THE SOURCE REVEALED
1754 Words
The unknown number's messages stopped for three weeks.
Jayden checked his phone every morning, every night. Nothing. The silence was worse than the warnings. At least when the stranger was talking, he knew something was coming.
Daniel's visions grew stronger.
He saw flashes of a facility—underground, white walls, steel doors. People in lab coats. Hosts strapped to tables. Machines that hummed with the same frequency as Crown fragments.
"There's a place," Daniel said, eyes distant. "Where they're studying us. Experimenting on us."
"Who?"
"I can't see their faces. Just their hands. Their instruments."
Jayden called Hall.
"We need to talk."
---
Hall arrived at the gym within the hour.
She listened to Daniel's description, her face growing paler with each detail. When he finished, she was silent for a long moment.
"There's a facility," she said finally. "Off the books. Not FBI. Not any agency I know. But I've heard rumors."
"Where?"
"Montana. Deep underground. Built during the Cold War. Supposedly abandoned."
"It's not abandoned."
"No. I don't think it is."
---
The mission to Montana took three days to plan.
Jayden, Andrew, Viktor, Sera, and Daniel. Five people against whatever was hidden beneath the mountains.
Hall provided satellite images, old blueprints, and a promise of backup if things went wrong.
"Don't go in blind," she said. "If this facility is what Daniel saw, there will be guards. Systems. Possibly hosts."
"We'll be ready."
---
The drive was long and quiet.
Daniel sat in the back seat, eyes closed, meditating. His visions had been coming more frequently—every few hours now. He was learning to control them, to focus on details.
"I see a door," he said. "Steel. Heavy. There's a keypad. Code is... 7-3-1-8-5."
Jayden looked at Andrew. "That's specific."
"He's getting better."
---
The facility was hidden in a canyon, camouflaged against the rock.
No signs. No fences. Just a steel door set into the mountainside.
Jayden approached, Daniel's code on his mind. He punched it into the keypad.
The door clicked open.
---
Inside, the air was cold and sterile.
White walls. Fluorescent lights. A corridor that stretched into darkness. Jayden led the way, rifle up, Crimson Trial dormant but his instincts sharp.
The facility was larger than the blueprints suggested.
They passed labs filled with equipment—monitors, centrifuges, machines that hummed with Crown energy. Empty cages lined the walls. The smell of antiseptic and fear hung in the air.
"They were keeping hosts here," Sera said. "Experimenting on them."
"Where are they now?"
"Gone. Or dead."
---
They found the first body in the third lab.
A man in a lab coat, throat cut, eyes wide. Blood had pooled on the floor, dried to a dark stain.
"Recent," Viktor said. "A few days."
"Something went wrong."
They moved faster.
---
The main chamber was at the end of the corridor.
A circular room, domed ceiling, walls covered in monitors. In the center, a machine—large, complex, built around a Crown fragment the size of a fist.
And standing in front of the machine, back to them, was a woman.
She turned when they entered.
Mira.
But not Mira. Her eyes were black. Her skin was pale, almost translucent. The thing's star-speckled pattern flickered beneath her surface.
"No," Jayden said.
"Hello, Jayden." Her voice was the same, but wrong. Deeper. Older. "I was wondering when you'd find me."
"You're supposed to be in the bunker. Containing the thing."
"The thing is contained. I am the thing now. We are... merged."
Jayden's blood went cold. "The transfer didn't work."
"It worked too well. The thing didn't just enter me. It changed me. Remade me. I am what it always wanted to be—a vessel that can think. That can plan. That can act."
"Act for what?"
Mira smiled—cold, inhuman. "Act to win."
---
The machine behind her hummed louder.
Crown fragments across the room glowed in response. The walls shook.
"What is that thing?" Andrew demanded.
"The source of the mutation. The thing that is waking hosts and changing their systems." Mira stepped closer. "I built it. Using the knowledge I've gathered over three centuries. Using the fragments you collected. Using the thing's power."
"Why?"
"Because the old way wasn't working. The Crown. The Purge. The endless cycle of death and rebirth. It had to end."
"So you're going to mutate every host in the world?"
"I'm going to give them a choice. Evolve or die. The strong will survive. The weak will fall. And from the ashes, a new species will rise."
Jayden raised his rifle. "You're insane."
"Insane? No. I'm the only one who sees clearly."
---
The guards came from the shadows.
Not humans—constructs. Like the Wardens in the cave, but smaller, faster. Their eyes glowed with the same dark light as Mira's.
Viktor fired. The bullets passed through them.
"Intangible," he said. "Like Sera."
"But not like me," Sera said.
She stepped forward, her own intangibility activating. The constructs reached for her, passed through her, passed through each other. She grabbed one, her hand solid for an instant, and ripped out its core.
The construct crumbled.
