The cold floor hit Thomas’s bare feet like a slap, chasing away the last traces of sleep and the lingering weight of that voice. He didn’t have time to unpack it—not with boots stomping through the aisles and Delvers yelling at anyone still horizontal.

  He dropped from the bunk, grabbed his uniform from where he’d slung it the night before, and pulled it on quickly. The fabric was stiff from being new, but the fit was precise, clean. The ID band on his left arm synced the moment the cuff sealed around it, pulsing faintly violet as his Core hummed under his skin.

  Brick was still wrestling with his pant leg like it was a wild animal.

  “You’d think pants wouldn’t fight back,” Brick muttered, hopping on one foot. “But nope. Always with the resistance.”

  Thomas ignored him and tightened his boots.

  A Delver marched down the center of the barracks, slamming a nightstick against bunks as he passed.

  “Outside. Line up. Now!”

  They moved. The recruits scrambled into the corridor and up onto the outer deck. The wind hit them immediately—wet, sharp, and full of salt. The D-Ring stretched out around them like a floating prison of rust and purpose. Narrow walkways. Massive chains bolted to old ship hulls. Pressure towers and sensor pylons rising like bones from the sea.

  Keller waited for them at the edge of a loading platform, hands behind his back, gaze locked on the far end of the horizon where the water met the clouds.

  “You were told what to expect. Day one, stabilization and sync training,” he said, turning to face them. “We’re going to test your Domain response, assess how your body reacts to simulated pressure spikes, and teach you how to channel without frying your brain.”

  He paced in front of them, boots thudding against the deck.

  “You’ll also be evaluated on situational awareness, physical conditioning, and group cohesion. No one cares how special your Domain is if you can’t move, think, and function with others. We lose more idiots to panic than monsters.”

  A recruit coughed something sarcastic behind Thomas. One of the Delvers flanking Keller stepped forward and smacked the guy in the chest with the butt of a rifle, knocking the wind out of him.

  No one laughed.

  Keller continued like it hadn’t happened.

  “Day two will be combat-focused. That means underwater movement, pressure fights, and Domain application under duress. We’ll see what you’re good at. We’ll also see how badly you break.”

  Thomas felt Brick shift beside him.

  “I think I already broke a little,” Brick whispered. “Mentally. Emotionally. Somewhere in the spine.”

  “Day three,” Keller went on, “you’re dropped into a sim zone based on your performance. Full live-pressure feedback. You’re either cleared for contract tier or pulled from rotation. This is your filter. Your proving ground.”

  He pointed toward the large blast doors ahead of them. They hissed open slowly, revealing a tunnel that led into the belly of one of the larger ships welded into the ring.

  “Inside. You’ve got ten minutes to make it to Facility Twelve. First assessment begins there. If you get lost—tough. Adapt or drown.”

  The recruits didn’t hesitate.

  Thomas fell into step near the middle of the group as they moved into the tunnel. The metal underfoot rattled with every step. Lights flickered overhead. Ahead, deeper in the ring, a soft humming sound started to build—a vibration that wasn’t mechanical.

  ---

  They went deeper.

  The tunnel curved downward like a ribcage, narrowing with every switchback. The walls began to sweat condensation. The lights dimmed until they were pulsing in slow intervals, like the flicker of a distant heartbeat—or something pretending to be one.

  The pressure built.

  Not physical—**psychic**. Like being watched through walls. Like being measured and slowly found lacking.

  And then the speakers cracked to life.

  “START RUNNING!”

  It wasn’t just a command—it was a detonation.

  Panic exploded around Thomas. Someone screamed behind him. Another recruit bolted forward, boots skidding. A third dropped to their knees mid-sprint, clutching their head.

  He felt it too.

  Something was happening—not to his body, but to his **Core**. The Lumen side spiked in panic. The Abyssal half pulled inward, dark and still, like an animal watching a fire from behind glass.

  All around him, people broke.

