Chapter 55: The Awakening Protocol
The sky was grey and heavy, compressing the air with a tangible tension that was almost. alive.
Two hours passed as if in slow motion, like the stretched-out pulse of a heartbeat. Isla waited among the close quarters in the stealth vessel Ethan had adapted—a retro-fitted airskimmer for stealth more than speed. She watched as the final adjustments were made: fuel levels even, signal shields engaged, weaponry calibrated. Every beep and flash on the dashboard sounded like a warning.
She did not fear the journey. She feared what was at the end of it.
Ethan hunched over the primary console behind her, fingers flicking over keys. His face was a calm mask, but his shoulders were stiff and unnatural.
"You sure about this course?" she asked quietly.
He nodded without looking at her. “ECHO-3 isn’t marked on any standard map. But if Victor’s intel holds, it’s somewhere off-grid near the Siberian perimeter. Cold, broken, buried in snow.”
“And you’re not worried it’s a trap?”
“I’m always worried it’s a trap,” Ethan said flatly. “But it’s also the only place broadcasting that frequency. The same one that activated the neural spike in your scan.”
That rush. That beat. Isla still remembered how it had been—like a crawling sensation at the back of her eyes, drawing long-forgotten memories from a life that wasn't hers to begin with. Lyra's voice had navigated it. Not in words, but codes. Commands.
She shivered.
The bay doors screeched open. Christopher entered, gun and armor. His eyes locked onto hers from the first.
"Good to you?" he said.
She nodded.
He didn't trust her, but he didn't press. He gave her a neural patch instead—a thin strip of artificial interface designed to control mind-body sync during deep cognitive change.
"You may need this if it hits again," he explained. "It could help keep… her… from taking the reins."
She took it wordlessly, sliding it into the wrist compartment of her jacket.
Ethan keyed a last order into the console, and the airskimmer ascended through the fog. The power thrummed through the cramped room, little more than a breath.
Nothing was said for an hour. They all retreated inward.
Isla stared at the screens. Outside the windows, the world was a blur of cloud and ice. But within her—a spark awakened.
Don't forget me.
The voice echoed once more, not from memory but from the present. As though Lyra was inside the ship. Inside her. Watching.
She sprang to her feet, her hands on the cold metal wall for balance.
"Isla?" Christopher moved instantly.
She did not answer. Her chest heaved once, twice.
"I think it's happening again," she whispered. "I can sense her. pushing."
Christopher worked fast, sticking the neural patch against the side of her neck. It vibrated quietly, adjusting to her vital functions. Isla's body stiffened, then collapsed forward into his arms.
"Heart rate's stabilizing," Ethan said, scanning the monitors. "But brainwave activity's going crazy—she's inducing."
Inside Isla's head, reality bent.
She was no longer on the skimmer. She was standing in a corridor—that corridor. White walls. Distant blue lights. And footsteps.
Her own.
But. not.
She looked down. Her hands weren't hers. They were gloved, shaking. She had on a suit—medical, or tactical, she hadn't a clue. But something wet dripped from the sleeve.
Protocol took over, a cold voice speaking in her ear. Subject 13: Lyra-Alpha. Override initiated.
A child's scream came from near. A child's scream.
Isla ran.
Down the corridor. Beyond locked rooms. Beyond broken glass. Beyond cages.
She stopped in front of one door, thumping heart.
Inside, a girl—maybe five years old—sat in a corner, shivering. Her eyes pulsed weakly.
The door proclaimed: SUBJECT ECHO: Designation Isla.
"No…" Isla panted. "This… this is not a memory."
It's a beginning, Lyra's voice seemed to say. And beginnings always cost blood.
The vision faded.
She sank into Christopher's arms again, gasping.
"I saw her," she croaked. "I saw me. As a child. In one of the laboratories. They held me. Monitored me. Trained me."
"Anything else?" Christopher asked, voice tightly constricted.
"There were others. I wasn't alone." Her voice broke. \"I think ECHO-3 isn't a location. I think it's where they kept the others. The ones like me."
Ethan's voice cut in, sharp. "Guys, we have a problem."
They stared at the main screen.
A red light pulsed wildly.
"Proximity alert. Someone's on our tail. It's dark-running—no ID, no transponder."
Christopher shouldered his rifle. "Could be a scout drone. Or worse."
Ethan's eyes tightened. "Or another recovered subject."
The skimmer trembled.
Something was close by. Hunting.
Isla stood trembling on shaky legs, her face pale but set. "Let it come."
"What?" Christopher blinked.
“If they’re watching… if they know we’re coming, then they’ve already activated the protocol. We’re not just chasing ghosts anymore.” Her jaw tightened. “We’re walking into war.”
Outside, the skies shifted—black against black.
And behind them, a shadow followed.
Watching.
Waiting.
Remembering her name.
