03:55 Hours – Location: Vault Wing – Outer Corridor

03:55 Hours – Location: Vault Wing – Outer Corridor

The hall was too clean.

No dust. No decay. No heat.
Just sterile black flooring and walls that breathed with silent pulses of embedded light. One every ten seconds. A perfect rhythm. Mechanical, unnatural.

“Voren,” Axel whispered. “Confirm blackout’s still live.”

“Confirmed,” Voren said, checking his wrist display. “No pings. No alarms. System reads dead.”

Axel frowned. “Then why the hell is it still powered?”

No one answered.

The team pressed forward, boots silent. The hallway spiraled gently, walls curving like a funnel toward something unseen.

Then they saw it.

A door—not a vault, but reinforced glass. A viewing window.

Renna moved first, her breath catching.

“Uh… guys?”

They gathered around her. Ember stepped forward.

Behind the glass—cells. Rows of them.

Each with a person inside.

Upright. Awake. Unmoving.

A girl sat cross-legged, staring at the ceiling with a half-smile frozen on her face. An old man rested on the edge of his cot, hands on his knees, eyes wide open.

Breathing. Blinking. Alive.
But… wrong.

“They’re not reacting,” Silen whispered.

“What is this?” Deyar muttered.

Axel’s voice was hollow. “They’re not prisoners. They’re experiments.”

The word hit Ember like a gut punch.

She looked back at the old man. His eyes… were too still.
“Experiments…” she whispered, not realizing it escaped her lips.

Axel turned toward her, voice tight.

“No time. We move.”

“But—”

“We move.”

It wasn’t fear. It was urgency. He knew something wasn’t right.

04:07 Hours – Location: Inner Vault – Data Mine Chamber

The vault felt like a tomb.

The door sealed behind them with a hiss, locking out the hallway’s breath. The air was still—but not dead. It watched.

At the center of the chamber hovered the data mine.

Not a console. Not a file bank.

A Core.

Spherical. Suspended between curved arms of steel and crystal. Its surface shimmered with threaded lines of code—glowing, humming, pulsing. Breathing.

Ember stepped closer.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“It’s dangerous,” Voren muttered. “Help me with the anchor.”

As he and Renna worked to link the extraction unit, light danced across the walls—soft blue pulses translating years of data into the portable crystal drive.

“Ninety seconds before trace surge,” Voren said. “We move fast.”

Axel stood guard, eyes on the corridor.

Renna leaned toward Ember, voice low.

“So this is what we’re risking everything for?”

“Looks like it.”

“Worth it?”

Ember didn’t answer.

The Core pulsed again.

Something about this place felt… unfinished.

04:09 Hours – Location: Vault Wing Exit

They moved fast. Past the still-glass. Past the frozen stares.

Still no alarms. No chase.

But Ember’s hand hovered near her blade.

Something was wrong

04:12 Hours – Location: Sublevel 3 – Upper Corridor

The exit was close. Just two more turns.

The satchel on Ember’s back was warm—the crystal still humming with live data.

Then—

Click.

The lights flickered.

A red pulse screamed through the corridor.

Doors slammed shut.

Sirens flared.
Turrets dropped from the ceiling.

“Trap!” Deyar shouted. “They waited!”

“Weapons up!” Axel barked. “Break left—move!”

The corridor exploded into chaos.

Ember drew her torchblade in a burst of gold. Voren took a hit across the shoulder but dropped a turret with a pulse spike. Silen returned fire. Renna vanished into the smoke, flanking right.

“We’re cut off from the main route!” Silen shouted.

“Then carve one!”

04:14 Hours – Location: South Wing Collapse Point

An explosion rocked the walls. Metal groaned. A support beam cracked.

“Voren!”

Ember turned. He was down—trapped beneath a chunk of the ceiling.

“Go!” he shouted. “Get the crystal out!”

“Shut up,” Ember growled, already beside him.

She pushed against the beam. Nothing.

She gritted her teeth. Flame curled around her forearms.

“You’re gonna burn yourself,” Renna warned.

“Not if it works.”

Her arms trembled with fire. The steel hissed.

She lifted. Voren pulled free, gasping.

They ran.

04:16 Hours – Location: Sublevel 3 – Access Tunnel Exit

They burst into the final corridor.

The hatch was there. Freedom, two steps away.

Then—

“Ember! Your coat!”

It was caught.

She turned, yanked—freed herself just in time.

The others pushed through the hatch.

She didn’t feel the weight drop.

Didn’t hear the soft clink.

The Echo Sigil slipped from her inner pocket.

Fell behind her.

And the lights went black.