The forest lay still in the aftermath. Smoke curled through the shattered underbrush, and the scent of ozone lingered in the air like a curse. The silence was not peaceful—it was stunned, like nature itself was holding its breath.

Ava stared at her hands.They were shaking, glowing faintly, her veins lit like dim embers under skin.

"I didn't know I could do that," she whispered. "I didn't mean to..."

Noah knelt beside her. "You didn't choose this. They made you into something. But this doesn't define you, Ava. You do."

Luca was less comforting. He looked like he'd seen a ghost—or worse, recognized one.

"They activated something. That power—it wasn't psychic, not fully. It was engineered. Biochemical. Synaptic override on a cellular level." He glanced at her. "They turned your nervous system into a weaponized circuit."

Ava flinched. "So what am I? A machine?"

"No," Noah said firmly. "You're a survivor."

But Luca wasn't finished. "This power—it doesn't come without consequence. If they've reawakened your link to the Ghost Protocol…"

Ava blinked. "What's that?"

"The protocol that linked all test subjects. A shared neural tether. When one woke up, the others were triggered. That surge… it wasn't just you. Others may have felt it. Across the world."

Ava's voice turned hollow. "You mean... I didn't just wake myself up. I woke them up too?"

Luca nodded grimly. "And some of them weren't as stable as you."

A gust of wind swept through the trees. Leaves stirred in a spiral. Somewhere, an owl cried out.

Ava stood slowly, wiping blood from a scrape on her temple. "Then we need answers. No more running. No more hiding."

Noah stepped forward. "What do you want to do?"

Her voice hardened."We go back to where it all started."

Luca's expression changed. "Ava, the Winterglass site was destroyed."

"Not all of it," she said. "There's a secondary lab. I saw it. In my memory—it was in a desert. Red sand. Black glass. A dome."

Luca stiffened. "That facility was decommissioned and classified Level Zero. Even I couldn't access it."

Ava looked up at him, her jaw set.

"Then it's time to break into hell."

To be continued...