Chapter 61: Shards of the MirrorThe silence was unbearable.Isla sat alone in the observation room of ECHO-3, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber lined with sleek glass panels and flickering holo-screens. A distant hum vibrated beneath her boots—the sound of a hidden world still turning.She stared at the holographic projection of her DNA spiral spinning slowly in midair. It glowed violet, like a cursed constellation. Data poured beside it—words she could no longer make sense of. Words that used to belong to scientists, not to monsters.Behind her, footsteps echoed. Steady. Purposeful.Christopher.“I thought you might come here,” he said quietly.Isla didn’t turn. “It’s strange. Seeing yourself... and realizing you're not entirely yourself.”“You’re not a thing, Isla. You’re not just a blueprint someone rewrote.”She let out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to the report I just read. Lyra didn’t just give birth to me—she embedded herself in me. Consciously. She planned it.”Christopher stayed
Chapter 60: The Vaultbound RiseThe air in the underground chamber was thick—heavy with dust, expectation, and centuries-old secrets that clung to the stone walls like ivy. The Vault of Remnants had not been opened in over four decades, and its presence felt more myth than matter. But tonight, it pulsed.Isla stood in front of the vault door, her fingers twitching unconsciously. Behind her, Christopher and Ethan watched in silence, the tension among them as brittle as ancient parchment. No one spoke. Even the hum of the generators seemed to hush.She could feel it now—the magnetic tug that seemed to know her name. The lock on the vault was encoded to Lyra’s genetic signature, but the tech didn’t account for what Lyra had become. What Isla had become. Half her mother’s legacy, half... something else.Christopher stepped forward. "Are you sure you want to do this tonight? You’re still healing."She shook her head. "Healing is a luxury. And time is a blade pressed to our throats. I can f
Chapter 59: The Threshold ChildrenThe outpost was silent long after the file closed.No one moved. The shadows seemed to cling tighter to the corners, as if even the walls needed time to process what had just been revealed.Threshold Children.Subject Zero.Ark.None of them said it aloud, but the same question hung heavy in the air:What had Lyra made Isla into?And more terrifying—why?---By morning, they were moving again.They left the outpost behind with only a faint heat signature trailing in the snow, covered fast by the wind. Isla walked ahead, wrapped in her insulated gear, hood pulled low, but even now, the light from her hand flickered faintly beneath the glove.Like a heartbeat refusing to slow.The journey to ECHO-3 was brutal.Ice plains gave way to jagged mountain spines. There were no roads. No settlements. Just sky and snow and silence.Ethan navigated using the drive’s coordinates. It pointed to a location that wasn’t on any public map—a place scrubbed from known c
---Chapter 58: Echoes of What WasThey didn’t speak for a long time.The snow muffled their steps as they moved through the tundra, putting distance between themselves and the buried ruin of the vault. The wind whispered around them—soft now, almost reverent, as if the storm itself were holding its breath after what had been unleashed.No one said it aloud, but they all felt it:Something had changed.In Isla.In the world.In what was coming.Ethan was the first to break the silence. “We need shelter. This isn’t the kind of cold you just outrun.”“There’s an outpost thirty miles east,” Christopher said. “Old Cartel relay. Abandoned.”Isla barely heard them.The glowing lines on her hand hadn’t faded. The faint pulse beneath her skin continued, rhythmic and unsettling, like the ticking of a new clock.Inside her, memories surged like tides.Not just hers.Not just Lyra’s.Others.Children’s voices. Screams in sterile corridors. An old song, sung out of tune. A name spoken like a pray
Chapter 57: The Vault of SilenceThe ground trembled again as the vault door split down the middle with a groan older than time. Snow slid from its curved surface like dust falling off forgotten bones. The low-frequency hum built into a thrumming pulse, a sound that didn’t just echo in their ears—it resonated in their chests.Isla took the first step forward.“Wait,” Christopher said, still gripping his rifle. “We don’t know what’s in there.”She glanced at him. “We do. We just haven’t remembered it yet.”Behind them, the sentinel—the pale man—stood still, unmoving. “Only the awakened may enter,” he said, monotone.Christopher looked ready to argue, but Ethan, bleeding from a shallow cut above his brow, stopped him. “He’s not going to stop her. He’s waiting.”Isla crossed the threshold.And the world changed.As she stepped inside the vault, the air grew thicker. Not heavy—dense. Like walking through time itself. The interior walls shimmered, not metal, not stone—something between the
Chapter 56: The Ghost in the SkyThe shadow was fast.It didn’t fly like a drone or a standard aerial unit—it glided, almost silent, but with a strange distortion trailing behind it, like light warping around something not meant to be seen.Ethan’s hands moved rapidly over the controls, flipping off the main nav to manual override. “They’re jamming passive radar. I’m flying blind.”Christopher was already at the rear hatch, rifle ready, eyes scanning the external screens. "Do we engage?""Not unless they do first," Isla said.But she didn't sound sure.Because something in her bones told her this was no ordinary hunter. The pressure in her head was building again, like hands squeezing inward. Her fingers curled into fists."I've seen this thing before," she snarled.Ethan looked back. "Where?"In a dream. Or a memory. I don't know any longer."The shadow dropped altitude. Now it flew alongside them, just out of vision—a shimmering echo on the edge of the skimmer's screen.Then it spok