  One girl curled into the corner, muttering. A tall kid tripped over himself, glowing faint blue around the collarbone. His Core had started to sync with something—something _wrong_.

  Thomas gritted his teeth and kept moving. Brick, somehow, was not only still upright—he was carrying two people. One on each shoulder, their limbs dangling.

  “You good?” Thomas asked, his voice low.

  Brick didn’t stop. “I mean, I’m having weird chest feelings and my eyeballs feel too big for my skull, but I think that’s normal.”

  Thomas didn’t respond.

  He looked over his shoulder. Behind them, one girl with a tight braid and scarred knuckles moved just as steadily—face unreadable, eyes focused forward.

  Only the three of them weren’t cracking.

  When they reached the end of the tunnel, a sudden _snap_ in the air marked the pressure drop. The door sealed shut behind them. For a moment, everyone gasped. Not because the air was thin—but because it suddenly wasn’t **heavy** anymore.

  A Delver instructor stood waiting at the front of the chamber. Her uniform was worn, plated, and reinforced with pressure seals. A sigil pulsed just below her collar—a glowing red Current Domain rune.

  “You all felt that?” she asked. “Good.”

  She let the silence stretch.

  “What you just experienced was a synthetic pressure broadcast—simulated sync feedback from a known threat-class entity.”

  A hologram ignited in the center of the room, crackling to life. The creature displayed was massive, eel-like, with a skull-ringed maw and long translucent fins that curled like jellyfish tendrils. Its eyes were too wide, too human.

  The name scrawled across the base in bold red:

  TYROSK, THE GLAREMAW

  Classification: TRENCHSEER-CLASS

  Gasps rippled through the group.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Someone whispered, “That was real?”

  The instructor nodded. “Recorded pressure signature from a Trenchseer-class monster encountered last year off the Mid-Atlantic Rift.”

  She paced in front of the recruits.

  “Let me make something clear. That wasn’t fear. That wasn’t atmosphere. That was your Core reacting to a pressure frequency far **above your classification.** Every Delver feels it. It’s hardwired. It keeps you alive. If your Core locks up when it senses something stronger than you, it’s telling you: _run._”

  She tapped the holo again. “Trenchseer-class is two levels above Tidewalker. You engage that? You die. You _feel_ that? You move.”

  Thomas could still feel the residue of it clinging to his spine—like something had grabbed the back of his brain and whispered without words.

  The instructor let the projection vanish. Another Delver stepped up—a man with sea-scarred hands and a Reef emblem etched in glowing green across his forearm.

  “Next is Domain training. You’ve all got one. Some of you might even have two.”

  Eyes flicked to Thomas briefly.

  “Doesn’t matter what it is. Brine, Current, Reef, Lumen, Abyss, Fathom—it’s all the same in principle.”

  He raised his hand and summoned a bloom of glowing seaweed-like threads across the floor.

  “Your Domain isn’t a weapon you fire. It’s an _appendage._ It’s part of your Core, which means it’s part of you. If you treat it like magic, you’ll die. If you treat it like instinct, you’ll survive.”

  He closed his hand. The threads curled back and vanished into the floor.

  “In the next room, you’ll be tested for baseline sync compatibility. If your Core doesn’t trust you, it won’t work. And if it doesn’t work, you don’t walk out of here with a contract clearance.”

  He looked over them, his voice level.

  “Welcome to sync training. Try not to explode.”

  ---

  A wide circular ring marked the center of the room, carved with old-world markings that had long since lost their origin but still hummed with synced resonance. The walls were lined with reinforced observation panels, instructors sitting behind them like doctors in a trauma ward.

  No music. No prompts. Just a low, pulsing tone in the floor and the soft hiss of distant vents.

  “All right, listen up,” one of the Delvers barked. “You’re going in one by one. When you step on the platform, your Core will sync to the ring. We’ll monitor response, surge potential, and control.”

  She stepped forward, hands behind her back.

  “Reminder: your Domain is not a trick. Not a parlor act. It’s an extension of you. You don’t activate it by pressing buttons or reciting names. You _use_ it. Like a fist. Like a scream. Like instinct.”

