The dragging sound had changed by the time they crept closer, less a scrape now and more a low, constant groan, like something pushing hard against resistance it fully expected to win against.
Jin motioned with two fingers and Echo dropped lower beside him, both of them keeping to the deeper shadow along the storefronts, boots careful against broken pavement. Neither of them spoke. Even Echo, who always had something to say no matter the situation, had gone completely silent, and that alone told Jin more than any warning could have.
The street ahead had changed since Jin last looked at it properly, cracks he was fairly certain hadn't been there minutes ago now webbing out across the asphalt in every direction, pale threads of green already visible inside a few of them even from this distance.
They reached the mouth of a narrow side street and stopped.
