The VTOL landed with a hiss of hydraulics and the crunch of reinforced landing gear against steel. Zarek Technologies' private airstrip glistened under the evening floodlights—clinical, controlled, and jarringly clean after the blood and ash of the Rift.
Medical personnel waited with stretchers and carts. Evelyn Zarek stood at the base of the platform, coat unmoving in the wind, Ava Halloway beside her—arms crossed, gaze razor-sharp.
The ramp lowered. Nineteen stepped off.
No one spoke.
The survivors were ushered into the main facility, greeted by low lighting, sterile walls, and a respectful hush.
Evelyn stood still as the team passed, but her eyes never stopped moving—counting. Searching. When the last stretcher rolled by, she inhaled sharply.
Ava stepped closer, their arms brushing.
"They came back," Ava murmured.
"But not all," Evelyn replied, her voice cracked and thin.
Ava leaned in gently, resting her forehead against Evelyn's temple for a breath. "You did everything you could."
"We didn't do enough," Evelyn whispered.
They stood there for a moment, wordless, before Ava slid her hand into Evelyn's and squeezed.
They watched the corridor close behind the team, grief shared in silence. The fragments of the Rift's sealed console were immediately carted into a secured vault beneath Zarek's restricted research wing.
Emotional Fallout
Rowan was wheeled into the medical bay. His hand clutched Lucian's like it was the only thread keeping him grounded to reality. His lips moved silently, like he was still whispering his way out of the Rift.
Lucian walked beside him, his steps unsteady from fatigue, but he didn't let go. Not even when they tried to separate them.
Only when Rowan's eyes finally closed, breath slowing under sedation, did Lucian allow himself to sit. He didn't speak. Just reached forward and brushed a damp strand of hair from Rowan's forehead.
"You came back," he murmured. "You made sure I stayed."
Lucian refused treatment until Rowan stabilized. When he finally submitted, the readings were sobering—corruption levels low, but cognitive strain beyond normal levels. His scans lit up with patterns the medics had no precedent for. He didn't speak during his check. He just stared out the window.
Juno sat in the corridor, report tablet in hand. Alexander knelt nearby, one hand braced on his knee, his other gently resting on her shoulder.
They didn't speak.
Juno blinked rapidly, trying to force her hands to move, to type, to think.
"I keep hearing their voices," she finally said.
"I know," Alexander replied quietly. "You're not alone."
She leaned into him slightly. Not for comfort, but for steadiness.
Quinn stayed beside Ari, holding her hand even as she slept. He sat on the edge of the bed, his free hand gently stroking her temple, as if anchoring her to the present. Her breath hitched once in her sleep, and Quinn bent forward, pressing a soft kiss to her brow.
"I've got you," he whispered. "No matter what."
Ari stirred faintly, but didn't wake.
Vespera hovered nearby, her expression unreadable. She said nothing, simply watched the gentle rise and fall of Ari's chest, her aura steady in quiet support.
Elias stood in the diagnostics chamber, watching the Rift fragments pulse inside their containment capsule. They hadn't stopped glowing.
Zarek Debrief
Later that night, the survivors were called to the lower observatory—only the S- and A-Class Espers and Guides were summoned. The console had been partially decrypted.
Evelyn's voice was sharp. "Project Veil is not dead."
Ava displayed recovered visuals from the Rift vault. Old footage—grainy, warped. An artificial chamber. A shadowy figure manipulating raw resonance. Behind them, echoes of entities—half-formed, many-eyed, whispering.
"This wasn't an accident," Ava said. "This was seeded. The Rift you entered was engineered to collapse—and in that collapse, test the stability of Echo Entities. We believe what you encountered was only one of many."
Lucian's jaw clenched. Rowan stared at the floor.
Elias raised his hand slowly. "That wasn't the only anomaly."
He tapped into the live feed of atmospheric sensors.
"Corruption Storms. They're forming across old Rift sites."
The screen displayed chaotic pulses of energy swirling over dead zones—once-closed Rifts now vibrating with unstable resonance. The signatures resembled psychic necrosis.
"They don't open new Rifts," Elias said. "They revive what was left behind. Corpses. Memories. Echoes that shouldn't exist."
Vespera inhaled sharply. "Necromancy."
"More than that," Evelyn said. "They're temporal. Time echoes. We're seeing fluctuations of dead timelines—destroyed realities bleeding back in."
Lucian looked up at that, eyes narrowing. The phrase stirred something in him—a flicker of recognition so brief, so intangible, that he dismissed it as exhaustion.
Rowan finally spoke, his voice hoarse.
"I saw them. In the cathedral. Shadows of lives we never lived—but they felt real. They felt like me. Like him."
Everyone turned.
"They weren't just ghosts," Rowan said. "They were… pieces. Of us."
The room fell into silence.
And somewhere outside the dome, the first roll of thunder rumbled—not natural, but corrupted. A storm was coming.
