Leo looked down and saw not his reflection, but a younger version of himself—age ten, the year the选拔 trials had taken his brother. The boy stared up with hollow eyes and whispered, "You left him."
You were never good enough. They chose you because you were expendable. Nine minutes isn't a buffer. It's a countdown.
Ten. Seven. Nine. The numbers had become his mantra, his heartbeat, his religion. ten789
Leo didn't grab the crystal. He opened his suit's sample pouch and let it float inside on its own. Then he fired his ascent thrusters and rose, not looking down, not listening to the boy in the mirror.
"Nine minutes on the mark."
The chamber was called the Descension, and for ten years, Leo had trained for it.
He fired his descent thrusters to slow his fall. Four kilometers. Five. The walls narrowed. The amber turned to blood-red. The singing grew sharp, insistent—not a choir now but a thousand whispered arguments, each one tugging at a different fear. Leo looked down and saw not his reflection,
"Descension Control to Leo," crackled the comms. "Final check. Bio-signs?"
The bottom was not a floor. It was a mirror. Nine minutes isn't a buffer