Chapter 16 - "Echoes from the Scar"
The hangar doors groaned open beneath the Vesper Coil, revealing the ghostly stretch of the Twilight Expanse—an irradiated desert stretching far beyond the horizon, where the sky flickered like a broken screen. The Eclipse Scar pulsed dimly in the distance, a wound in space that never stopped bleeding static.
Kael stood beside Nyra at the platform's edge. The wind here wasn't natural—it whispered in fragmented data and echoed memories not their own.
"This place wasn't like this before the war," Nyra murmured. Her holographic form flickered as if reacting to the distortion in the atmosphere. "The Expanse used to be a thriving city... until the first protocol activated."
Kael adjusted his visor, locking into the frequency of the signal they had traced. "The anomaly's strongest here. We're not the first to come searching."
No sooner had he spoken than the dust parted ahead—revealing a convoy of black-clad figures moving in near-silence. Their armor bore no insignia, only a dull red glow pulsing at their cores. One of them raised a hand, and the others froze like puppets severed from their strings.
"They're running on ancient war protocols," Dae Yun whispered, stepping into formation. "But... they're not fully synthetic. Hybrid constructs. Half-flesh. Half code."
A silence hung between them before a shriek of static split the air. One of the constructs lunged forward—only for Kael's plasma blade to slice clean through it.
As its body hit the ground, writhing in sparks and blood, Nyra's eyes widened.
"That's not just tech... it remembers. It screamed in Korean."
Kael crouched beside the remains. The chest cavity was still pulsing, and deep inside, a data drive embedded in flesh. He retrieved it, and the voices began.
Whispers. Names. Coordinates. Visions of what Earth once was—and what was buried beneath.
Nyra's voice came softer now. "They were test subjects. Carriers of the original protocol."
"They're trying to become more than machines," Kael said grimly. "And whatever the Scar is... it's calling them home."
Thunder cracked in the far distance, though no storm brewed. The pulse of the anomaly was growing louder.
"We have to breach the Scar," Kael said. "Before they do."
Dae Yun pulled his weapon close, his expression unreadable. "That's suicide."
Kael didn't argue. He simply walked toward the horizon.
And the Eclipse Scar blinked back.