CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE — THE FREEWAY TUNNEL
The group sprinted across cracked ground, boots crunching over shards of glass and gravel as the hum of the forming Resonance rose behind them. The horizon shifted like liquid metal—but they kept running.
“HOW ARE WE ALREADY DOING CARDIO!?” Cornball wheezed.
“Shut up and MOVE!” Mewo yelled, dragging him by the hoodie.
Toady pointed ahead.
“There! The freeway!”
Rusting highway signs jutted from the landscape, half-swallowed by sand. A collapsed overpass angled downward—an open fracture in the earth.
Beneath it, a dark maw yawned.
The freeway tunnel.
Gebrix pushed Goober forward.
“In! Now!”
They scrambled inside.
The temperature dropped instantly, the outside world muffled behind concrete and dust.
Shira flicked on a flashlight.
Norther caught his breath against a broken pillar.
Yoshi checked on everyone, steady as always.
Curator stayed closest to the opening, watching the shimmering distortion ripple across the horizon.
“It’s moving slower now,” Curator whispered. “The tunnel walls are blocking the energy pattern.”
Norther nodded.
“Concrete density. It can’t sense our emotional field clearly in here.”
“Good,” Toady muttered. “We breathe. We plan.”
The group settled into the vast, empty tunnel—an old underpass littered with abandoned cars, graffiti, and collapsed sections of ceiling.
For the first time since fleeing Haven South, they had space to think.
