Chapter 13
1094 Words
Sleep didn’t come easily that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the blue light of those containment pods and heard the hum of the fragments—steady, patient, alive.
By morning, the academy’s corridors felt too bright. Too quiet. Every student I passed seemed normal, but after what I’d seen underground, “normal” didn’t mean much.
“Yeah, I’ll add that to my to-do list,” I muttered.
At the cafeteria, Leo waved me over. He’d already devoured half his breakfast. “You look like you wrestled a golem.”
“Close,” I said, sitting. “Ever hear of the Unranked being sent into restricted zones?”
He blinked. “Restricted zones? Those are off-limits even for B-class. Why?”
“Just curious.”
Leo frowned. “Curious gets people expelled—or worse.”
I didn’t answer. My wrist-band pinged again.
> “You’re not the only one who’s been below. Meet in the E-13 training room after curfew.”
I looked up, scanning the room. No one was watching. The message vanished after three seconds.
---
Curfew hit at twenty-three hundred hours. I waited until the hall lights dimmed, then slipped out. The corridors were empty except for the occasional patrol drone.
Block E-13 was colder than before. When I stepped inside, Kira was already there, leaning against a console.
“So you got the message,” she said.
“You sent it?”
“Maybe.” She tossed a data-chip at me. I caught it. “That’s from the tunnel cameras. I pulled it before the academy could wipe the feed.”
I slotted it into my wrist-band. Images flickered: soldiers hauling crates, the same glowing fragments I’d seen—then a frame where something else appeared. A shadow behind the pods. Human-shaped but wrong, as if the air itself warped around it.
I paused the video. “That wasn’t one of the guards.”
“No,” Kira said. “Halden told us Sub-Level 3 was sealed for safety. He lied.”
“Maybe he didn’t know.”
She shook her head. “He knew. The Unranked are cover. We test the security for him while the Headmaster digs deeper.”
“Echo,” I repeated. “Never heard of it.”
Kira crossed her arms. “That’s because the Council keeps it quiet. They say echoes are what’s left when a ranker burns out—energy without identity. Fragments feed on them.”
“Great,” I said. “Haunted batteries.”
She almost smiled. “Something like that. The one on the video moved when the soldiers weren’t looking. It followed them.”
“Then we need to go back.”
Kira blinked. “You’re serious.”
“Drayke’s building something with those fragments. If echoes are part of it, we need to know how.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “Fine. But if we die, I’m blaming you.”
“Fair enough.”
---
We descended through the service hatch again. The air stank of ozone. Emergency lights flickered overhead. The hum I’d heard before was stronger now, pulsing like a heartbeat.
At the bottom of the ramp, the corridor split. One path led toward the containment chamber; the other curved into darkness. My wrist-band map showed the second path as erased.
Of course.
“Which way?” Kira whispered.
“Erased maps are always the fun ones.”
We took the dark corridor. The walls changed from metal to stone, older than the academy itself. Strange symbols etched into the surface glowed faintly as we passed.
“Ever seen this language?” Kira asked.
“No. But the system recognizes it.”
The tunnel ended at a round chamber filled with shattered pods. In the center stood a single intact one, still humming. Inside floated another fragment—larger, pulsing silver instead of blue.
The hum deepened as we stepped closer. My mark burned against my skin.
Kira took a slow breath. “That thing’s alive.”
“Maybe aware,” I said. “There’s a difference.”
The air rippled. A whisper echoed through the chamber—not sound but pressure. My vision flickered; for a heartbeat I saw flashes of places that weren’t there: cities of light, towers falling, someone screaming a name I didn’t know.
Then it was gone.
“Kyle!” Kira grabbed my arm. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, though my pulse disagreed. “It talked.”
She stared at me. “What did it say?”
“Nothing I understood.”
A metallic click broke the silence. We spun around. A figure stood in the doorway—Instructor Halden, gun leveled.
“Step away from the fragment,” he ordered.
Kira froze. “You’re part of this?”
“Part?” He laughed softly. “Child, I built this project before Drayke ever arrived. The fragments aren’t his—they’re the academy’s salvation.”
“By draining echoes out of people?” I said.
He sneered. “By controlling what already kills them. With enough fragments, the system itself can be rewritten.”
“And you think Drayke will let you?”
His eyes hardened. “Drayke works for me.”
He pulled the trigger.
The shot never reached me. The fragment flared, light erupting through the chamber. The force threw all of us against the walls.
When the light faded, the pod was empty. The silver glow was gone, and so was Halden. Only his weapon lay smoking on the floor.
Kira coughed, dragging herself upright. “What just happened?”
“Promotion,” I said grimly. “The fragment found a new host.”
We stared into the shadows where the instructor had stood. Something moved there—slow, deliberate. A distorted silhouette that wasn’t fully human anymore.
“Run,” I said.
Kira didn’t argue.
---
We didn’t stop until we reached the surface again. The morning air burned my lungs. Somewhere below, the tunnels rumbled like distant thunder.
“Report to Drayke,” I muttered. “Yeah, that’ll go well.”
Kira leaned against the wall, pale. “He’ll find out anyway.”
“I know,” I said. “But next time, we make sure we find him first.”
The sun rose over the towers, painting the academy in gold. From here it looked peaceful again—like nothing beneath it was shifting, screaming, or evolving.
But the hum in my mark told a different story. The fragments were awake now, and they remembered me.
- Writer
