The morning air was unnaturally still. Trench and Reyes stood at the edge of the wreckage where the fire station once stood, their breaths visible in the chill. The town's twisted architecture had mostly returned to its original state, but subtle anomalies—a door where none should be, a flicker of light in an empty window—remained.
"We need to report this," Reyes said, breaking the silence. She gestured toward the charred remains of the fire engine, now a blackened husk. "The Bureau has to know what happened here."
Trench nodded, but his gaze remained fixed on the town. Something gnawed at the edges of his mind, a sensation both familiar and elusive. "This isn't over," he said quietly. "That thing—the Echo—it wasn't destroyed."
Reyes frowned. "What are you talking about? It imploded. We saw it."
"No," Trench said, shaking his head. "We disrupted it. Forced it to retreat. But whatever it's connected to, it's still out there. And it's not done with us."
Reyes opened her mouth to argue but hesitated. She had learned to trust Trench's instincts, even when they didn't make sense. "So what do we do?"
"We dig," Trench said, his voice firm. "The Echo is tied to something bigger. Northmoor's message—my memories—they're part of it. We need to find out what the Bureau's been hiding."
Reyes crossed her arms. "You're suggesting going off-mission."
"I'm suggesting we find the truth," Trench countered. "Because if we don't, this thing will come back. And next time, we might not be able to stop it."
Reyes stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. "Alright. Where do we start?"
Trench's expression darkened. "The Bureau Archives. If there's any record of this—of me encountering an Echo before—it'll be there."
As they turned toward the car, the town behind them seemed to exhale, its unnatural stillness giving way to a faint breeze. But Trench couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, that the Echo's presence lingered just beyond sight.
And in the depths of his mind, the fractured memories stirred, waiting to be uncovered.