Close enough to catch me if I fall.
Close enough to ground me every time the memories hit too hard.
And they keep hitting harder now.
The deeper we go—
the more Ascension wakes up inside my head.
Level markers pass beside us.
SUB-3
SUB-5
SUB-7
Each level colder than the last.
Each level quieter.
Until finally—
I hear it.
Children singing.
Soft.
Distant.
My entire body locks instantly.
Clay looks up sharply from below me.
“Hannah?”
The singing echoes faintly through ventilation shafts somewhere beneath us.
A nursery rhyme.
Romanian.
I know the words before my brain even processes them.
Because we used to sing it during behavioral isolation.
The memory slams into me so hard my grip slips.
Clay catches my boot instantly.
“Hannah!”
I suck in a sharp breath.
The shaft spins around me for half a second.
Then stabilizes.
