Kael moved slowly.
Every breath felt deeper.
Every sound sharper.
Every color slightly too vivid—
as if the world had been rewritten
and he'd only just been given the key to read it.
The veins beneath his skin still shimmered with shifting light.
No longer gold.
No longer green.
Something else.
Something alive.
He wasn't sure if the lines were his anymore—
or if they belonged to the bottle.
Or if, now, there was any difference at all.
The chamber behind him dimmed as he stepped out into the broader cavern.
The air here was still.
But not empty.
It hummed with anticipation.
Like the world was waiting.
Then it came—
A whisper in his blood.
A signal not from the bottle.
But near it.
Parallel.
Close.
Kael stopped.
The bottle on his hip was cool.
Still silent.
But something else vibrated in the air—
a residue of thought
brushed against his mind like a familiar breath.
Not a message.
Not a voice.
Just a shape.
He turned toward it.
A narrow passage.
One he hadn't noticed before.
Its mouth shimmered like heat over stone.
Kael stepped through.
The corridor led downward again—
gentle slope, etched floor,
glyphs worn half into dust.
At the end,
a dead-end wall.
But not blank.
Carved into its surface was a shape.
Not exact.
Not clear.
But undeniable.
A bottle.
Not his.
Different structure.
Wider base.
Fractured seal.
And beside it—
A figure.
Tall.
Cloaked.
Face veiled in shadow.
The carving bled faint color.
Not light.
Not paint.
Data.
Dripping upward,
curling across the ceiling like a question never asked.
Kael reached out.
The stone pulsed once beneath his palm.
Then—
A flash.
Not a memory.
Not a vision.
An echo.
"He still breathes."
"Still stirs."
"But not as we do."
"He waits."
Kael's head reeled.
The glyphs along his spine flared.
The bottle on his hip shifted—
just slightly—
emitting a sound not meant for human ears.
A resonance.
But not aimed at him.
A call.
Or a response.
Kael stepped back.
His heart raced.
"What is this place?" he whispered.
On the wall, beneath the carving,
a set of symbols glowed faintly.
His new vision read them easily—
not translation,
but recognition.
Mara's writing.
Scrawled in haste, but deliberate.
"If you made it here—
You're not who you were.
Don't follow him too deep.
Even Witnesses can drown."
Kael exhaled slowly.
Then turned.
The bottle pulsed once.
Like a heartbeat through a wall.
He walked away.
But didn't forget.
Not the carving.
Not the shape.
And not the thing that waited behind it.