The sweet, rotting smell mingled with the pungent scent of chemicals, like a cold, slippery tongue, licking every exposed inch of Kane's skin. A spore haze, thick as liquid emerald, weighed heavily on the ruins of New York's Greenwich Village, bathing the crumbling brick walls, twisted fire escapes, and overturned car wreckage in an ominous, slow-moving shimmer. Visibility was less than five meters, and every breath felt like swallowing a thick, venomous liquid, a searing sting in his trachea and lungs.

Kane knelt on one knee on a pile of slippery rubble coated in a slimy green fungal carpet. The intense dizziness and the tearing sensation of the passage had not yet fully subsided. The cold touch of his pocket watch pressed against his palm, the crimson numbers on the dial flickering faintly in the thick fog: 70:22:58:01. Time was ticking away, silently and fatally. He forced himself to lift his head, his gaze piercing the impenetrable toxic fog, searching with difficulty for the coordinates in his memory fragments. Right here, right nearby! The half-collapsed newsstand!

Finally, in a relatively clear area amidst the dense fog, a twisted metal frame came into view. Several shattered plexiglass windows jutted into the rubble like monster fangs. The main structure of the newsstand, half-collapsed by a massive precast concrete slab, tilted at a precarious angle, precariously on the verge of collapse. It was the exact spot in his memory!