Chapter 58

---

Chapter 58: Echoes of What Was

They 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 prayer—Seraph.

That word again.

She stumbled.

Christopher caught her before she hit the ground. “Hey—hey. You with me?”

“I saw them,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“The others. Like me. But younger. Before the vault. Before Lyra even defected.”

Ethan turned. “How is that possible? That was decades ago.”

“I don’t know,” Isla muttered. “But I think they’re… alive.”

Christopher stared at her. “How can you be sure?”

She raised her glowing hand. “Because they’re calling to me.”

They reached the outpost after nightfall—nothing more than a crumbling concrete structure half-buried in snow, but it had walls, and that was enough. Christopher checked the perimeter while Ethan powered up a small heater from their pack, warming the room by degrees.

Isla sat alone on the floor in the corner, staring at her hand.

That symbol had spread slightly—lines of light now branched toward her wrist and forearm, like veins growing from a seed.

Every few minutes, her pulse synchronized with it.

She heard whispers when she closed her eyes. Not hallucinations.

Echoes.

Faint and fractured.

You were not the first…

Do not forget the threshold…

Memory is the weapon…

She gritted her teeth.

She couldn’t tell if they were warnings or invitations.

Christopher dropped beside her with a ration bar and a bottle of water. “Still no idea what it is?”

“I think it’s more than a memory implant,” she said. “It’s like… it’s rewriting me. But not against my will. It’s asking.”

He looked at her. “And are you saying yes?”

She didn’t answer.

He didn’t press her.

From the hallway, Ethan called out. “Found something!”

They followed his voice to the back room, where a metal locker had been busted open. Inside were old data drives, most of them shattered or corrupted. But one remained intact—marked with the same glyphs Isla had seen in the vault.

Ethan held it up. “Military tech. Pre-Event. These things were encrypted with neurolocks. You can’t open them unless you’re registered.”

Christopher raised a brow. “And let me guess—Isla’s glowing hand probably is a registration now.”

Ethan nodded. “Only one way to find out.”

They connected the drive to the tablet. Isla placed her palm over the reader. The lines on her hand flared for a second.

Click.

Access granted.

Files opened in rapid succession—maps, experiment logs, facility locations, project titles.

But one folder pulsed red.

Project: SERAPH

Isla opened it.

A single video began to play.

Grainy. Distorted.

A laboratory. Dimly lit. Children in containment pods, unconscious.

A woman in a white coat stood at the center—Lyra.

Younger. Harder.

She turned to the camera.

“If this is being viewed, it means Subject Zero has reached phase five.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Subject Zero?”

“That’s me,” Isla whispered.

On the screen, Lyra continued:

"You were not built to be a weapon. You were built to be the ark. The convergence point of memory, empathy, and choice. The others—they failed because they couldn’t reconcile what they were with what they were meant to be. But you… I saw something different in you. I saw someone who could remember without breaking.”

Static tore across the screen. Then—

"They’ll come for you. Not just the failed Subjects—the Directorate. The Remnants. The Vaultbound. All of them. Because you carry the last echo of what we once were. A decision will come. Do not let them make it for you."

The video cut out.

Isla sat frozen.

The silence afterward felt too loud.

Ethan broke it first. “We just jumped off the edge of the map, didn’t we?”

Christopher looked at Isla. “What’s the plan?”

She looked at them—really looked at them—and stood.

“We find the others.”

“And if they’re hostile?” Ethan asked.

Her eyes flickered with light now, subtle but unmistakable.

“Then we show them what remembering feels like.”