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103: Through the Veil
Terakhir Diperbarui:
2025-04-13 23:24:44
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Broken Vows, New Promises 104: The Edge of the End
Aurora’s POVThe rain whispered against the windows, a soft, ceaseless rhythm that mirrored the storm churning inside me. I stood in the war room beside Damien, watching the digital map shift with red markers and lines of data streaming across the monitors. It felt surreal, how the world outside could remain untouched—silent and calm—while ours spiraled toward something that felt inevitable.We hadn’t spoken much since Romania. Since Daemon.Damien hadn’t slept. Not really. He paced at night, murmured Monroe’s name in his sleep, and carried shadows under his eyes that even sunlight couldn’t erase. There was a hollowness in him now. A silence that didn’t come from fear—but from knowing what had to come next.“What do you see when you look at that map?” I asked him quietly.Damien’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away from the screen. “I see the end. One way or another.”I moved closer, feeling the tension roll off him in waves. “You’re not alone in this.”His gaze shifted to me, the
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-13Broken Vows, New Promises 105: Fire and Ash
Damien's POVThe shattering of glass was the catalyst. My bullet tore through the reinforced window, followed by the eruption of chaos. Monroe vanished behind a wall of smoke and shrapnel as alarms blared and red lights flooded the corridor. The sound of gunfire echoed like thunder in a metal tomb. Xavier and the others split into formation behind me, weapons drawn, eyes scanning every shadow."Move!"Aurora was already ahead, navigating through the thick smoke like a ghost. I followed her into the heart of Monroe's kingdom.The air was thick with heat and static. Something deeper stirred beneath the surface, a low thrumming like a living heartbeat within the asylum's bones. As we pushed forward, the walls pulsed with faint light—not fluorescent. Bioluminescent. Artificial veins wired through the structure like it was alive."He's turned the entire place into a machine," Xavier muttered."No," I replied, stepping into the main corridor. "A womb. He's birthing something here."We found
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-13Broken Vows, New Promises 106: Reckoning's Threshold
Aurora's POVThe early dawn crept over the horizon, casting a silver light across the war-torn estate. I stood at the window of the master bedroom, watching the sun struggle to rise through a veil of gray clouds. The air was still, eerily quiet, as if the earth itself was holding its breath.Damien was asleep, finally. The lines of exhaustion carved into his face had softened in the quiet. He looked younger when he slept—less burdened, less tormented. As if the weight of the world he carried had momentarily slipped from his shoulders.But peace, I knew, was fleeting. We were standing on the edge of something greater, something darker. Monroe wasn’t finished. Daemon’s death had only revealed the first layer of the nightmare. And in the hours since, our intel had painted a more harrowing picture.I turned from the window as Damien stirred. He blinked up at me, his expression clouded with sleep and something else—fear? Worry? He sat up slowly, rubbing a hand over his face."You didn’t sl
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-14Broken Vows, New Promises 107: The Reflection in the Mirror
The hum of the helicopter blades faded into the distance, leaving behind an unsettling silence that settled over the hidden compound. Damien stood on the edge of the scorched grass, his eyes fixed on the treeline where the battle had erupted only hours earlier. The clone child’s face still haunted him—those eyes, wide with recognition, staring at him not with fear, but familiarity.He had barely spoken on the flight back. Aurora had watched him, her gaze quiet and filled with unspoken questions, but she hadn't pressed. She understood his silence, respected it. Now, as the team disbanded to tend to wounds and assess the stolen data, Damien remained frozen in place, a ghost rooted to the ground."You should get inside," Aurora said gently, approaching him. Her voice was a balm, but it didn’t reach the storm inside him.Damien didn’t move. "He looked at me like he knew me. Not as a stranger. As something… familiar."Aurora hesitated. "Maybe because he was designed to.""No," Damien murmu
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-14Broken Vows, New Promises 108: Threads of the Past
Aurora's POVThe rain had finally stopped by morning, leaving behind a trail of fog that curled around the forest trees like a lingering breath. From the window of the safehouse, I watched the mist, the silence broken only by the occasional drip of water from the eaves.Inside, no one spoke much. The child—the clone—was asleep now, curled up on a makeshift cot in the adjacent room. Despite everything, he looked... peaceful. Fragile. Too human to be a weapon.Damien hadn't said a word since we returned. He stood by the window, rigid, his expression unreadable. But I could feel it—the storm behind his eyes. The questions. The guilt. The fear that maybe, just maybe, some part of this twisted nightmare was rooted in him.I walked over slowly, placing a gentle hand on his arm."Talk to me," I whispered.He shook his head. "I don't even know what to say.""Start with how you feel."He turned to me then, and I saw it all laid bare in his eyes. The child had called him 'father.' Not as a weap
