CHAPTER 184: CHAPTER 184: FRACTURED POWER

The chamber still hummed with the echo of what had just unfolded. Lin stood in the middle of the ruined platform, his chest heaving, his knuckles bloodied, and the copper taste of rage heavy in his mouth. The corpse of the failed clone — twisted, broken, and finally silenced — lay at his feet, yet its presence lingered in the air like smoke that refused to dissipate.

Keller stood to one side, holding Min-joon upright. The boy’s eyes were wide, unfocused, darting between Lin and the shadows along the walls. He had screamed during the final moments of the fight, and now his voice was gone, reduced to small rasping gasps.

But it was Lin’s silence that unsettled the room more than anything else. He didn’t move for what felt like minutes, the only sound the slow drip of blood from his hand onto the cold steel floor.

Finally, Keller broke the tension.

"You’re bleeding." His voice was calm but strained, like a rope about to snap.

Lin didn’t respond. He simply flexed his hand, letting the blood smear across his palm, and then wiped it against his shirt as if it were nothing. His eyes remained locked on the broken reflection of himself sprawled lifeless nearby.

"That thing..." Keller began, his jaw tightening, "...was you."

Lin turned then, his gaze sharp and unblinking. For an instant, Keller thought he saw something monstrous flicker behind his friend’s eyes — not just exhaustion, not just grief, but a kind of raw hunger that hadn’t been there before.

"It wasn’t me," Lin said finally. His voice was low, deliberate. "It was what Jin wanted me to become."

The words should have offered reassurance. But Keller’s gut twisted, because he wasn’t sure if Lin believed them himself.

The walls around them groaned suddenly, a mechanical vibration rolling through the chamber. Above, red lights began to spin, their glow cutting the darkness into jagged, bleeding shapes.

Min-joon flinched violently, clawing at Keller’s arm. "It’s— it’s starting again—! They’re watching—he’s watching—" His words dissolved into incoherent fragments.

Lin’s head snapped upward. The noise wasn’t just an alarm. It was movement. Heavy machinery was activating above them, deep within the bones of the underground complex.

"Move," Lin ordered, his voice sharper now, the moment of stillness gone.

Keller half-dragged Min-joon as Lin pushed forward, crossing the platform toward an exit hatch revealed by the shifting lights. The smell of oil and burning metal filled the chamber as mechanisms came to life around them.

The hatch opened into a descending passage — narrow, steep, and vibrating with the pulse of machinery. The deeper they went, the hotter the air became, like stepping into the lungs of some great beast.

Keller grimaced. "We’re going down again? Thought we were getting out."

"There is no up," Lin muttered without looking back. "Not yet."

The passage eventually spat them into another vast chamber, but this one was different — not a place of combat or containment, but of design. Towering vats lined the walls, filled with a viscous, glowing liquid. Inside each, shadowy forms floated, half-formed bodies suspended in eerie stillness. Some were malformed, others terrifyingly close to human.

Min-joon choked when he saw them. "No—no, no, no—" He buried his face against Keller’s chest, refusing to look.

Keller’s skin crawled as he forced himself to study them. Some of the figures had Lin’s jawline. Others had his eyes. One, horribly, had Jin’s smile.

"Goddamn," Keller whispered. "How many of these did he make?"

Lin stepped closer to the nearest vat, his expression unreadable. He placed his palm against the glass, watching the faint outline of a face that could have been his own stir slightly within the fluid.

"Too many," he said. "Enough to replace me a thousand times if he wanted."

Something in his tone made Keller shiver. It wasn’t just anger. There was a pull, a fascination, as though Lin couldn’t look away — as though part of him recognized kinship in the monsters floating before him.

"Hey," Keller said firmly, grabbing his shoulder. "That’s not you. You hear me? Whatever’s in there, whatever he tried to build—it’s not you."

Lin finally looked at him. His eyes burned with something Keller couldn’t name, a fragile balance between defiance and temptation.

The chamber shook again, and suddenly, one of the vats cracked. Fluid hissed out, splattering onto the floor with a caustic sizzle. Inside, the figure twitched violently, its hand pressing against the glass.

Keller pulled Min-joon back. "We need to move. Now."

But Lin didn’t step away. He lingered for one second too long, watching the malformed reflection of himself pounding weakly at the glass.

Only when the vat began to splinter did he finally turn. "Go."

They sprinted across the chamber as the vat exploded behind them, releasing a mass of half-formed flesh that screeched in a soundless wail. Lin didn’t even glance back. His focus was forward — toward the exit ahead.

The corridor that followed was narrow, almost suffocating, with walls that seemed to breathe with the vibration of machines. Pipes rattled overhead, leaking steam that hissed like whispers. Min-joon was shaking so violently Keller feared he’d collapse.

"Lin," Keller called, his voice echoing in the steel throat of the passage. "What’s the plan? We can’t keep running blind."

Lin slowed, just enough to turn his head. "We don’t run. Not anymore. Jin wanted me to see this place. To see them. He thinks it’ll break me."

Keller studied his face, searching for cracks. "And will it?"

Lin didn’t answer. His silence stretched like wire about to snap. Finally, he said, "It won’t break me. It’ll break him."

They emerged into a circular chamber, its center dominated by a massive console of pulsating lights and shifting panels. Above, cables hung like the roots of a great tree, all feeding into a central pillar that stretched into the unseen heights above.

At the base of the pillar was a screen. And on it, Jin’s face flickered into being.

He looked calm, amused, as though he had been waiting all along. His voice crackled through the chamber, smooth and venomous.

"You killed him," Jin said. "Your shadow. Your reflection. Tell me, Lin — how did it feel?"

Lin’s fists clenched. "Shut up."

But Jin only smiled wider. "Did it feel like freedom? Or did it feel like home? Because that rage — that violence — it’s mine. I gave it to you. And every time you use it, you crawl closer to me."

Keller swore under his breath, ready to smash the console. But Lin stepped forward, his voice steady.

"You think you built me," he said. "But you don’t own me. I’ll burn this place, and every twisted dream you’ve put inside it."

Jin tilted his head, feigning curiosity. "And when you do... what will be left of you, Lin, except the fire I gave you to begin with?"

The screen went dark, leaving only the hum of the machines.

Keller glanced at Lin. His face was expressionless, but his hands trembled slightly at his sides.

Min-joon whispered hoarsely, "He’s... he’s right here. He never left. He’s inside us."

Lin closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, before answering. "Then we tear him out. Piece by piece."

He opened them again, and for the first time, Keller saw not just defiance but something colder, sharper — a fracture running deep, a dangerous power building beneath his skin.

The chamber lights flared. Alarms screamed again. The pillar at the center began to rise, splitting apart to reveal something vast and mechanical stirring within.

Lin didn’t flinch. He raised his bloodied hand, his voice calm in the chaos.

"This is where it ends."