  Someone in the group shifted nervously.

  “If you push too hard, your Core _will_ backlash. Expect migraines, nerve flare, bleeding from the eyes, ears, or lungs—maybe all three. If your Core desyncs entirely, we’ll fish what’s left of your mind out of your skull and log you as a cautionary tale.”

  Brick raised a hand. “Wait—so, like, how do I _not_ do that?”

  The instructor blinked. “Control. Self-awareness. Not being an idiot.”

  Brick gave her two thumbs up. “Perfect. That’s not terrifying at all.”

  Thomas let out a breath and rolled his shoulders. His Core pulsed faintly beneath his sternum—Lumen jittery, quick. Abyss still cold, waiting.

  One by one, the recruits were called forward.

  The first girl tried too hard. Her Domain—Reef—responded with a burst of regeneration so intense she collapsed on the spot, her skin blistering with uncontrolled tissue growth. They dragged her off unconscious, still glowing faint green.

  A boy with Brine managed to rot a metal plate underfoot before his nose exploded with blood. He stumbled off, half-blind, muttering nonsense.

  Then they called, “Brick Smith.”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” Brick muttered.

  He jogged to the center of the ring, cracking his neck. The glow in his Core ignited the moment he stepped inside—deep, blue, and heavy. His shoulders squared. The light bled down his arms like ink through cloth.

  “Fathom Domain,” one of the instructors murmured. “Let’s see if he figures it out.”

  Brick exhaled once. Then clenched both fists and slammed them together in front of his chest.

  The _entire ring_ shuddered.

  A pulse of invisible force rippled from his body, warping the air. The ground beneath his feet cracked outward like he’d just dropped the weight of the ocean onto the floor. Every bolt on the floor rang with strain.

  Brick blinked. “Oh wow. That felt _awesome._ I think I flexed the concept of gravity.”

  One of the instructors cursed and adjusted his readings. “Jesus. That sync rate’s absurd. Kid’s a natural.”

  Brick returned to the line still glowing, his shirt stretched tight across one shoulder like it was scared of his biceps.

  “Your turn,” someone called.

  Thomas stepped forward.

  He wasn’t nervous, exactly. But something in him felt... tight.

  He entered the ring.

  Lumen responded first. A flicker of golden light trailed his breath. Sparks ran down his arms like static trying to find a way out.

  He remembered what the instructor said.

  _Instinct._

  He focused—not on power, but on clarity. On sensation. On thought sharpened to a point.

  And **Neural Bloom** surged to life.

  The world cracked open.

  Time stretched. The pulse of the lights slowed. He could hear every heartbeat in the room. Every breath. He could count the blink of the nearest observer’s eyes.

  But then it _kept going_.

  His Core wasn’t stopping.

  His thoughts raced faster and faster, spinning out of sync. His limbs twitched, then locked. His mouth dried out instantly. He could feel blood pooling behind his eyes.

  “Shit,” someone said. “He's overclocking—”

  Thomas tried to kill the sync, but the Core didn’t listen.

  Pain lanced through his head. His left arm went numb. His vision split into double, then triple. He felt a trickle of warmth on his upper lip and realized he was **bleeding from his nose and ears**.

  Then something clicked in his brain—a thread of will—and Lumen _snapped_ back into control. The skill deactivated. The light died.

  He dropped to one knee, coughing.

  “Recovery chair. Now,” an instructor barked.

  Thomas stumbled off the ring. Someone handed him a cold pack. Another took a sample of his blood to check for neural damage.

  He waved them off and wiped his face.

  “It worked,” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” the instructor said. “But you almost burned out your damn brain. You run that skill for more than ten seconds at this level, and we’ll be shipping your IQ to the reef.”

  He nodded. He understood.

  Then the next name was called.

  “Elira Voss.”

  Thomas looked up. The girl with the braid. Scarred hands. Unreadable eyes. She stepped onto the platform without a word.