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-14Broken Vows, New Promises 109: Cracks in the Reflection
Damien's POVThe world outside the safe house was quiet, unnaturally so. The wind rustled dry leaves along the courtyard, but inside, silence reigned like a heavy fog. I stood by the large window, watching the horizon shift in colors as dusk fell, my thoughts tangled in a chaos I couldn't quite escape.The child—Subject Echo, they had called him—was resting in one of the spare rooms, monitored by three of our best medics and two guards. But it was his eyes that haunted me. Not because they were different, but because they were exactly the same as mine. The first time he looked at me and whispered, "Father?" something in me fractured.He wasn’t just a clone. He wasn’t just another experiment.He was a child who saw me as something more than a genetic match. He saw me as someone who should have protected him.Aurora came to stand beside me, her presence soft but grounding. She didn't speak at first. She rarely did when she knew my mind was spiraling. Instead, she slipped her hand into m
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-14Broken Vows, New Promises 110: Embers of Truth
Damien's POVThe laboratory lights flickered overhead, casting long shadows across the scarred concrete floor. The aftermath of our escape from Monroe's last facility was still fresh in my body—aching ribs, a split lip, a bullet graze along my shoulder. But none of that compared to the weight pressing on my chest.The boy. The clone. His eyes had been mine. His voice a fractured echo of my childhood.I sat at the edge of the conference table, staring at the flash drive we had retrieved from Monroe's vault. It pulsed faintly with a blue LED, as if it too was alive. Inside this drive were secrets that might explain the inexplicable. Or destroy us.Aurora entered quietly, her presence grounding. Her sweater sleeves were tugged down over her hands, and her hair was pulled back, still damp from the shower. Her eyes softened the moment she saw me."Is it time?" she asked.I nodded. "Yes. We need answers."She joined me at the table, slipping her fingers into mine, and I inserted the drive i
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-14Broken Vows, New Promises 111 : Through the Smoke
The underground corridor was damp, the walls echoing with the faint hum of electricity and something else—something alive. Damien led the team through the dimly lit passageway, his flashlight cutting a narrow path through the darkness. Each footstep was measured. Every breath was held too long.Behind him, Aurora kept pace, her hand brushing the back of his coat, a silent tether grounding him. Neither had spoken since Monroe’s last message played on the decrypted drive—a message that revealed more than just facts. It revealed a history neither of them were ready to accept. A history that tied Monroe not only to Damien’s past but to Eve’s betrayal.“It’s down here,” Julian whispered, pointing toward a metal door at the end of the hallway. “The lab where they kept the early prototypes.”Damien’s jaw tightened. “Let’s finish this.”He pressed his palm to the control panel beside the door. It buzzed. Denied.Aurora stepped beside him, producing the encrypted tablet they’d recovered two mi
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-15
Bab terbaru
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 149 : Ashes of the Failsafe
Silence pressed against their ears as they approached the lowest chamber. The air was heavier here—thick with ozone and dread, as if the facility itself exhaled the weight of its own malice. Damien’s flashlight beam danced across the walls, revealing veins of circuitry pulsing beneath steel plates. Each step echoed like a verdict.Aurora’s grip on her rifle tightened. “This corridor leads straight to the core. Seraph must be close.”Asher flanked Damien’s other side, unblinking in the dim light. Though forged in Monroe’s broken crucible, the boy’s courage was pure—a reminder that hope could grow from ashes.Null’s voice crackled in their earpieces. “I’m seeing systems coming back online. Ten minutes before full lockdown. We need to move.”Elias checked his watch. “Understood.”They rounded the final corner and stopped.A vaulted chamber yawned before them. In its center, illuminated by a ring of harsh white light, stood Seraph. Taller than a child but smaller than an adult, she was fr
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 148 : The Sleeper Below
The silence grew heavier the deeper they went.Null’s map guided them through a maze of subterranean halls—some cold and sterile, others torn by time and disuse. The smooth hum of generators still echoed in places, interspersed by flickering emergency lights that bathed the world in sickly red pulses.Damien led the way with Aurora and Asher close at his heels. The boy in the containment pod had given them everything—coordinates, access routes, and warnings. Seraph wasn’t like Daemon or Omega.He was worse.“Bio-signature locked,” Null murmured, eyes on the scanner as they reached another sealed door. “There’s something down there. No readable vitals, but movement… constant. Pacing, almost.”“He’s waiting,” Aurora said.Asher’s small voice cut in, soft but certain. “He doesn’t think. He reacts. He was made to become… everything they wanted me to be.”Damien knelt beside him. “You don’t have to face this.”Asher looked up. “I do. If we don’t stop him, he’ll come for us. For others.”Au
