The last of the severance rain dried behind them, leaving white scratches across the floor and fresh cuts across nearly every body in the group. Kael wanted the twenty-one away from it before the passage changed its pattern, but the chamber ahead had already begun listening.
Small knots of pale stone covered the walls. Each one tightened whenever a survivor coughed, stumbled, or reached for someone else.
HUM!
The sound passed through the low chamber and made Renn’s count cloth tremble between his burned fingers. He pulled it against his chest and watched the nearest knot close around a dark center.
"Those things noticed us," he said. His throat was still raw from the rooms behind them, so the words came quietly. "They tighten whenever one person helps another."
Orrek shifted the cracked bowl beneath his injured arm. His shoulder had stiffened again, and every careless step pulled pain across his face. "I was hoping they only hated coughing. We could have given them plenty of coughing and moved on."
Jaro made a tired sound through his nose, but the others kept watching the walls. Kael saw three knots tighten toward Orrek at once, following the hands and shoulders that had held people upright through the rain.
Marit walked near the middle with half of Dorran’s pack hanging from her shoulder. The boy’s fingers were too numb to close around the strap. When she adjusted the weight for him, a pale line slipped from the wall and touched the shared leather.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
The strap dropped hard enough to pull both of them sideways. Marit cried out and caught Dorran before his head struck the floor, but her fingers would not release the leather.
"Cut it loose," Vaela said as she hurried toward them. "The room has made the strap heavier, and it will take both shoulders if we keep pulling."
She drew the hooked piece of furnace bone from her sleeve and sawed through the leather. Her wrapped wrist shook badly enough to spoil the first cut. Kael caught the pack from below while she tried again.
CRACK!
The strap broke, and the contents of the pack fell toward the stone.
CLATTER!
Dried root marrow, pressure sap, torn cloth, a bent nail, and one cracked bowl scattered around Dorran’s knees.
Dorran dropped to one knee and reached for the food. Vaela caught the back of his sleeve before his fingers crossed the pale line.
"Leave it for a moment," she said. Her voice softened when he looked at her, hungry and ashamed. "I know you understand the danger. Hunger does not disappear simply because you recognize a trap."
Kael stepped over the scattered scraps and placed himself between Dorran and the wall. Every pale line near the boy swung toward Kael’s back, tightened, and pulled as one.
Orrek bent with a groan and picked up the cracked bowl. "The food can stay where it fell, but I am keeping this. We have broken nearly everything else we owned, and I refuse to lose the only bowl ugly enough to resemble me."
Marit shifted the bowl away from his wounded side and slipped her arm beneath its weight. "Keep your hand on the rim if you must, but let my shoulders carry it until yours stops bleeding."
Orrek accepted the help without releasing the bowl. "Most of what I owned is gone, so I may be unreasonable about the remaining piece. Pull harder if the arm starts shaking."
Renn watched the nearest knots divide between Marit’s supporting arm, Orrek’s hand, and the cracked rim. A tired smile briefly softened his face before he raised the count cloth and guided the next pair around them.
For one breath, the knots stopped moving. Their stone roots pulled loose from the wall together.
SCRAPE!
Their movements no longer matched. One followed Orrek’s injured shoulder. Another tracked the bowl. Three tightened around Renn’s count cloth, while the pale line near Marit trembled between her choice to help Dorran and her fear of losing the food.
Kael watched three lines snap between Marit and Dorran whenever either of them reached for the food.
"Keep speaking while we move," he said. "Change who answers and what you say. Do not let the walls sort us into one pattern."
Several survivors looked at him as if the rain had damaged his mind.
Orrek tucked the bowl against his ribs and tested his bad shoulder. "I can carry useless objects and keep the room confused, although the shoulder may object before we reach the door."
Vaela helped Marit stand and checked the fresh strain beneath Orrek’s wrapping. Her fingers stayed under the cloth while she told him to keep the elbow low and warned Marit where to support the bowl.
A tired laugh caught in one younger man’s damaged throat. He covered his mouth too late.
COUGH!
The nearest knots twitched toward the cough. One line aimed at the young man’s mouth while another remained fixed on his injured throat. They crossed, pulled against each other, and failed to close.
