The path west narrowed.
Black ridges rose like crooked spines from the earth, forcing the team into tight, uneven valleys. They moved slow, careful, silent. No one said it, but they all felt it: they were being watched. Not by something nearby, but by something distant and vast, like a storm beyond the curve of the world.
Calyx walked beside Arix, her limp more pronounced today. She didn't complain. She never did.
He noticed.
He always noticed.
The Rift had gone quiet inside him. No warnings, no pressure, no surge. Just stillness. It unnerved him more than any noise.
> [Echo Sync: 36% – Holding]
They reached a narrow ridge cut by wind and time. Below, a collapsed structure jutted out of the rock like a broken tooth. Thorne scouted the perimeter while Kael and Selis swept the interior.
Calyx leaned against the rock wall, catching her breath. Arix hovered nearby.
"You don't have to stand guard," she said without looking at him.
"I'm not."
"Then what are you doing?"
He hesitated. "Watching."
She tilted her head slightly, amused. "For what?"
He didn't answer. He didn't know how.
Calyx's eyes were distant. "You ever think about what we're doing? Chasing fragments. Hunting ghosts. Running from everything else."
"All the time."
She turned her gaze on him. "And what do you want when it's done?"
He blinked. "Done?"
"When the fighting stops. When you're not carrying something that could shatter the world."
Arix didn't answer. He hadn't allowed himself to think that far ahead.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I didn't think I'd live long enough to have to answer that."
"You might," she said. "You're getting stronger every day. Smarter. Faster. You're changing."
"So are you."
She shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. But you're different. The way you fight now—it's like it's part of you. Like it is you."
"It scares me."
"It should."
The silence after was heavy. But not empty.
Arix sat beside her.
"You asked what I want when it's done," he said. "I think… I want to stop running. Not from the system. Or from what I was."
"From what, then?"
He looked at her. Really looked.
"From feeling anything."
Calyx didn't speak.
But her fingers, gloved and steady, brushed his for the briefest moment. Just enough to say I'm here.
He didn't pull away.
---
Later, Kael found a relay terminal inside the broken structure. It wasn't dead. It was waiting.
Selis tapped into the terminal, her face pale in the blue light.
"This isn't ours," she said. "It predates the collapse. It's running something… alien."
"Can you shut it down?" Kael asked.
Selis shook her head. "It's not running. It's listening."
"To us?"
"No," she said. "To something else."
The screen flickered. A symbol appeared—a spiral inside a fractured hexagon.
Arix stepped forward. The shard pulsed.
> [Recognition Pattern: Confirmed]
[Data Fragment Found – Accessing Layered Echo Memory]
A flood of sensation slammed through him. Not pain, not memory—presence. A mind brushing his, vast and old and quiet.
He gasped and fell to one knee. Calyx was there instantly, holding him steady.
He didn't hear her voice, but he felt it.
Come back.
He did.
> [Data Transfer Complete – Vision Stored in Subsystem Archive]
"I'm fine," he said, standing slowly.
"Bullshit," Calyx said, not letting go.
He didn't argue. He let her hand stay.
---
That night, they camped beside a dry riverbed. The wind howled above the rocks, but the stars broke through. Small comfort. Cold beauty.
Arix sat awake while the others slept. Calyx stirred and joined him, wrapped in a thin cloak, eyes shadowed.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"Couldn't."
She nodded. "Me neither."
They sat in silence for a long time.
"I think I felt something in that terminal," he said. "Something watching. Something old. Not hostile. Just… aware."
Calyx didn't flinch. "The Vaults weren't made for us. We were just late to the apocalypse."
He glanced at her.
"You always talk like you know how it ends."
"I don't," she said. "But I know how people break. And you're close."
"I'm holding on."
"To what?"
He was quiet a long time.
Finally, he looked at her, and his voice was quieter than a whisper:
"To you."
She didn't look away.
And for the first time since this all began, he let the thought bloom fully in his mind.
I love her.
He didn't say it. He wasn't ready. Not yet.
But he knew.
And so did she.
---
The morning came cold and hollow.
Kael moved slower than usual. His encounter with the pressure wave had left more than physical damage. His aim was still precise, but his hands trembled when he thought no one was watching.
Thorne picked up the slack without a word. He'd taken up a quiet ritual of carving old insignias into fallen stone—names of squads long gone, perhaps. Maybe even names of people he couldn't forget.
Selis finally managed to get a partial uplink. What came through wasn't clear—just static and flickers of old-world transmissions. Her brow furrowed as she translated the distorted code.
"Someone's transmitting through the Vault signal," she said. "It's piggybacking on the fragment's frequency."
"Someone?" Calyx asked.
"Something," Selis corrected.
Arix felt it before the pulse hit—deep in his chest, like an echo ricocheting off old bones.
> [Alert: Echo Beacon Lock – Tracked]
[Multiple Entities Inbound – Confirmed Aberrant Signatures]
He stood without speaking, eyes narrowing as the horizon shimmered. Calyx mirrored him.
"They're coming," he said.
She nodded. "Then we meet them here."
The ridge provided some cover. They positioned themselves quickly—Kael prone with rifle set, Thorne anchoring the center, Selis behind a shield drone.
And Arix… stood alone at the peak.
The wind carried a low hum.
Then the Aberrants emerged.
Twisted forms, half-human, half-glass, etched with fragments of Riftlight. Their bodies pulsed in time with the shard in Arix's chest.
Calyx stepped up beside him. "You don't have to face them alone."
"I'm not," he said.
Their eyes met.
This time, he didn't look away.
They charged together.