Xander's breath caught as the circuitry on the wall pulsed again—this time in sync with his heartbeat. His hand hovered inches from the panel, but he didn't touch it. He could feel it, though—feel the code beneath the surface like a whisper buried beneath stone.
He turned to Lyra, whose eyes were narrowed, her fingers dancing near her holstered sparkblade.
"You saw that, right?" he muttered.
"Yeah," she said, voice tight. "And I don't like it. That's not just tech... that's something old. Something... alive."
The corridor behind them moaned again, air pressure shifting as if something massive had exhaled. For a split second, Xander swore he saw a shape shimmer in the corner of his vision—a figure outlined in static, humanoid but broken, fragmented like corrupted data.
He spun, but nothing was there.
"No way out but forward," he said, mostly to steady himself.
They stepped into the chamber.
The walls inside were metallic but riddled with ancient, glowing glyphs—some digital, others etched like runes. The architecture shifted from clean cybernetic lines to more arcane formations the deeper they went. It felt like walking into the throat of something long-dead, half-machine and half-magic.
In the center stood a pillar of light, swirling in fragments of corrupted code, violet and crimson hues dancing through the air like embers. And at the base of it, floating just above the ground, was a single obsidian shard—irregular, pulsing faintly.
Lyra stepped closer, cautious. "Is that a shard of… spellcode?"
"Looks like it," Xander replied. "But it's... twisted."
He reached out, but Lyra grabbed his wrist.
"Wait. Are you sure? If that thing's corrupted, it could hijack your interface, or worse."
Xander paused. But the shard called to him, a deep pull in his veins like gravity—but not physical. Spiritual. As if it recognized him.
"I need to know what it is."
Slowly, he placed his hand beneath it.
A whisper cut through his mind.
> —We see you, Weaver of Ghosts—
His vision fractured. Thousands of images stuttered across his vision: cities submerged in darkness, skies filled with screaming code, machines bleeding ash. And in the center of it all—a man with white eyes and a mouth stitched shut, arms raised in triumph as a thousand souls burned in rings around him.
Then darkness.
Xander collapsed.
---
He came to seconds later, Lyra shaking him violently.
"You were convulsing!" she hissed. "What the hell did you see?"
Xander sat up slowly. His veins still buzzed. "A warning… or a memory. Something from the code. Something old."
Lyra handed him a bottle of electrolytes. "You're bleeding from your ear."
Xander wiped it away. "I think… I absorbed something. Like the code recognized me. It called me the 'Weaver of Ghosts.'"
Lyra's eyes widened. "That's not just a nickname. That's a title. A mantle."
He stared at the shard—it had gone dim. Dead. Whatever power it had was now part of him. He could feel it lingering in his fingertips, behind his eyes, deep in the marrow of his spine.
And something else… a new ability unlocking.
> Spellcode Override: The power to rewrite corrupted or foreign spellcode structures on sight—instinctively and permanently. No more trial. No more error.
It was risky. Dangerous. But it was him now.
Suddenly, their comms crackled to life.
> "—Thorne's Echo Division has moved to Sector Delta—"
> "—An artifact was taken from containment. Unknown operatives seen. All agents converge—"
Xander's blood chilled.
"They're tracking the shard," he said. "Or us."
Lyra cursed. "We need to move. They'll lock this whole under-sector down."
As they sprinted back the way they came, the walls shuddered. Distant screams echoed—metallic, not human. The corridors warped, the tech itself groaning as if resisting something crawling through its circuits.
Halfway to the surface, a section of the corridor shut with a slam of mechanical arms. Xander scanned for an override node, but it was melted—sabotaged.
"We're locked in," he said. "But there's a maintenance tunnel about 50 feet from here."
They hurried, but Xander stopped dead in his tracks.
Ahead, standing in the glow of flickering lights, was a figure.
Tall. Clad in charcoal armor with crimson etchings, his face half-shrouded by a mask of segmented metal and bone. His presence was cold, not from temperature—but from the absence of life.
Lyra drew her weapon, tense.
"Who the hell is that?" she whispered.
The man's voice was low and laced with distortion.
> "Return what you've stolen, Croft."
Xander blinked. "How do you know my name?"
The man didn't answer. He raised a hand. Shadows spilled from his fingers like ink, twisting into weaponized forms—spears, tendrils, fragments of broken blades.
Xander activated his interface. "Run."
They bolted for the side passage. The shadow weapons exploded behind them, fracturing the walls. One spear grazed Lyra's leg—she hissed in pain but kept moving.
Xander reached back, his new override power glowing in his palm.
He focused.
The spear fragments dissolved—unwritten from the air itself.
> Override successful. Shadowcode destabilized.
The figure paused, watching them flee—but didn't pursue.
"Run, little ghostweaver," he murmured.
---
They emerged into a decompression chamber minutes later, panting, bleeding, but alive.
Xander slammed the door shut, and the system sealed.
He turned to Lyra.
"That wasn't just any agent. That was one of Thorne's top enforcers. A Shade-class."
Lyra wiped blood from her forehead. "You sure?"
"I could feel it. The same presence from the vision I saw. The same code signature. They're not just hunting the shard. They're hunting anyone it chooses."
She nodded slowly. "And it chose you."
Xander leaned back against the wall, the reality sinking in like a black tide.
He wasn't just caught up in something.
He was marked by it.
The echoes of something long buried were rising—and now, they were watching.
> And somewhere, in the dark, Ralph Thorne smile