11:15 AM. Day 16.
Minus seventy.
The service corridor was a frozen throat.
Low ceiling. Bare concrete. The cold here was different — stiller, heavier.
The air pressed against the skin and settled into the lungs and didn't move. The cold accumulated instead of passing through.
The walls crusted with frost, and through a ventilation grate, Jae-min could see the snow canyon outside — ten meters of white, the packed surface carved by wind into ridges as hard as concrete. The taste of mineral and old concrete sat on the tongue, faint beneath the omnipresent copper of frozen blood.
The smell was the same — mineral and old, the reek of a building whose bones were showing.
Single file. No room for anything else.
Ji-yoo walked with one arm over the shoulder of the man beside her, Soulcleaver's shaft braced against her other shoulder. Her breathing had roughened — each exhale a short, hard rasp, the rhythm uneven with every step on feet that had gone past pain into something quieter.
The bruise on her crown had spread, the purple reaching toward her hairline. Her jaw was still set. Her eyes still tracked.
She'd stumbled twice in the first five minutes — her frozen boots finding ice beneath frost, the nerves too dead to warn her before the ground shifted. Both times she caught herself with Soulcleaver's shaft. Both times the pause was shorter than the one before.
The stubbornness was holding. The feet were not.
Alessia walked directly behind Ji-yoo, one gloved hand resting on her back. Counting breaths. Monitoring the rhythm. Her own fingers trembled inside the insulated gloves — the tremor constant, fine-grained, the kind that made a pulse point impossible to hold.
Then she stopped.
The line behind her compressed. Rico turned.
Alessia reached forward and put her hand flat against the back of Ji-yoo's neck. Held it there. Three seconds. Four.
Her jaw tightened. Veins at her temples stood out like cables, and her other hand pressed against the wall because her knees had started to shake.
Ji-yoo's breathing changed. A shift — subtle but unmistakable. The rasp in each exhale smoothed.
The intervals shortened, finding a steadier rhythm. The depth of each inhale increased slightly.
"Her pulse is stabilizing" Alessia declared, her voice flat, stripped to data alone,
"Still compromised. Still strained. But holding" Alessia added, clinical and precise,
She pulled her hand back. Her fingers were trembling inside the gloves. She was listing slightly left, as if the floor had tilted. The cost was immediate.
Through the twin resonance, the thread between Ji-yoo and Jae-min pulled taut — her heartbeat pulsing against his, the rhythm steadier now, the stubborn frequency refusing to drop.
Her heartbeat found his rhythm. Her breathing locked to the cadence of his. The gravitational thread hummed with something fierce and unspoken.
The cascade held for three seconds, four, then faded to its usual low hum. Borrowed rhythm. Borrowed time.
He stepped forward and caught Alessia before she could sag against the wall. His arm wrapped around her waist, steadying her against his side. She was trembling — fine, constant vibrations running through her frame like a plucked string slowly dying.
"I've got you" Jae-min murmured against her hair,
She leaned into him for a moment, her forehead pressing against his shoulder. The crimson at the tips of her ears flared, and her hand found his chest — resting there, feeling his heartbeat through the frozen fabric.
"You shouldn't waste warmth on me" Alessia whispered, but she didn't move,
"This isn't waste" Jae-min whispered,
Rico watched them for a beat, then turned back to the corridor without comment.
Yue's eyes sharpened. The cold-induced blur that had been slowing her perception had thinned.
The informant watched from the edge of the group. Silent since they'd entered the corridor.
"That won't last. Minutes. Maybe more. Depends on what she just did to herself" the informant said, his voice low,
He looked at Ji-yoo.
"You move fast, or she doesn't walk out of here" the informant added, flat,
Jae-min released Alessia slowly, his fingers trailing along her hip before letting go. She straightened — but her ears were still crimson, and she stood closer to him than before.
— • • • —
He reached. The void didn't open cleanly. His hand hung in the air. Nothing.
The void was there — cold and familiar behind his ribs — but the surface resisted. Like pushing against a frozen membrane.
"Open. I need you open" Jae-min thought, the strain grinding behind his sternum.
"The cold has teeth here. Force the aperture" Saem crackled, flat,
Then it gave. A rough, uneven tear. Edges stuttering instead of flowing smooth.
His hand disappeared inside. He pulled. Metal came first — front skis, then chassis, engine block, the whole machine sliding out of nothing onto the frozen concrete with a heavy, mechanical settle.
One snowmobile. Worn. Practical.
Fuel above half. Two seats.
The informant stared at the machine. Then at Jae-min. Then at the empty air where it had come from. He didn't speak for three seconds.
"You're not normal" the informant said quietly,
Jae-min didn't answer.
Rico was already doing the math. Forty-three people. A machine built for two. A time limit measured in minutes.
"I go. You hold" Jae-min commanded, his voice calm,
Rico looked at him. The exchange lasted less than a second.
"Understood" Rico said simply,
Victor. Outside. Holding the perimeter. The radio was dead — cold had killed the battery.
Rico looked at Jennifer. She was already closing her eyes. The mind link hummed — thin, brittle, strained, but holding.
Victor's position came through in fragments. Perimeter secure. No movement on the east flank.
Rico turned to the corridor.
"Everyone stay here. Consolidate in this bay" Rico declared, gruff but warm underneath,
Alessia was leaning against the wall, barely upright.
"Alessia — do what you can" Rico added, his voice softening at the edges,
She nodded once.
Jae-min caught her eye as he moved toward the snowmobile. A small smile — warm, unhurried. Her ears went crimson again. She looked away, the faint curve of her lips the only thing she couldn't hide.
The informant mounted the forward seat. His hands found the controls. His posture was slightly less relaxed than before.
"Then move" the informant said quietly,
He accelerated. The snowmobile pulled forward, skis breaking frost-covered concrete, engine fighting the cold trying to kill it. The corridor fell away behind them.
"Warehouse raid. Shoved it in on impulse. Forgot it existed" Jae-min thought, the memory surfacing through the static of exhaustion.
"Storage is storage. Even forgotten things serve when needed" Saem crackled, flat,
The engine faded behind them, swallowed by the cold and the distance opening between the two halves of a group broken apart by mathematics and thermodynamics.
Ahead, the corridor stretched toward the loading dock. Behind, forty-two people were walking toward the same destination on feet that were failing. The next decision was already forming.