The silence that followed was not silence at all.
It was a vacuum of sound, a deafening absence—the moment after a scream that never finished. Rowan stood frozen, panting hard, his pulse thundering in his ears like it was trying to shatter through bone. His hands trembled, coated in ash and blood that wasn't his. The echo of the last rift pulse still rang through his teeth.
Lucian was gone.
Taken.
Not slain, not fallen, but taken—dragged through the collapsing breach by a figure that wore his face, or nearly didn't, and bore his resonance. That unbearable familiarity had struck them all at once, and none had been fast enough.
The walls of Deck 12 still glowed faintly with the afterburn of overloaded power cells. Sparks crackled from exposed conduits. The floor was scored with fractures—footprints of their fight, shallow craters, smeared trails from where Mira had skidded, from where Sloane's gravitational collapse had failed to pin the Echo down.
And now...
[SYSTEM ALERT: SITE V-9 ACCESS RE-ESTABLISHED]
[UNAUTHORIZED SIGNAL TRACE CONFIRMED]
[COORDINATE RELOCATION COMPLETE]
The message pulsed from every wall panel, each repetition sinking another cold nail into Rowan's spine.
Site V-9.
The name now tasted like acid.
He tried to move, but his legs locked under him, like his resonance had latched to the floor and refused to lift. His eyes blurred, scanning the far end of the ruined corridor where the breach had been—now sealed. Only scorched wall and faint blood spatters remained.
Then a sound—hurried boots.
Vespera reached his side first. Her hair was wind-swept, brown eyes rimmed in red from overexertion, but her voice was steady, grounding. "Rowan. Sit. Now."
"I—he took—" Rowan staggered, and Vespera caught his elbow, her field pulsing gently to cushion his mind from spiraling.
Ren was next, wide-eyed and pale, his arm wrapped in a scorched bandage but moving despite orders. "I tried—I swear I tried—he was too fast—"
"You did what you could," Ava's voice cut through the corridor, sharp but not cruel. She stepped in beside Evelyn, both women grim-faced and smeared with residual Rift dust.
Alexander followed close behind, bruised and breathing heavily, one hand over a cracked rib. "Where's Vaughn?"
Everyone was silent.
It was Vespera who answered, voice low. "He's not... dead. But he's gone. Pulled through the site breach."
Alexander's jaw flexed.
Evelyn didn't flinch. She strode to the nearest console, fingers tapping as she pulled up the map overlay. "Deck 12 is compromised. We need a full lockdown. No one steps into V-9 until we have a stabilized trace."
Ava touched her shoulder lightly. "They took him to V-9."
"I know," Evelyn said. "Which means he's alive. And whatever it is—it's not done yet."
Ren leaned forward, looking to Rowan. "Why him? Why take Lucian?"
Rowan's voice was a rasp. "Because I wasn't enough."
The words slipped out before he could stop them. Vespera gripped his wrist, hard enough to pull him out of his spiraling thoughts.
"No," she said firmly. "Don't go there."
Rowan blinked. His chest burned like a cauterized wound. "You didn't see it. The way it moved. The way it looked at me. Like I was some broken version of something it used to love."
Evelyn's head turned at that.
"Echo," she said softly. "But not Lucian's. Yours."
The corridor darkened a notch. Ava's breath caught.
"That thing…" Rowan swallowed hard. "It wasn't wearing my face. But it knew me. It was me. Or some version. I don't know."
Evelyn turned to the team. "We regroup. We lock down this sector. Mira, take point on securing the perimeter. Alexander, you're in charge of external surveillance for any new breach signatures. Ren—"
"I'm not leaving Rowan's side."
Rowan turned sharply. "Ren—"
"I owe you," the boy said stubbornly. "You helped me when no one else could. If that thing's tied to you, then I'm not letting it take anything else from you."
There was no arguing with that fire.
Evelyn nodded once. "Then you stay close. But obey orders."
"Yes ma'am."
The lights flickered again, then steadied.
[SYSTEM LOG UPDATE]
[CURRENT STATUS: TEMPORARY CONTAINMENT ACTIVE]
[V-9 NODE RECOGNIZED - USER: L. VAUGHN]
[HOST PRESENCE VERIFIED]
Everyone turned toward the console.
Rowan's heart stilled.
The system had just confirmed it.
Lucian was inside V-9.
And still alive.
But for how long—none of them knew.
