The Citadel was a graveyard.
Once a sprawling bastion of knowledge, its towers now lay broken—bent ribs of steel clawing at the sky, cracked monoliths smothered in ash and vines. The wind whispered through hollow corridors like it mourned what had been lost.
Selene stood at the edge of the ruins, her boots crunching over scorched stone. She'd seen fragments of this place in her dreams, in the pulse of that spire's memory—but nothing compared to the weight of seeing it in ruin.
Daro stepped beside her, jaw tight. "This is where it ended."
"For you?" Selene asked.
"For all of us."
Arin and Kai followed quietly, their weapons at ease but eyes sharp. They hadn't trusted Daro easily, but something about him—his pain, his silence—felt real. More real than most things in this broken world.
"You were stationed here?" Kai asked.
Daro nodded. "Research Division. Security clearance black-tier. We handled the Echo Vault."
Selene turned sharply. "The Echo Vault?"
Daro studied her. "They didn't just implant memories in you, Selene. They stored them. Sealed them. That's what the Vault was for—to keep what was too dangerous to live with."
Selene swallowed. "You're saying there's more in me? Locked away?"
"No," he said. "I'm saying there's more of you... locked somewhere else."
They moved through the ruins slowly, stepping around collapsed walkways and shattered glass. The deeper they went, the stranger the architecture became—walls bent at odd angles, markings half-melted into metal.
"This place didn't just burn," Arin muttered. "It warped."
"Void exposure," Daro said grimly. "We tried to contain the breach. We failed."
They reached a sealed door—circular, with eight handprints engraved into its surface. One glowed faintly as they approached.
Selene reached out instinctively, placing her palm against it.
Light pulsed. The door responded.
Gears turned.
Stone groaned.
The seal released with a hiss.
Inside was a dark chamber. Cold. Empty. But not silent.
Selene felt it before she heard it—the low hum of something alive. A presence. Waiting.
They stepped inside.
The chamber was circular, smooth, almost surgical. In the center: a sarcophagus. Not made of stone, but of some translucent alloy that shimmered with each step she took toward it.
And inside—
Her own face.
Unaged. Unmoving.
Perfectly preserved.
Selene gasped. "What—what is this?"
Daro bowed his head. "Your original self. The one who volunteered. The one who gave up her identity to become the vessel."
"I'm… a copy?"
"No. You're a continuation."
Arin stepped forward cautiously. "Then what's she doing in there?"
"Echo-Seven was put in cryo-stasis as a contingency," Daro explained. "But when the facility fell, the protocol failed. You were activated. Half-formed. Your memories fractured."
Selene stared at the woman in the pod.
So familiar.
So alien.
Kai finally spoke. "So she's the real Selene, and the one standing here is just… what? A backup plan?"
"No," Daro said firmly. "She's the origin. But this Selene—our Selene—she's the one who survived."
Selene backed away from the pod, breath shaking.
> Is that all I am? A shadow of someone frozen in time?
But no—she had lived. Bled. Fought. Grown.
That pod held a memory.
She was more than memory.
Suddenly, the chamber trembled. Lights flared red. Sirens blared.
"Warning," a voice echoed from the walls. "Vault integrity compromised. External breach detected."
Daro drew his weapon. "They found us."
"Who?" Arin snapped.
Before anyone could answer, the chamber door exploded inward.
Figures spilled in—cloaked, masked, silent. The same beings from the basin.
But they weren't here to talk.
They were here to reclaim.
"Protect the Vault!" Daro shouted, firing.
Arin dropped behind cover. "We're not equipped for this!"
Selene stood frozen—until her vision split.
Not just in fear.
In sight.
She saw the chamber before it cracked. The defenders falling. The flames consuming the vault. She saw her own face—screaming behind the glass as the stasis system initiated.
Time fractured.
Then she blinked, and the moment was gone.
She stood tall, hands raised.
Light gathered.
The attackers faltered.
Kai stared. "Uh… Selene?"
Selene's voice was steady. "They're not here to kill us. They're here to reset me."
Daro's eyes widened. "They want to reabsorb your identity. Fold you back into the project."
"Not happening," Selene growled.
She stepped forward, light spinning around her palms. It wasn't violent. It was choice.
> "I am Selene. Not Echo-Seven. Not a vessel. Not a ghost."
> "I choose to remember."
With a burst of energy, the attackers were repelled—pushed back, not destroyed. They vanished into cracks in reality, fleeing from something stronger than them.
Her will.
The vault sealed again.
The chamber fell silent.
Daro stared at her. "You shouldn't be able to do that. No Echo could ever—"
"I'm not just an Echo," Selene said, her voice low. "I'm the future she couldn't be."
She turned to the pod one last time.
And walked away from it.