The storm had passed, but City Z looked worse for its mercy.

Smoke curled from shattered roofs. Neon signs sputtered, half-dead, bleeding pale colors into the wet streets. Sirens howled from distant blocks, unanswered. The city wasn't healing—it was cauterizing.

Cain led them down into the spillways, beneath rusted grates where the rain poured like liquid glass. His boots struck the water in steady rhythm, each sound echoing back through the labyrinth of tunnels.

No one spoke. Hunter's crossbow was slung but never loose. Susan moved at the edge of every shadow, her figure taut, brittle, as if she were fighting against her own skin. Steve trailed last, fingers dancing nervously across his device, red dots crawling across its display like locusts.

Cain finally stopped at a steel door scarred with scratches and soot. He pressed a hand to it. The surface was cool, damp with condensation. He didn't open it yet. He just stood, listening.

Susan broke the silence first.

"What's behind this one?"

Cain's jaw tightened. "Answers. Or the kind of silence we won't want."

Hunter gave a short nod, pragmatic as ever. "We go in."

Steve muttered, "Sure. Let's just knock on hell's back door, why not." His voice cracked, but no one laughed.

Cain pushed the door. It groaned like something alive, hinges shrieking. The tunnel opened into a chamber carved deep into the city's undergut—a hollow lined with concrete ribs, dripping with condensation.

At the center stood a figure.

Tall. Thin. Wrapped in ragged strips of cloth that clung to its frame as though the city itself had tried to bury it. Its face was covered with a pale mask, blank except for a single slit where a mouth should have been.

The air shifted, as if drawn toward it.

Cain's blade slid free without a word.

The figure didn't move. It only breathed—long, deliberate breaths that scraped the silence raw. Then, it spoke.

"You brought them here."

The voice wasn't male or female. It was layered, like whispers fed through a broken machine.

Cain didn't flinch. "You've been watching."

The masked thing tilted its head. "Watching is too small a word. The city itself shows me. The cracks in its bones. The tremors in its blood."

Susan's hands curled into fists. "Then you know what's coming."

The mask inclined again, a slow bow. "The phantom is no longer testing you. It is feeding. Every street it stains makes the city weaker. Every hour it waits, something old stirs with it."

Hunter spoke low, eyes never leaving the figure. "And what are you in all this?"

The figure took one step closer. The water rippled around its bare feet, though no sound followed. "I am the Remnant. What your wars left behind. What your silence buried."

Cain's grip tightened on his blade. His voice was low, but it carried. "If you're another corpse given teeth, I'll cut you apart before you finish your sermon."

The Remnant's head tilted again, and the slit of a mouth widened—though no smile could be seen. "Try."

The chamber shifted. The walls groaned, pipes rattling, rivulets of water spilling down in sudden torrents. The city itself seemed to exhale, as if the Remnant's presence drew its breath.

Susan staggered a step, clutching her chest. "Cain…"

Her voice was strained, weak. Hunter grabbed her arm, steadying her, but his gaze snapped back to the figure.

Cain stepped forward. Every part of him wanted to strike, to end the thing here. But the air had changed—it was thicker, heavy with something that wasn't just fear. It was memory.

And Cain understood then. This wasn't a simple phantom. This wasn't another scout or beast. This was City Z's rot, given shape.

The Remnant's voice returned, quiet but sharp. "Every city keeps its dead. Yours are louder than most. And they know your names."

Cain moved. Steel whispered.

The figure didn't dodge. It let the blade carve through its side, rending cloth and pale flesh. Black ichor spilled into the water, spreading like veins through the chamber floor.

The Remnant staggered, but its voice never broke. "Strike again. Cut until nothing's left. But what bleeds into the stone won't fade. The city remembers. The city endures."

Cain pulled his blade back, jaw clenched.

Hunter raised his crossbow, but Cain lifted a hand. "Not yet."

The Remnant bent slowly, dragging its fingers through the ichor on the floor, then smeared it across the blank mask. The chamber seemed to pulse in response.

"You will see me again," it said. "In every crack. In every scream. I am not an enemy you can kill. I am what your city has become."

And then, as if swallowed by the walls, it was gone.

The chamber emptied of pressure. The pipes stopped rattling. The water fell still. Only the black ichor remained, staining the runoff with a stench that burned their throats.

For a long moment, none of them spoke.

Steve broke first, voice thin. "So… that's new."

Susan was still pale, her breathing uneven. Hunter kept a hand near his weapon, though his eyes betrayed the calculation already running.

Cain wiped the ichor from his blade, the smear blacker than shadow. His voice was quiet, almost to himself.

"The city remembers."

He looked back at his team. "And that means we have less time than we thought."

Susan finally straightened, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of her wrist. "If that thing's telling the truth," she said, her voice raw, "then every street we walk is already poisoned."

Hunter nodded once, expression carved from stone. "Then we treat the whole city as hostile ground."

Steve shook his head, disbelief still clinging to him. "You don't fight a city. You live in it. You hide. You survive."

Cain slid his blade back into its sheath. The scrape of steel against scabbard echoed like a closing sentence. "No. We don't hide. Not anymore. If the city wants to remember, then we'll remind it what we are."

Cain nodded once. "Move." The team slipped, quiet, into morning streets.