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 147 : Into the Heart
The elevator doors closed with a reluctant groan, sealing them in.Inside the narrow shaft, the only light came from their tactical gear—soft glows against skin and metal. Aurora stood beside Damien, her hand brushing against his, an anchor in the silence. Asher stood between them, staring straight ahead, lips pressed into a thin, focused line.The descent felt longer than it should have. As if the very walls were stretching around them—preparing to swallow them whole.Then the lift jolted to a stop.A hiss of depressurization followed. The doors slid open with a groan, revealing a corridor bathed in cold white light. Clean. Too clean. The sterile scent of disinfectant and ozone clung to the air like a ghost.“This is it,” Null said quietly. “The Core Lab.”They stepped out as one.Unlike the upper floors, this level was pristine. Not abandoned. Not even neglected. Lights functioned. Doors responded to biometric scans. Cameras followed their every move, some still tracking with soft c
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 146 : Before the Storm
The sun dipped low, setting fire to the horizon in hues of crimson and ash. From the ridge above the temporary camp, Damien stood alone, watching shadows stretch over the forest like fingers reaching for something they could never quite hold.Below him, the others prepared in near silence. The kind of silence that didn’t come from fear—but from knowing. From understanding just how close they were to the end.The wind curled around him, carrying the scent of pine and steel and something colder. A storm was coming. Not of weather—but of reckoning.“You always find the highest place when you need to think.”He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.Aurora’s voice always settled beneath his skin like a familiar hum—gentle and steady.She stepped up beside him, hands tucked into the sleeves of her jacket, her gaze following his to the horizon.“You used to be quieter,” he said. “Before all this.”“I used to have more to be afraid of,” she replied, half-smiling. “Now I just have more to lose.”He
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 145 : A Name Among the Ashes
The boy didn’t speak of the dream again.But something in him shifted after that night. His steps were a little steadier. His gaze no longer darted to the exits first. He stayed near Damien, yes, but not like a shadow clinging to light. Now, it felt like a tether, an anchor—not dependence, but choice.Damien noticed it when they trained in the clearing behind the safehouse. The boy followed directions without flinching, without looking over his shoulder every five seconds like he expected Monroe to appear from behind the trees. And when Kai handed him a blade—not sharp, just a practice knife—he held it with the curiosity of someone discovering a piece of themselves.“What do we call him?” Eli
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 144 : Echoes in the Light
The morning sunlight felt wrong.Too bright. Too open.After days in the Hollow’s synthetic twilight, Damien squinted at the skyline like it was some forgotten relic. The world outside was still broken, scarred by everything Monroe had built, but out here—beneath real sky—it felt like breathing for the first time in weeks.They moved through the forest trail in silence, Aurora walking beside Damien, the child—now clothed in a borrowed jacket and boots too large—staying close to Damien’s side like a shadow tethered to light.No name.No past.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 143 : The First Breath
The air inside the chamber thickened as the hum of the cryopod deepened, soft lights tracing across its surface like veins awakening after a long slumber. Damien stood with his hand hovering just above the control panel, eyes locked on the boy within. A-00.The child who shouldn’t exist.The child who had been discarded—forgotten—yet had outlived the project meant to replace him.Aurora touched Damien’s arm gently. “Are you ready?”He didn’t answer right away. His gaze was still fixed on the boy’s face. So young, so still. Yet somehow, it felt like staring into a mirror that refused to reflect.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 142 : Into the Hollow
The helicopter blades sliced through the Ural sky like a warning.Beneath them, the forest spread like a sea of frozen pine and fractured stone, untouched and unwelcoming. The coordinates Null had provided pointed to a narrow canyon—its jagged sides veined with ice and shadow—where no human path should've ever led.Damien sat beside Aurora, eyes locked on the narrowing terrain below. The cold had begun to seep in through the insulated layers, but it wasn’t the temperature that clenched his gut.It was the silence.Even at this altitude, the absence of wildlife was unnerving.As if nature itself refused to brea
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 141 : Fractures Beneath the Surface
The wind had changed by morning.Geneva’s neutral calm felt different now—like something sacred had been disturbed beneath its manicured stillness. The team gathered in the briefing room of the underground complex, still shaken from what they’d uncovered the night before: Damien’s prototype—Subject A-01-D—and the fractured remnants of Monroe’s last vault of secrets.No one spoke for a long while.Elias was the first to break the silence. “So what now? We’ve seen the start of it. That clone—your prototype—it changes everything. Doesn’t it?”Null nodded slowly, pacing. “It suggests Monroe’s e
