once in real-time surveillance footage from a Return anomaly two years ago.”

  Casen stared. “That’s not possible.”

  Marrow ignored him. He looked at Elian. “You died once already. But you didn’t come back right. Did you?”

  Elian’s hands trembled. “I don’t know what I am.”

  Marrow’s tone shifted. “Then figure it out fast. Because if the wrong people catch wind of you, there’s no coming back a second time.”

  Casen stepped forward. “You said memory trace. Do you have it?”

  Marrow nodded slowly, reluctant. “Only a piece. And I want it gone.”

  He handed Casen a data chip. “Don’t plug it into anything networked. Play it once. Burn it.”

  They left quickly.

  Back in the maintenance corridor, they played the chip.

  A figure stood in the middle of a ghost square. Not at noon. At midnight.

  It was Elian. Her hair was longer. Her eyes were different—both blue, not mismatched. And she was bleeding from the hands.

  She turned slowly in the clip, looked directly into the camera, and whispered one word:

  “Run.”

  Then the feed cut out.

  Casen stared. “Is that…?”

  Elian looked pale. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

  The silence pressed in.

  Outside, the city ticked toward noon again.