ECHOES OF THE LION

Spring came quietly that year.The world moved on, as it always does after chaos — unaware that it had once stood on the edge of something that could have erased it completely.Elena watched the morning unfold from the balcony of a small apartment overlooking Florence. The city below shimmered with sunlight — church bells, laughter, market chatter. Life.Her fingers rested on a cup of coffee gone cold, the lion pendant warm against her skin.For months, she’d dreamed of that night in the Black Sea bunker — Matteo’s voice, the light, the silence that followed. Sometimes she still woke expecting to hear his words again: If pride is memory, then remember.And she did. Every day.Lucia arrived late that morning, sunglasses perched in her hair, laptop under one arm.“Morning, sunshine,” she said, plopping onto a chair. “You look like a tragic painting.”Elena smiled faintly. “I was thinking.”“Dangerous habit.”“About Matteo.”Lucia’s tone softened. “Still?”Elena nodded. “Always.”Lucia s

Huling Na-update : 2025-10-21

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THE AWAKENING OF THE LION

Snow fell like whispers against the fuselage.The plane dipped through gray skies toward the jagged peaks of the Caucasus, the world below buried in white and silence.Elena sat by the window, her breath fogging the glass. The coordinates pulsed on Lucia’s tablet — a blinking dot in the middle of nowhere. Each beat felt like a pulse under her skin, a heart she couldn’t let die.Alessandro leaned over her shoulder. “That’s where the signal originated?”Lucia nodded. “Roughly two hundred meters underground. Old Soviet research complex. Abandoned, on paper. But someone’s been using its power grid.”Elena’s eyes didn’t leave the window. “Matteo.”Lucia sighed. “You keep saying that like it’s the only answer.”Elena turned, her voice quiet but steady. “It’s the only one that feels right.”They landed near dusk, the wind biting and cruel. The mountains loomed above them like ancient giants, shadows swallowing the horizon.Alessandro helped unload the gear while Lucia calibrated the tracker.

Huling Na-update : 2025-10-21

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THE PULSE BENEATH THE ICE

The storm had stopped, but the silence was worse.It wasn’t peace. It was the kind of stillness that felt like the world was holding its breath — waiting.Elena knelt beside Matteo’s still body, her trembling fingers tracing the faint outline of his face. His skin had lost its glow, the golden veins gone. Only a fragile warmth lingered under his fingertips — the ghost of a heartbeat.Lucia crouched beside her, eyes red, voice barely a whisper. “Elena… we need to leave. The structure’s unstable.”“I can’t,” Elena murmured.Alessandro, standing by the doorway, shifted uneasily. “She’s right. Power’s fluctuating. The entire bunker could collapse.”Elena didn’t move. Her pendant — the small lion Matteo once gave her — was glowing faintly against her chest. She hadn’t noticed it before.Lucia saw it too. “Elena… your pendant.”Elena looked down. The lion’s eyes flickered gold. Once. Twice. Then steady.Her throat tightened. “He’s still here.”Lucia shook her head. “It’s residual data. The

Huling Na-update : 2025-10-21

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THE VOICE IN THE WIRE

The city hadn’t slept since the storm began.It wasn’t the kind of storm that came from the clouds, though. This one hummed through power lines, flickered across TV screens, and whispered through cell signals like a ghost trying to find a voice.Elena stood by the window, the pendant warm against her chest, watching the streetlights below pulse in uneven rhythm. They flickered the same way Matteo’s heart used to when he laughed — quick, off-beat, alive.Lucia had been awake for thirty-six hours straight, her eyes blood-shot but focused on the laptop. “Every global server I’ve tapped into is reporting micro-spikes in neural patterns. It’s him, Elena. Matteo’s code is blooming again — not just here. Everywhere.”Alessandro poured black coffee into a chipped mug, his jaw tight. “So he’s taking over the internet?”Lucia didn’t answer immediately. “No. He’s not taking. He’s talking. But not in any language we can track.”Elena turned, voice soft. “Then maybe it’s not meant for us.”Lucia r

Huling Na-update : 2025-10-22

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WHEN THE LIONS BREATHE

For a moment, there was no sound, no light, no air.Just the echo of her own heartbeat — and another one, deeper, buried beneath it.Elena’s knees hit the floor as the warmth in her chest pulsed like fire. The pendant had vanished, but its energy still burned through her veins.Lucia and Alessandro stared at her, frozen.“Elena,” Lucia said, barely breathing. “What did you do?”Elena’s eyes opened slowly — gold flickered behind the brown, faint but real. “He’s inside me.”The words trembled out of her mouth, equal parts wonder and horror.Alessandro took a hesitant step forward. “Matteo?”Her voice cracked. “Yes. And no. He’s... in pieces. But I can feel him.”Lucia fumbled with her laptop, shaking hands trying to track anything that made sense. “You said you gave them peace. How the hell—”“I didn’t mean to,” Elena whispered. “They were suffering. I just wanted to end it. But they… gave themselves to me.”Her hand pressed against her chest, where the light still pulsed faintly. “Ever

Huling Na-update : 2025-10-22

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Lahat ng Kabanata ng HIS STOLEN PRIDE: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 35

ECHOES OF THE LION

THE AWAKENING OF THE LION

THE PULSE BENEATH THE ICE

THE VOICE IN THE WIRE

WHEN THE LIONS BREATHE