CHAPTER 14: SHADOW REQUIEM
1078 Words
The bunker fell silent.
Nysera Quinn stood motionless beneath the flickering emergency lights, her gun aimed steadily at the floor—not at them.
Not yet.
Vaelora’s pulse remained sharp.
“Why are you here?” she asked coldly.
Nysera’s expression looked unreadable in the shadows.
“I came to stop you before you saw too much.”
Kaedrin immediately stepped between them.
“That usually sounds more threatening with fewer guns involved.”
Nysera ignored him completely.
Her eyes stayed fixed on Vaelora.
“You shouldn’t have opened the Cerberus files.”
Vaelora’s voice hardened.
“They’re about me.”
“They’re about all of us.”
The answer unsettled the room instantly.
Kaedrin narrowed his eyes.
“What does that mean?”
Nysera hesitated.
For the first time since meeting her—
She looked afraid.
Then suddenly—
Every screen inside the bunker activated simultaneously.
Static flooded the monitors.
Then a face appeared across them all.
Director Eryx Halden.
Sharp suit.
Silver hair.
Calm eyes hiding something monstrous beneath them.
The head of Central Intelligence looked directly into the cameras.
“Good evening,” he said smoothly.
Vaelora’s stomach turned cold.
Kaedrin’s expression darkened instantly.
“Halden.”
Eryx folded his hands behind his back.
“I wondered how long it would take you to uncover Cerberus.”
Kaedrin stepped closer to the screens.
“You experimented on children.”
Eryx’s face remained emotionless.
“We created survival assets during a collapsing geopolitical era.”
Vaelora almost laughed.
“Is that what you call torture?”
Eryx finally looked toward her specifically.
“No,” he said calmly.
“I call it evolution.”
Hatred flashed through Vaelora instantly.
Kaedrin grabbed the edge of the console hard enough for his knuckles to whiten.
“My sister died because of you.”
Something flickered briefly behind Eryx’s eyes.
Recognition.
“Lyrielle Vale,” he said quietly.
“A tragic complication.”
Kaedrin moved before Vaelora could react.
His fist slammed into the monitor, shattering glass across the bunker.
“You killed her!”
The screens flickered violently.
But Eryx’s voice continued through hidden speakers.
“No, Commander.”
Silence sharpened.
Then Eryx spoke the words that shattered Kaedrin completely.
“Your sister died because she discovered what Cerberus truly was.”
Vaelora felt Kaedrin go still beside her.
Dead still.
Eryx continued calmly:
“She attempted to expose Black Aether and extract several test subjects.”
Vaelora’s pulse sharpened instantly.
Children.
The children.
Including her.
Kaedrin’s voice came out low and dangerous.
“You ordered the hit.”
Eryx didn’t answer immediately.
That silence was answer enough.
Kaedrin looked like something inside him had finally broken.
Years of grief.
Years of guilt.
All pointing toward one man.
Eryx Halden.
The bunker lights flickered again.
Nysera quietly stepped farther back into the shadows.
Vaelora noticed immediately.
“Nysera.”
Nysera froze.
“Where exactly were you during Blackwater?” Vaelora asked slowly.
Kaedrin turned sharply toward her too.
Nysera’s expression tightened slightly.
“Now isn’t the time.”
“No,” Vaelora said coldly.
“It really is.”
Too many things suddenly felt wrong.
Nysera surviving too easily.
Knowing about Cerberus.
Finding them repeatedly.
Kaedrin noticed it too.
His eyes narrowed.
“You knew this bunker existed.”
Nysera remained silent.
And silence became dangerous.
Then Eryx’s voice interrupted again.
“You’re asking the wrong questions.”
A new file suddenly appeared across the remaining monitors.
PROJECT HELIX — ORIGIN
Vaelora stared at the screen.
The file opened automatically.
Security footage loaded.
Old footage.
Twenty years old.
A younger Eryx Halden stood beside another man inside a laboratory.
Soryn Kade.
Both wearing Cerberus insignias.
Kaedrin frowned sharply.
“They worked together.”
Vaelora watched carefully.
The footage continued.
Eryx spoke clearly within the recording:
> “If Cerberus succeeds, we’ll control the future of intelligence forever.”
Soryn answered calmly:
> “No. We’ll control humanity.”
The footage skipped violently.
Then alarms erupted across the laboratory.
Scientists screamed.
A younger Soryn grabbed a hard drive from the system core.
Eryx drew a weapon instantly.
Even years younger, the hatred between them looked lethal.
The recording ended abruptly.
Silence swallowed the bunker again.
Kaedrin looked toward the broken screens slowly.
“So Soryn betrayed you.”
Eryx’s voice returned colder now.
“Soryn became obsessed.”
Vaelora crossed her arms tightly.
“You created a monster.”
“No,” Eryx replied calmly.
“We created progress.”
Then his tone changed slightly.
More dangerous.
“But Soryn took something that never belonged to him.”
The screens suddenly shifted.
Vaelora’s childhood photograph appeared again.
Subject Orchid.
Eryx continued softly:
“She was never meant to survive.”
Cold dread crawled through Vaelora’s chest.
Kaedrin immediately stepped closer to her instinctively.
Protective.
Without thinking.
Eryx noticed.
Interesting.
Then the director spoke quietly—
“Commander Vale… do you know why Ghost Orchid survived Black Aether when so many others died?”
Kaedrin’s jaw tightened.
Eryx answered before he could speak.
“Because your sister chose her.”
The room went still.
Vaelora’s breath caught sharply.
What?
Eryx’s voice echoed softly through the bunker:
“Lyrielle sacrificed herself to help Subject Orchid escape during the Black Aether collapse.”
Fragments exploded through Vaelora’s mind instantly—
A teenage girl shoving her through smoke-filled corridors.
Screaming:
> “Run!”
Gunshots.
Blood on white floors.
Hands pushing her toward emergency doors.
Then flames swallowing everything.
Vaelora staggered backward sharply.
Kaedrin caught her arm.
“She saved you,” he whispered.
Pain ripped through Vaelora’s chest.
Because now she remembered.
Not clearly.
But enough.
Lyrielle had died protecting her.
And Kaedrin knew it too.
Then suddenly—
The bunker alarms activated violently.
WARNING: INTRUSION DETECTED.
Nysera’s eyes widened.
“They found us.”
Heavy explosions shook the underground structure.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Military forces.
Already here.
Eryx’s final words echoed through the speakers calmly:
“You cannot stop Helix.”
Then the transmission died.
Silence lasted only one second.
Because the bunker door exploded inward immediately afterward.
Armed operatives stormed inside firing automatic weapons.
Kaedrin shoved Vaelora behind cover instantly while bullets tore through the bunker.
Nysera disappeared into the smoke.
Vaelora fired back furiously.
The safehouse descended into chaos.
But through the gunfire—
One terrifying realization echoed inside her mind louder than everything else:
Lyrielle died saving her.
And now history was beginning to repeat itself.
- Writer