Breach Directive
The command deck shimmered in low light, bleeding red from countless system errors looping through every terminal. The digital pulse of crisis beat like a second heartbeat through the floor.
[SITE V-9 NODE RELOCATED.]
[L. VAUGHN - HOST PRESENCE ACTIVE.]
[TRACE STABILIZATION PENDING.]
[CLASSIFIED PROTOCOLS: LOCKED.]
Ava stood frozen beside the central interface, eyes flicking across corrupted pathways and dead tether lines. Her hands remained poised over the controls, but her fingers no longer moved. She didn't need more data to understand the shape of the loss.
Lucian was gone.
Not dead. But displaced.
And the system had no idea how to retrieve him.
"We can't just wait," Rowan said, voice rough. He stood hunched beside her, knuckles white where they pressed against the console. "He's alive. The system confirmed it."
"But it didn't confirm where," Evelyn said, circling the projection table with sharp, purposeful steps. "Site V-9 is no longer within mapped resonance space. Its coordinates don't exist. They were overwritten in the breach."
"Then we find them," Rowan snapped. "I don't care if the pathway's fragmented. I'm not sitting here while he's in there alone."
"You won't be," came a quiet voice from the side.
Vespera.
She stepped forward, a faint glow clinging to her like leftover pulse residue. "But this isn't a rescue mission yet. Not until we have a trail."
Alexander's heavy frame leaned against the nearby console, arms crossed. His armor bore scratches from the Rift breach, and the bandage wrapping his bicep peeked through a torn seam. "A retrieval attempt through an echo-warped location is a suicide run without a locked tether point."
"I don't care," Rowan said again, voice shaking now.
Ava placed a gentle hand on his arm. "And we won't let you go alone. But not like this."
Evelyn exhaled slowly, eyes sharp. "We track the tethered residue. I want a team out within the hour. No entry—just mapping. Surface reads. Ambient shift points."
"I'll go," Mira said at once, eyes still fixed on Lucian's blinking signature. Her voice was steel.
"Same," Quinn added. "You'll need balance if V-9 left a corrupt resonance behind."
"I'm coming too," Ari said with a sharp grin. "I owe that bastard echo a knife to the ribs."
From the far corner, Elias Vane unfolded his arms. "Add me. If the site left behind a poison trail, I'll find it."
Everyone turned to him. Elias' gray eyes were unreadable, but the cold calm of his tone cut through the tension like a scalpel.
"Corruption leaves a scent," he added quietly. "I'll trace it."
"Good," Evelyn said, barely nodding. "You five will lead the search. Take Sloane and Kira for field control. We'll run real-time scans from command."
Ren took a step forward. "What about me?"
"You're staying here," Ava said firmly, though her tone held warmth. "With Rowan."
"But—"
"You're our safety net now," Evelyn interrupted. "If anything else crosses through, I want someone who can slow time holding the line. That's you."
Ren's jaw tightened, but he gave a small nod. He shifted a bit closer to Rowan, still restless. "Just say the word. I'll help."
Rowan gave him a grateful glance.
On the console, a private alert lit up.
[ANCHOR STRESS: 82%]
[DEVIATION DETECTED.]
[UNREGISTERED RESONANCE PULSE: 2.3% MATCH - VAUGHN, L.]
His chest tightened.
"Start gearing up," Evelyn said. "Recon only. If the figure resurfaces, do not engage unless absolutely necessary."
"You're worried it'll take someone else," Quinn said quietly.
Evelyn didn't answer.
Vespera stepped to Rowan's side, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. "He's not lost."
Rowan glanced at her, and for a flicker of a second, he saw something else in her expression—something she wasn't saying.
"I'll keep his signal open," Rowan murmured. "If he reaches out—"
"We'll find him," Ava finished gently.
On the far screen, the last trace of Site V-9 flickered again.
Lucian's name pulsed dimly.
Still alive.
Still waiting.
The scar that thinks
The first thing Lucian felt was cold.
Not the sharp kind that bit at skin, but something deeper—like a breath held too long, like resonance that had frozen mid-pulse. He blinked slowly, trying to remember where he was, how he'd gotten here.
Site V9.
He was sure of that much. He remembered the flickering alarms, the roar of the collapsing Rift, and Rowan—his face twisted in panic, reaching for him. Then nothing but static. A blinding pulse. And now this.