The command dome's translucent walls flickered with interference as the skies beyond turned a deep, unnatural violet. Wind didn't howl—it pulsed, like the breath of something unseen. Outside, the environment twisted slowly. Clouds churned in chaotic spirals, veined with black static. Bolts of energy, dark and pulsing, arced from the sky to the ground without warning.
On the far end of the viewing screen, what had once been a forest outside a retired Rift zone now looked diseased—trees warped and collapsed inward, their bark etched with glowing symbols that weren't there hours before.
And among them—figures.
Faint, flickering, and malformed. Some walked like people. Others crawled, hunched or backward, as if they didn't know how to carry their own shape.
"They're echoes," Elias said, voice low. "Resonance fragments left behind by those who died when the Rift collapsed. But they're… conscious. Or close."
"Why now?" Quinn asked. "Why are they waking up?"
Elias stared at the readings. "Because something is remembering them."
The room quieted.
Lucian remained by the viewing panel, gaze fixed on one of the larger, twitching echoes—its silhouette wore a tattered military coat, and its head turned unnaturally slow, as if seeking something long lost.
Rowan swallowed hard. "They feel like grief made physical. Like someone sculpted them out of memory and sorrow."
Vespera narrowed her eyes. "And they don't know they're dead."
Juno backed away from the screen slightly, her hand pressed against her mouth. Alexander remained stone-faced, but his fists clenched.
"We're seeing similar activity in six other zones," Ava said, turning from the command interface. "It's not localized. Multiple corruption storms are brewing—and spreading."
"Then we don't have time to sit still," Evelyn said.
She straightened, shoulders taut, and turned toward the exit.
"Boardroom. Now."
---
The Zarek executive board was already half-seated when Evelyn and Ava entered the central chamber. Holographic displays of each brewing storm—crawling clouds, pulsing echoes, and disrupted terrain—glimmered in the center of the room.
"Each storm is forming over a previously closed Rift site," Evelyn began, "but the structures appearing in the epicenters are new. We believe they are manifestations from corrupted timelines—bastard remnants of fractured resonance attempting to rebuild."
Ava pointed to a visual overlay. "We'll be dividing our remaining task forces into three squads: one for containment, one for extraction and rescue if needed, and one for intel gathering."
The board murmured among themselves.
"We don't have the manpower," one member protested. "Not after what happened in the cathedral."
"We'll use our strongest field teams, no exceptions," Evelyn said. "And we may need to involve independent agents."
The room fell into uneasy silence.
Back in the observatory, the surviving operatives stared at the storm footage.
Lucian leaned closer to Rowan and whispered, "This isn't over."
Rowan nodded slowly, eyes locked on one of the flickering echo figures now pacing near a storm's edge—one that looked just like him.
"It never was."
As the board adjourned, Zarek's command center began deploying personnel. Briefings were distributed rapidly, and field assignments finalized.
---
Lucian and Rowan were officially reassigned to Echo Strike Unit One, tasked with approaching the largest corruption storm forming over Site Theta—an abandoned Rift zone that had swallowed an entire mining colony five years prior.
They would be joined by:
S-Class Esper: Mira Kael – An elemental marksman specializing in precision-based fire and lightning resonance shots. Each bullet is custom-forged with elemental charge, able to pierce through even corrupted echo constructs.
A-Class Guide: Haru Lane – Mira's dedicated guide and bond partner. His ability is solely focused on one-to-one guiding, allowing him to attune fully to Mira's volatile elemental resonance. He has the capability to activate multitarget capability, but he has unmatched synergy with Mira alone.
---
Quinn and Ari were placed in Unit Two, headed toward Site Delta, where echoes had begun crossing into nearby settlements.
Supporting them:
S-Class Esper: Dain Ashcroft – A disruption specialist with a unique ability to generate spatial interference fields, rendering enemy movement erratic and disabling echo-based predictive behavior. Operates best mid-field, breaking echo cohesion with controlled chaos.
A-Class Guide: Thea Monroe – Reserved and exacting. Thea has no offensive capabilities, but is a master of singular, focused guiding—establishing an unshakable mental link with one Esper at a time to prevent corruption surges in high-pressure fields.
---
Juno and Alexander, though injured, were cleared for limited deployment as strategic advisors to Unit Three, dealing with a slow-developing storm over Site Epsilon.
Accompanying them:
A-Class Esper: Kira Mendez – Wields devastating ice-based abilities. Capable of halting echo regeneration, freezing corrupted terrain, and launching glacial lances that destabilize Rift formations.
A-Class Guide: Nolan Voss – Quiet, perceptive, and deeply intuitive, with a strong rapport-building skill that stabilizes fractured team dynamics.
Elias and Vespera were to remain at Zarek HQ—tasked with decoding further Veil data and overseeing real-time feedback from all deployed teams.
As the assignments were finalized, the command center dimmed, and countdown timers began flashing across the walls.
The storm was coming.
And this time, they wouldn't be reacting.
They would be walking straight into it.