🌕 Chapter 3: Code Red Moon
652 Words
The fire had gone out by morning.
Kaira stood at the cliff edge, the cool wind tangling her hair. Below, the wilds stretched endlessly—glowing fungi in indigo shadows, trees humming with magic beneath their bark.
She felt it in her bones now: the pull of the moon.
But it was the metallic ring in her ears that snapped her out of it.
“Target anomaly confirmed. Code Red Moon initiated. Agent Silas deployed.”
The AI’s cold voice echoed in her neural link—something buried deep in her skull from birth. A failsafe.
Kaira clutched her head. “No—no no no…”
“Shhh,” Riven said behind her, appearing without sound. “You heard it?”
“They activated Silas,” she choked. “He’s not like other agents. He was grown to kill Lunari. Genetically sharpened. Half-
machine.”
“And full slave,” Riven said, low.
She turned. “He’ll come for me. I’m the glitch now.”
“No,” Riven growled. “You’re evolution. And I won’t let them take that from you.”
---
⏳ Hours Later — The Sky Cracked
The first sign of Silas wasn’t a sound.
It was the sudden silence.
No wind. No birds. No hum of the trees.
Riven stiffened.
Then the trees split apart like glass—and Silas emerged.
He looked human, mostly.
But his skin shimmered like metal under the surface. His eyes glowed green with AI targeting code. A long black coat cloaked his
plasma blades.
“Kaira Solene,” he said in a voice that sounded like a thousand wires tightening at once.
“You have deviated from biological protocol. Return for cleansing.”
“Try me,” she growled, crouched with her staff crackling in her hand.
But he didn’t look at her.
He looked at Riven.
“Target: Lunar Male. Class: Alpha. Threat: Maximum.”
Then he moved—blindingly fast.
Riven barely blocked the first strike. Metal met claw in a burst of sparks.
They clashed across the clearing—one pure code, the other pure instinct.
Kaira jumped in, staff slicing toward Silas’s flank—but he grabbed it mid-air and slammed her down.
She hit the ground hard, gasping.
Blood trickled from her mouth.
“Let her go!” Riven roared, fury in every muscle.
But Silas drove a pulse blade through his side, twisting it.
Kaira screamed.
And something inside her snapped.
Her pupils dilated.
Her fingers cracked, bones reforming.
Fur burst from her skin like fire.
Her scream turned into a howl.
Silver. Glowing. Divine.
Her transformation was no longer slow.
It was complete.
She leaped onto Silas, teeth bared, slamming him into a tree with a force that shattered bark and bone.
Silas blinked, stunned for the first time.
“You were not built to shift,” he said, his voice warping.
“No,” Kaira growled, her voice split between human and wolf. “I was born for this.”
She ripped the AI core from his spine.
Silas collapsed like a puppet cut from its strings.
And the forest exhaled.
---
đź’” After the Battle
Riven lay half-conscious, blood pooling beneath him.
Kaira crawled towards him, still glowing, still shifting—but the fury was fading, replaced by terror.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, pressing her hands to his wound. “Don’t you leave me after all of this.”
His eyes fluttered open.
He smiled, weak. “You shifted.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
He coughed a laugh. “Liar.”
She buried her face against his chest.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel broken.
She felt… whole.
“More will come,” he whispered. “Silas was just the beginning.”
“Then we give them an ending,” she said. “Our way.”
He nodded.
Bloodied, bonded.
Moonbound.
Together.
- Writer