Lucian shifted against the rough floor beneath him, groaning softly. Pain bloomed along his ribs—familiar, deep. The Echo had caught him cleanly, that jagged blade tearing muscle. Blood had dried along his flank, sticky beneath the fabric of his suit.
Still alive, he thought grimly. Barely.
The room around him was dim, lit only by the broken flicker of red emergency lighting and faint white resonance lines running like veins along the walls. It wasn't the command deck. It wasn't any part of Site V9 he remembered. The air smelled wrong—old and metallic, like something forgotten.
Lucian sat up slowly. A haze clung to his vision, like the world was lagging half a second behind his thoughts. He pressed a hand to the floor. It vibrated faintly, not from machinery, but like something beneath the surface was humming—alive, aware.
His own resonance was fragmented. He could feel it bleeding out like steam, scattered through the space like shattered glass. But not gone. Not yet.
A whisper stirred near his ear.
Not words. A shape of memory. A voice that sounded like Rowan, but wasn't.
Lucian turned, slowly.
The corridor outside was bent—literally curved in on itself, as if the architecture had been twisted by some great invisible hand. Broken monitors crackled with flashes of images: battle logs, blinking timestamps, Rowan's name in corrupted files. His boots echoed on the floor as he stood, testing his weight. His side screamed, but he remained upright.
Each step forward was met with… resistance.
Not from the ground—but from time itself.
He passed a mirror-smooth glass panel. For a moment, he saw his reflection.
Then it blinked.
It wasn't him.
The version that stared back had darker eyes. Paler skin. A warped expression—mouth slack with something too close to madness.
Lucian recoiled.
And the reflection grinned.
What is this place?
Site V9 had once been a standard rift stabilization hub. Now it felt like a graveyard.
No. A loop.
He turned a corner and stopped dead.
There—impossibly—was the hallway he had just walked through. Same marks on the walls. Same crack in the lighting strip. He turned again—back to where he came—and the environment had changed.
Now it was a rooftop.
A familiar one.
The rooftop.
Where Rowan had first asked him about Project Veil. Where he'd spoken of death and timelines and anchors.
But it wasn't right. The city skyline was wrong. The stars were frozen in place. And in the corner, near the edge, was Rowan's body.
Eyes open. Pale.
Lucian's knees buckled. He staggered back, breathing hard.
The body vanished like smoke.
Another hallucination. Another fragment.
"No," he whispered to no one. "This isn't real."
But the pain in his side was. The sweat slicking his neck was. The pulse in his ears, screaming for Rowan—that was real.
He kept walking.
The facility twisted around him. Floors looped. Doors repeated. He saw files scrawled with phrases that made no sense—
[ANCHOR FEEDBACK]
[RECURSION LOCKED: MERCER, R.]
[THRESHOLD BREACH: ECHO CONTAINMENT FAILURE]
And everywhere he went—Rowan'sname.
Over and over.
Lucian stopped in front of a console sparking faintly in the dark. He tried to power it.
It flickered.
A voice crackled through.
"You created this."
Lucian jerked back. It wasn't Rowan's voice. Not quite. Not just his voice.
It was many Rowans. Stacked. Layered. Echoes overlapping.
The screen glitched again, then displayed an image.
Rowan, bleeding in his arms.
Then another.
Rowan, falling off a broken scaffold.
Then another.
Rowan, reaching for him with a hand that disintegrated into ash.
He staggered, breath catching.
"No. No—stop it—"
"How many times did you try?"
His knees hit the floor. He covered his ears like that would help.
The voice hissed in his skull.
"And how many times did you fail?"
Something behind him shifted.
Lucian looked up.
The corridor now stretched out to an open chamber—circular, ringed with fractured stasis pods. Most were cracked, leaking faint pulses of residual energy. One, however, was intact. Sealed with a sigil he recognized but couldn't place.
He stepped toward it.
His blood turned cold.
Inside, suspended in translucent amber, was another Lucian.
Eyes closed. Hands at his sides.
This one was… older. Scarred. His face worn by time and ruin.
The pod blinked.
So did the figure inside.
Lucian stumbled back. His breath came in ragged pulls.
"Still alive," the voice whispered again. "Still waiting."
He didn't remember falling.
Didn't remember the moment the room went black again.
But when the lights returned, he was lying against the cold floor, eyes locked on the ceiling, pulse thudding like a war drum.
And all he could think was:
What if this version isn't the first?
What if it isn't even the real one at all?