"Their power source is in the chest," Sera said. "Destroy it, and they fall."
---
The fight was chaos.
Jayden fired at the constructs, aiming for their chests. Each hit shattered one, but more appeared. The machine was generating them faster than they could destroy them.
"We need to shut down that machine," Andrew shouted.
"Working on it."
Jayden ran toward the Crown fragment at the machine's center. Mira stepped in his way.
"You can't stop this. The mutation has already begun. Hosts across the world are changing. Evolving. Becoming something new."
"I can slow it down. Contain it. Control it."
"You can't control evolution. You can only adapt."
She raised her hand. Dark light exploded from her palm.
---
Jayden dove behind a console.
The light passed over him, close enough to singe his hair. He rolled, came up firing. The bullets hit Mira's chest—and stopped. Her skin absorbed them.
"The thing made me stronger," she said. "Faster. Harder to kill. You can't hurt me."
"Then I'll hurt the machine."
He threw a grenade.
Mira caught it—and the explosion tore through her hand. She screamed, staggered. The thing's regeneration kicked in, healing the wound, but slowly.
"You're not as invincible as you think."
Jayden ran for the machine.
---
Daniel was already there.
The young host stood in front of the Crown fragment, hands outstretched, eyes closed. His system was pulsing—faster, brighter—responding to the fragment's energy.
"Daniel, don't—"
"I can shut it down. My system is evolving. It can interface with the fragment."
"It could kill you."
"Maybe. But it could save everyone."
He touched the fragment.
---
Light exploded.
Jayden was thrown back, hit the wall, slid down. Andrew was on the floor, shielding his eyes. Viktor and Sera were crouched behind a console.
Daniel stood in the center of the light, his body glowing, his eyes white.
The machine screamed. The Crown fragment cracked, then shattered.
The constructs crumbled.
Mira fell to her knees, the thing's light flickering beneath her skin.
"What have you done?" she whispered.
"What you should have done years ago," Daniel said. "Ended it."
He collapsed.
---
Jayden crawled to Daniel's side.
The young man was breathing, but barely. His system had gone dormant—not dead, but sleeping. The strain had been too much.
"He's alive," Jayden said. "Barely."
Leah's voice through the earpiece: "I'm reading a massive energy discharge from your location. What happened?"
"Daniel shut down the machine. The fragment is destroyed."
"And Mira?"
Jayden looked at the woman on the floor. The thing's light was fading. Her eyes were returning to normal.
"She's human again. I think."
---
They secured the facility.
Hall's agents arrived within the hour, taking Mira into custody. The machine was dismantled, piece by piece. The Crown fragments were collected, contained.
Daniel was flown to a hospital in Veridian City.
Jayden rode in the helicopter with him, watching the young man's chest rise and fall.
"He saved us," Andrew said.
"He saved everyone."
---
Daniel woke three days later.
His system was still dormant, but his eyes were clear. He looked at Jayden, at the ceiling, at the machines beeping beside his bed.
"Did it work?"
"The machine is destroyed. The mutations have stopped. Hosts are stable."
"And Mira?"
"Detained. The thing is still inside her, but it's dormant. Without the machine, it can't influence other hosts."
Daniel closed his eyes. "Good."
---
Mira's trial was held in secret.
She was charged with crimes against humanity—experimenting on hosts, causing the mutations, endangering the world. She didn't fight the charges. Didn't speak in her defense.
At the end, she looked at Jayden.
"I was trying to save us," she said. "The hosts. The world. Everything."
"You were trying to play God."
"Someone has to."
"No. Someone has to be human."
She was taken away.
---
The months that followed were quiet.
Hosts adjusted to their new reality—systems dormant or stable, mutations halted, the Crown's influence gone. The Host Affairs Division grew, recruiting hosts to help hosts.
Jayden stayed at the gym, training, teaching, leading.
Daniel became his protégé—learning to control his visions, to use his evolving system for good. He wasn't the first of the new anymore. He was just... Daniel.
And that was enough.
---
One night, Jayden stood on the roof of the Iron Pit.
The stars were out. The city was quiet.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number: *"The machine is gone. The mutations are halted. But the source of the mutation is still out there. Something created that machine. Something gave Mira the knowledge to build it. Find that something. Before it finds you."*
Jayden stared at the message.
The war wasn't over.
It had just changed.
He typed back: *"Who are you?"*
A pause. Then: *"Someone who wants to help. Someone who has been watching. Someone who knows what comes next."*
*"What comes next?"*
*"The source. The origin. The thing that created the Crown. The thing that created the thing. It's waking. And when it does, all of this—the hosts, the systems, the mutations—will seem like a prelude."*
Jayden lowered the phone.
The stars seemed brighter. The night seemed colder.
Somewhere out there, something ancient was stirring.
And he was going to find it.
- Writer
