LOGINThe sirens didn't stop.
They followed them across the ridge, through the shattered outskirts of the city, their walls echoing off broken towers and hollow streets like accusations that refused to fade.Aurora slowed first.The glow beneath her skin once blazing, undeniable had dimmed to a faint, irregular pulse. Every few steps she staggered, breath shallow, fingers tightening around Jessica's hand as if letting go might make her dissapear entirely.Jessica felt it.The cost."You don't have to keep walking", she whispered."We can rest".Aurora shook her head. "If i stop now... i might not start again".That was enough.They kept moving.Behind them, smoke curled into the morning sky from where Sector Twelve had collapsed into its own buried secrets. The ground still trembled occasionally, like the earth itself was remembering what had been done to it.Romeo limped a few pThe silence didn't last. It never did. By mid-morning, the city had begun to move again not smoothly, but confidently, but with the tentative urgency of something wounded that refused to lie still. Sirens wailed in distant districts. Smoke rose in thin, uncertain cloumns. People emerged from hiding places they had learned too well, blinking at the unfamiliar light of a world no longer monitored by an invisible hand.Jessica watched it all from the edge of the rooftop, arms wrapped tightly around herself.She left exposed. Not because of the height, or the open sky but because for the first time in years, there was nothing watching back.Aurora sat a few steps away, her kness drawn to her chest. The glow that one surrounded her was gone entirely now. No hum beneath her skin. No warmth radiating from her palms.Just... human. Claire knelt in front of her, checking the small cut along Aurora's temple.
The city did not erupt the way anyone had expected. There were no immediate cheers.No unified uprising.No instant collapse of the systems that had ruled for decades. Instead, there was hesitation. Across the skyline, transports hovered uncertainty, their formation lines dissolving into erratic clusters as pilots waited for commands that never came or came to many at once. Orders contradicted each other. Channels overlapped. Authority fractured in real time.For the first time, the city didn't know who to listen to.Jessica watched it all from the broken overlook, Aurora's weight heavy in her arms. Her glow had faded to a dim, trembling pulse, like the last light of a dying star refusing to go out completely. "She's burning herself out, "Claire said quietly, kneeling beside them. Her voice was steadier than her hands. "That broadcast took more than she had left".Miguel scanned the streets below, jaw tight.
The sirens didn't stop. They followed them across the ridge, through the shattered outskirts of the city, their walls echoing off broken towers and hollow streets like accusations that refused to fade.Aurora slowed first.The glow beneath her skin once blazing, undeniable had dimmed to a faint, irregular pulse. Every few steps she staggered, breath shallow, fingers tightening around Jessica's hand as if letting go might make her dissapear entirely. Jessica felt it. The cost."You don't have to keep walking", she whispered. "We can rest".Aurora shook her head. "If i stop now... i might not start again".That was enough. They kept moving. Behind them, smoke curled into the morning sky from where Sector Twelve had collapsed into its own buried secrets. The ground still trembled occasionally, like the earth itself was remembering what had been done to it. Romeo limped a few p
They ran until the ground stopped shaking. The corridor twisted downward in long, uneven spirals, emergency lights flickering overhead like dying stars. By the time they reached the far end, the roar of collapsing steel had pulled into distant thunder angry, but fading. Then it stopped. Silence fell like a held breath. Jessica stumbled first, her legs finally giving out. She collapsed against the cold wall, dragging Aurora down with her. Miguel dropped beside them moments later, pulling Romeo down carefully, his back sliding against the metal until he hit the floor. No one spoke. They just breathed. Hard. Ragged. Alive. Claire stood a few steps away, hands braced on her knees, eyes fixed on the dark tunnel behind them as if expecting the ruins to chase them. When nothing happened, when the silence remained intact, she slowly sank to the floor. "It'
The Director pressed his thumb down.The device in his hand pulse once low, resonant like a heartbeat echoing through the vault.Immediately, alarms screamed to life.Red lights flooded the chamber as the pods along the walls hissed, their seals unlocking in staggered succession. Glass panels slide aside with mechanical precision, releasing clouds of cold vapor that curled along the floor like something alive.Jessica's breath caught. "Aurora...:"I know", Aurora said softly. The first figure stepped out of a pod.Then another. And another. They moved stiffly, as if the concept of motion itself was unfamiliar. Their eyes glowed faintly some blue, some amber, some an unsettling white. Each one bore fragments of humanity stitched together with something else: reinforced spines, synthetic veins, markings etched beneath translucent skin.Claire backed away slowly. "They're like her"."N
The descent was not a fall it was a controlled surrender. The emergency lift screamed as it dropped through the collapsing shaft, cables snapping above them like gunfire. Dust and debris rained down in choking waves, sparks flashing like dying stars in the dark.Jessica braced herself over Romeo, one arm around his shoulders, the other gripping the rail with white-knuckled desperation. Miguel stood planted beside her, jaw clenched, blood streaking his temple as he fought the violent sway of the lift. Claire crouched low, fingers pressed to the metal floor, whispering something under her breath prayer or memory, no and could tell.Aurora stood upright. Unmoving. Unafraid.Her faint glow pulsed softly, illuminating the cracked walls as the the lift plunged deeper beneath Sector Twelve beneath everything they thought they knew. ThenImpact. The lift slammed into the bottom platform with a thunderous c