  Her Core lit up in absolute silence.

  No glow. No flares. Just a pulse that made every Delver in the room stop what they were doing.

  “Abyss Domain,” someone whispered.

  “Let’s see if she breaks.”

  But she didn’t.

  Her presence sank like a stone into the room. The sync lights dimmed as her Core flexed—gentle but massive. Like a trench opening beneath their feet.

  A shadow passed over her skin, briefly. Her eyes flickered purple-black.

  Then it was gone.

  No blood. No flailing. No screams.

  The Delver monitoring her just stared. “Perfect sync. Fully compliant. No mental degradation.”

  Brick leaned toward Thomas, whispering, “I think I’m in love. That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Thomas didn’t answer.

  He was still watching Elira walk back to the line.

  She met his eyes for a split second.

  And **her Abyss had listened.**

  His hadn’t.

  ----

  The mess hall was as bleak as expected—dim lights, steel tables, trays of beige mystery mash steaming under flickering heat lamps. The food smelled like it had been cooked in a pressure cooker alongside regret and recycled protein bars.

  Thomas dropped his tray down at the far end of a table, well away from the clusters of other recruits. No one invited them over. No one wanted to sit nearby. Understandable, really.

  He’d nearly cooked his own brain during Domain training, and Brick had broken the training platform with his first step.

  They weren’t the most approachable pair.

  Brick slid into the seat across from him with a massive tray piled with gray-brown glop and three protein cubes stacked like bricks.

  “Man,” Brick said, stabbing one with a fork, “this stuff’s got the texture of drywall, but like… comforting drywall, you know?”

  Thomas didn’t answer right away. He poked at his own tray and forced himself to chew something that was allegedly meat.

  A group of recruits near the far wall whispered and glanced their way. One of them pointed. None of them came close.

  Brick didn’t seem to notice. Or care.

  “You crushed that sync trial, Tom,” Brick said through a mouthful. “Well, you almost died, but it was _awesome._ You lit up like a deep-sea beacon.”

  Thomas sighed. “Please stop calling me Tom.”

  “What? You don’t like Tom?”

  “It’s Thomas.”

  Brick leaned in, as if this were some serious, philosophical discussion. “Nah. You’re totally a Tom. You’ve got Tom energy.”

  Thomas gave him a long, exhausted look. “What does that even mean?”

  Brick grinned. “Means you’ve got that grumpy but secretly cool vibe. Like a guy who says ‘don’t talk to me’ and then saves someone’s life two minutes later.”

  “Still not my name.”

  Brick waved him off. “Names are flexible, Tom.”

  They ate in silence for a bit, surrounded by the hum of conversation no one invited them into. A few recruits left early. Others glanced their way and avoided eye contact.

  Thomas didn’t care. He’d done what he was supposed to do. His Core worked—even if it almost fried his nervous system in the process. Lumen was responsive. He could work with that.

  But Abyss hadn’t stirred at all.

  Not a flicker.

  He thought of Elira, the braided girl who’d walked into the center ring and made Abyss kneel like it was a loyal dog. No flares, no backlash, just that quiet trench-deep control.

  His hadn’t even blinked.

  Eventually, lights dimmed across the facility. Curfew.

  The barracks were mostly quiet when they returned. Recruits were already in bed, pretending to be asleep before the fridge and the brain-scrambler walked in.

  Thomas climbed into his top bunk. Brick tossed his duffel down and practically dropped into his bottom bunk, which groaned under the sudden weight.

  The lights clicked off. Darkness settled.

  “Tom?”

  Thomas rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “What?”

  “You think we’ll get partnered up for combat day?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  Thomas sighed.

  There was a long pause. Just the sound of the ocean breathing against the D-Ring’s hull, a low and endless pressure behind everything.

  Then Brick spoke again, softer this time. “Glad I met you, Tom.”

  Thomas didn’t respond. But the corner of his mouth twitched—just a little—into something dangerously close to a smile.

  “Night, Brick.”

  “Night, buddy.”