Forgotten shadows dwell within Lina's dreams.
Each time she closed her eyes inside her private unit in the lunar dome "Seleneus-9," visions appeared—of forests that whispered, rain falling from the sky, birds with radiant wings soaring through a blue expanse. Images that didn't belong to her world of steel and artificial light.
And yet... they felt familiar.
Today was eerily quiet. The Earth-sun, casting its light across the gray lunar sky beyond the dome, seemed dimmer than usual. Control Center dispatched an urgent alert to all pilots—a surprise test for the latest mobile suits: LUNARIS-X, the crown jewel of lunar military engineering.
Lina donned her suit, a masterpiece of technology painted in deep crimson, echoing her air of mystery. Upon her left shoulder gleamed the insignia of the elite: a crescent embracing a star. Yet Lina knew she was unlike the others. It wasn't just skill... it was as though the suit knew her more than she knew herself.
"All units, prepare for deployment to Sector 4-B," Captain Rin's dry voice crackled through the comms.
Inside her suit, Lina breathed slowly. The engines rumbled to life, gravity slipping away. Deployment outside the dome meant real vacuum—possible death... or freedom.
The squad launched in formation. The landscape beyond the dome was pallid—dusty terrain, jagged rocks, and in the distance: Earth. A slow-turning azure orb speckled with light.
She whispered, "Why do you feel so familiar?"
The mission was labeled "Atmospheric Stress and Long-range Comms Test." Yet Lina sensed something else. Her HUD began flashing strange signals—data fragments in a language not used on the moon. Corrupted files... marked ECHO-RED.
"Lina, your status?" Rin's voice bore a trace of suspicion.
"All systems nominal," she replied quickly, though her pulse betrayed her.
Between the rocks, she saw something—or someone. A human shape moving fast, clad in an unfamiliar suit. Not purely lunar, not purely terrestrial—a hybrid. Before she could see clearly, it vanished behind a dusty ridge.
She wanted to follow, but the command structure was rigid. She stayed with the formation, but her mind had begun to stray.
Back at the dome, she was intercepted by engineer Sylvia at the maintenance gate.
"Lina, did your system glitch? There were anomalies... strange code in the logs."
"Just a decoding error, perhaps?" Lina offered.
Sylvia said nothing, but her eyes said more—like she knew.
That night, Lina sat alone in her unit, gazing at Earth through reinforced glass.
The dream returned... the forest, the birds. But this time, there was a mirror.
And in it, a face that looked like hers... but wasn't.