The Council chamber was silent now—its members dispersed like dying sparks, each returning to their corners of a collapsing world. The last of the arcane light dimmed as the chamber sealed itself once more beneath the city.
Liam stood alone in the corridor for a moment, letting the quiet settle over his thoughts like ash.
Then came footsteps—familiar, steady.
Layla Ackerman appeared beside him, her lab coat still speckled with dust, dark rings under her eyes betraying the weight she carried. She didn't speak at first, just leaned her shoulder gently against the stone wall beside him.
They stood like that for a long breath.
Then Layla broke the silence.
"So," she murmured, "five thousand underground, eight sectors online, crops sprouting in darkness, mana stabilizing circuits… You're making it look like it's working."
Liam gave a humorless smile. "And you're growing edible fungus from mana-charged moss spores. I'd say you're the one keeping people alive."
Layla tilted her head, studying his face—his synthetic eyes, the faint pulse beneath the surface of his skin. "You look exhausted. But not in the way people usually mean it."
"I haven't slept in weeks," he said softly. "My body doesn't need it anymore. My mind does. It just… doesn't get to."
She nodded. "I know the feeling."
He glanced at her. "Leraine's vaults—how bad is it?"
Layla's expression tightened. "I had to bury two assistants last week. A mana surge collapsed one of the access tunnels. We recovered enough samples to continue, but…" Her voice trailed off. "They weren't just workers. They were kids. Barely old enough to remember the surface."
"I'm sorry," Liam said.
Layla shook her head. "We're all losing something. I just hate that it's happening faster than I can patch the holes."
He leaned against the wall beside her, arms crossed. "I thought this would feel like progress. Building something. Saving lives. But every brick we lay feels like it's just stalling the inevitable."
"You're still building," she said. "Most people are just hiding."
Liam gave a bitter laugh. "I'm not even sure what I am anymore. I don't feel hunger. Don't feel sleep. But I feel guilt. Constantly."
Layla looked at him, then down at her hands—slender, callused, stained with serum and soil. "You remember what you said the day we met in the academy?"
He frowned. "I said a lot of things."
"You told me you wanted to build machines to protect people. Not destroy things. Not conquer. Just… protect."
A beat passed. Then Liam said, "And you said you wanted to rewrite what it meant to be human."
Layla smiled faintly. "Seems like we both got our wish. In the worst way."
He looked at her. "Are we still human, Layla?"
She didn't answer right away. Then: "I think we're whatever we had to become… to keep the others human."
Another silence, but this one was softer.
Liam reached into his coat and pulled out a small, flickering crystal. "It's from Subsector Beta. A child gave it to one of the engineers. Said it was 'a light to help you dig up the sky.'"
Layla took the crystal gently, her thumb brushing over its edge. "Then let's keep digging."
They stood there, two people shaped by fire, shadow, and sacrifice, beneath a dying world—and refused, together, to let it end.