Sleeping with the Enemy

Awakening Protocol

Darkness swallowed the city.

The moment the lights went out, the whole skyline seemed to exhale a long, trembling breath that rolled through every building, every wire, every forgotten alleyway. Damon froze at the window, watching as block surrendered to the blackout.

A storm without thunder.

A silence without peace.

"Aurora..." he whispered again, but the room ate his voice whole.

His phone buzzed once more.

HOST SYNCHRONIZATION: 71%.

Damon's pulse stumbled. It was rising. Rapidly.

He grabbed his coat and bolted for the elevator only to find it dead. Of course. The blackout wasn't random. It was targeted. Controlled.

"Damn it". He took the stairs, feet pounding as he descended the entire building. With each floor he passed, that number carved itself deeper into him.

71%.

71%.

71%.

Too high.

Too fast.

Too dangerous.

Aurora isn't just connected to ECHO anymore. She is becoming it.

He shoved open the stairwell door stepping into the street just as the city shuddered.

Not metaphorically.

The ground actually vibrated.

A ripple of power surged through the streetlamps even though they were dark, like an invisible pulse had washed over the city.

Cars stalled.

Storefront screens blinked white.

Phones lit up all at once with the same corrupted icon a circle spilt down the middle, like two faces overlapping.

The logo of Project: ECHO.

Damon's breath left him.

"No... Aurora... what did they do to you?"

He sprinted toward the industrial district where he knew she would be.

Where everything had gone wrong.

Where she had found the body that mirrored her own.

Where she'd whispered, broken and terrified:

"If she was the code... then what am i?"

He didn't have an answer.

But he would die before he left anyone or anything take her from him.

AURORA

The world flickered.

She opened her eyes to darkness, but not emptiness. There were lights behind her eyelids, threads of information flowing like rivers of color she had never known existed.

Her hearbeat echoed like it belonged to someone else.

Her breath felt borrowed.

Her skin tingled with electricity but not the random static she'd felt when machine first touched her. No. This was controlled. Directed. Purposeful.

She sat up, dizzy, her palms pressing against cold concrete.

She wasn't in the lab anymore.

She wasn't anywhere she recognized.

A long hallway streched out before her wires hanging from the ceiling, old servers stacked like tombstones. The air hummed softly, vibrating with distant whispers.

And then

A voice.

Her own.

"Aurora... don't be afraid".

She spun around.

Nothing there. Just shadows. Just silence.

Except.... not silence.

Somewhere beneath the city, something was speaking directly into her mind.

Her reflection.

Her double.

The lifeless version of herself she had found, still burned into her memory.

Was it still dead?

Or was it something else now?

Whispers rose through the floor, weaving through her thoughts.

We are awake.

We are incomplete.

Find him.

Her stomach tightened.

"Damon..." she breathed.

The lights flickered above her a single strip of harsh fluorescent white sputtering to life. And when it did, she froze.

Bloody footprints.

Leading deeper into the corridor.

Not hers.

His.

Her pulse quickened painfully.

"No... Damon, where are you"

Another whisper cut through her.

HOST SYNCHRONIZATION: 76%.

Her kness nearly buckled.

She could feel it now the code pushing against her bones, crawling under her skin, threading itself through her nerves like a second heartbeat.

She clutched the wall.

"Stop... please stop.."

But the whisper answered:

We cannot stop. You opened the door.

Her vision blurred. Colors smeared. Shapes fractured.

And beneath her skin something glowed.

The industrial district was darker than the rest of the city almost unnaturally so. Like the blackout had begun here.

He pulled his gun, moving through the alleyways with deadly precision.

It wasn't until he reached the old server bunker that he saw them

Footprints. Small. Bare. Bloodied.

He swallowed hard.

"Aurora..."

He followed the prints inside, every instinct sharpened to a blade.

Then he heard it.

A soft, glitching hum.

Like a heartbeat made of electricity.

He stepped into the main corridor

And froze.

Aurora stood at the far end, her back to him. Her hair hung in dark, wet strands. Her shoulders trembled.

"Aurora?" he whispered.

Her head turned slightly, just enough for him to see a single glowing thread of light trailing from her temple down her neck.

His chest constricted.

"Aurora don't move", he said slowly, "I'm coming to you".

She shook her head, voice breaking

"Damon... stay back".

He ignored her and moved anyway.

Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the corridor for a split second and in that half-second, Damon saw what she was staring at:

The servers lining the walls were powering on.

One by one.

Without electricity.

Lit by her.

The glow beneath her skin pulsed like a living thing.

"Aurora, listen to me", Damon said, his voice steady even as fear clawed at him. "I'm getting you out of here".

She lifted her trembling hands.

And the lights above them brightened in response.

"I can't... control it", she whispered.

"Then let me control it with you", he said.

Her breath hitched. A tear slid down.

"Damon... i think I'm becoming her".

"The duplicate?" he asked.

She swallowed.

"No. The code".

The floor vibrated violently a tremor that ran straight through her bones.

HOST SYNCHRONIZATION: 82%.

The walls around them flickered like they were alive.

Damon lunged toward her.

Aurora screamed

Not in fear.

In warning.

"Damon, STOP!"

Too late.

The moment his hands touched her, electricity exploded outward in a blinding wave hurling him back into the metal door with a sickening thud.

"DAMON!" Aurora cried, dropping to her knees, crawling toward him

But another force pulled her back, like invisible hands gripping her spine.

Servers roared to life.

Screens blinked awake.

And a voice calm, cold, familiar filled the corridor.

"Protocol complete".

Aurora's blood ran cold.

Damon, barely conscious, whispered:

"...Ethan?"

The voice replied:

"No".

A pause.

A static breath.

"We are ECHO".

Aurora screamed as light poured from her veins and the entire city flickered in response.