And the singing glass all around him—the dark, dead shards—ignited at once, not with light but with sound. A single, perfect note: the note his brother had hummed the night before the trials, the last sound Leo had heard before walking away.
Leo tore his gaze away. Nine minutes. He swept his helmet lamp across the chamber. No glowing glass. No fragments. Just the black, silent shards embedded in the walls like broken teeth.
He didn't answer. He was counting.
At seven kilometers, his boots touched the floor. ten789
"Descension Control to Leo," crackled the comms. "Final check. Bio-signs?"
For the first three kilometers, the shaft was wide as a cathedral. Stalactites of singing glass glowed faintly amber, vibrating at a frequency he felt in his molars. His suit's audio pickups translated the hum into a low, wordless choir. Stay, they seemed to say. Listen.
Ten. Seven. Nine. The numbers had become his mantra, his heartbeat, his religion. And the singing glass all around him—the dark,
He fired his descent thrusters to slow his fall. Four kilometers. Five. The walls narrowed. The amber turned to blood-red. The singing grew sharp, insistent—not a choir now but a thousand whispered arguments, each one tugging at a different fear.
Not nine minutes. Seven seconds.
He reached for it.
"Oxygen reserve?"
The moment his gloved fingers touched the crystal, the countdown in his helmet changed.
The bottom was not a floor. It was a mirror. Nine minutes
Ten years of drills. Seven kilometers of pure dark. Nine minutes of oxygen buffer once he hit the bottom.
Leo nodded, though no one could see. The platform shuddered. Magnetic clamps released. And he fell.