🌕 Chapter 2: The Awakening Pulse
749 Words
Kaira ran.
Not because she was afraid.
Because she was changing.
Each step into the deeper woods peeled something off her—like armor she didn’t know she’d been wearing her whole life.
The fake air. The fabricated stars. The sterile training modules and voice commands.
None of it mattered out here.
Only survival did.
And the pounding heartbeat in her ears that no longer sounded entirely human.
Behind her, the howls drew closer—low, guttural, furious.
“Stop running,” Riven’s voice echoed in her mind.
"You’re weakening. Your shift is unstable.”
She skidded over root and stone. “You think I’m just going to stop and let a genetically enhanced werewolf explain fate to me?!”
He landed in front of her from above, crouching like a shadow torn from the stars. His eyes were molten silver now, and his body was half-shifted—still humanoid, but with fur running down his arms and claws curved like moonsteel.
“I don’t care what you believe,” he growled. “I only care that they’ll rip your throat out in five seconds if you don’t listen.”
The trees behind her shivered.
And that’s when they emerged—three feral Lunari.
Twisted. Corrupted. Mutants.
Unlike Riven, they weren’t graceful or intelligent. They were wild experiments gone wrong—coded beasts with no purpose but destruction.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
“I don’t need—”
But before she could finish, one lunged.
Riven blurred forward.
A s***h of silver.
A thud.
And blood hit the bark in a single streak.
Kaira watched, stunned, as he tore through two more—elegant in his violence, precise in every move.
It was like watching a storm fight with intent.
When it was done, he stood in silence, chest heaving, moonlight glinting off his claws.
“They weren’t like you,” she whispered.
“No,” he said darkly. “They were created to mimic us. Tools. Failures.”
She looked down at her glowing hands. “And what am I?”
He turned to her, slower now.
“You,” he said, “are impossible.”
---
They made camp in an ancient stone hollow carved into a cliff side. Riven lit a fire using nothing but his hands and some kind of glowing powder from a pouch at his side.
Kaira sat across from him, too exhausted to ask what it was.
Her limbs ached. Her veins still shimmered. Her teeth felt… wrong.
“Why is this happening to me?” she asked.
Riven finally sat down.
“Because your mother was Lunari. Hidden among humans. She left you in the Dome to keep you safe.”
Kaira stared at him. “That’s not possible. I was born from the Codex Birthline Registry.”
Riven nodded.
“That’s what they told you. But you were found. Not registered. The AI couldn’t destroy you—so it rewrote your
identity.”
Kaira looked into the fire. Her mind spun. It hurts to think.
Then she felt it again.
A tug.
Between them.
Her eyes lifted.
And he was watching her.
Like he had been the whole time.
“You feel it too,” he said quietly.
She didn’t answer.
He moved closer.
Very slowly. So she could stop him.
She didn’t.
He lifted his hand, brushed the back of his knuckles along her cheek. His skin was hot. His claws retracted.
“You’ve been dreaming of me,” he said. “Haven’t you?”
Her breath hitched.
“How—how do you know?”
“Because I’ve been dreaming of you for years.”
She should’ve pulled away.
Should’ve grabbed her staff and backed off.
Instead, she leaned in.
He kissed her—softly at first, as if he didn’t trust the moment.
Then her body surged forward.
And it deepened.
Wild. Desperate. Real.
Not the controlled, sterile touch she’d known in the Domes. Not the programmatic intimacy they trained agents for.
But something primal.
Right.
She broke away, panting.
“This can’t happen.”
“It already is.”
“But we’re—”
“Moonbound,” he whispered against her lips. “And we don’t get to choose fate.”
---
Outside the cave, the moon turned red.
Somewhere in the distance, the AI satellites blinked awake.
Tracking her.
Marking her as an anomaly.
The hunt had begun.
But she no longer cared.
Because something in her had already answered the call.
- Writer