Kael pointed toward the far opening. "Pairs first. Anyone with a free hand carries something useless. Keep your eyes on the person beside you, and speak whenever the walls begin following one action too closely."
Jaro picked up the bent nail and rubbed ash over its iron. "Years below the sorting pits have finally prepared me to carry rubbish with confidence. Keep moving before the room discovers how little the nail matters."
Renn took Dorran’s torn strip of cloth and tied it around his own wrist. "I am carrying this because he cannot feel his hands. The room can misunderstand the reason if it wants."
The twenty-one began moving. Marit kept one arm around Dorran, while another survivor described a meal his mother used to ruin every winter. A woman with blood drying beneath her nose complained about Orrek’s bowl. Jaro told her the bowl had seniority because it had survived more rooms than most officials.
Their voices remained uneven, and some sentences broke under pain while others wandered into hunger, old work, or people they missed. The chamber received no single rhythm from frightened people who had become too tired to sound orderly.
A white line shot from the wall toward Vaela’s mouth. Kael caught it across his forearm.
CRACK!
The line sank into the cuts left by the severance rain. The knots recognized him as the protector and began tightening together, finally certain of what they had found.
Pressure burst inward from every wall.
BOOM!
The floor struck Kael’s legs with enough force to buckle the survivors behind him. Marit held Dorran upright. Renn wrapped both arms around the count cloth. Orrek planted his feet, dropped the bowl over his head like a helmet, and shouted for the rear pair to keep moving.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ HOSTILE PROTOCOL PRESSURE DETECTED: Mercy Noise Classification Backlash
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +1
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▶ AWAITING HOST COMMAND
====================================================================
The new shard came from the pressure pinning Kael’s legs after he intercepted the line meant for Vaela. He sent it into Velocity Movement Authority.
Velocity Movement Authority.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
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▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +1 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 36
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Movement seizure delay reduced.
====================================================================
Heat drove through Kael’s legs like a furnace bar pressed into muscle. The chamber had not released him, yet his right knee moved before its pressure could finish locking the joint. His heel found a narrow crack, his weight settled, and the stone beneath him bowed.
Kael crossed the chamber in three heavy steps.
THUD!
The first footfall knocked the knots near Renn out of line and loosened their pull on his count cloth.
THUD!
The second tore Vaela’s pale line from the wall and snapped it beneath Kael’s heel.
THUD!
His third step carried him to the largest knot beside the exit. Rings of pale stone turned inside it, repeating every cough, laugh, helping hand, and frightened word the chamber had collected.
Kael did not strike the center. He drove his shoulder into the side where three lines had crossed around Marit, Dorran, and Orrek’s bowl.
CRUNCH!
The outer rings folded. White threads burst from the broken stone and wrapped around his damaged hand, tracing the path from his knuckles to his shoulder. Kael twisted them together and drove them back into the opening.
BANG!
The wall split around the knot. Every smaller piece sealed at once, and the pressure dropped from the survivors’ backs.
Marit reached for Dorran’s shoulder, hesitated, and glanced at the dead knots. Dorran took her hand and placed it where she had intended.
CLINK!
Two broken rings clicked uselessly inside the wall.
"They can watch us help each other," Marit said. Her voice shook, although she did not take her hand away. "I am finished pretending we survive by accident."
Dorran flexed his numb fingers around the rescued scraps. "I thought the pack made me a burden before the room touched it. I was going to leave it behind."
Marit tightened her hand on his shoulder. "You can carry it when your fingers return. Until then, let somebody else be useful."
Kael counted the group with Renn before they entered the next passage. Twenty-one people remained. Vaela’s wrist still trembled, Orrek could barely lift his injured arm, and Renn had fresh blood at the corner of his mouth. Dorran carried the rescued food in both numb hands, while Orrek held the cracked bowl as if the entire escape depended on it.
Exhaustion and fear marked every face, but hands still remained on shoulders, packs, and sleeves as the group prepared to move.
Kael turned toward the darkness ahead. A metallic vibration traveled through the floor and faded beneath his boots. It came from far beyond the chamber, where something large had begun pulling against the lower route.
The first distant chain struck before the twenty-one had taken ten more steps.
CLANG!