"Not yet. If you can get to the towers, some elevation might help. And they'll at least be more pleasant. Probably."

Now that the initial shock has passed, Cortana notices more about the landscape through which Sombra is picking their way. It's the same twisted forest from Halo, but the dark, stagnant water is thicker, and Cortana decides not to point out to Sombra that it appears to be blood if she doesn't ask. All around them, the trees seem to pulse, as though they're the branching veins of a massive circulatory system, fed by an equally massive heart.

She ought to find that reassuring, she thinks, more proof that this is just an elaborate hallucination. Instead, she can't put aside the memory of Flood biomass spreading through the entire Covenant holy city, a craft that mimicked the Forerunners' architecture turned into the triumphal stronghold of their greatest foe. Metal disappearing beneath flesh and foulness, the tentacles curling around her chip and into her mind--

I am a timeless chorus. Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting.

"Oh, hell." There's no way Sombra didn't hear that.