Chapter 5: Rhane's Last Transmission
A month before Kael awakened, beneath the drowned ruins of Subic Naval Complex, Dr. Rhane Wu recorded his final message.
He sat alone in Vault A-09. Around him: cracked monitors, smashed containment pods, and the faint hiss of dying systems. Blood stained the corners of the console. Not his. Not anymore.
He had stopped bleeding hours ago.
The lights flickered. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling. But the recorder blinked red—still functional.
Rhane pressed the button.
Codex Blackbox – Final Transmission: Dr. Rhane Wu, Geneticist Prime.
He looked into the lens. Not as a scientist. Not even as a man. But as the last witness.
"ARKHIVE was never designed to be a weapon," he began, voice hoarse. "It was a memory vault. An ark of all the life humanity had tried to play god with. Failed species. Forgotten hybrids. DNA templates we never had the right to touch."
A pause.
"But then the governments saw the potentials. Rapid evolution. Bioweapons. Off-the-books blacksite creations. And they opened the doors."
He coughed, hard. Blood hit the camera lens.
"I told them not to wake JIRUUN. I told them his protocols were sacred. He was never meant to be cloned. He was the final lock, not the key."
A low tremor passed through the floor.
"They didn't listen. And now… I think he remembers me."
Rhane leaned forward.
"If anyone finds this—if the Codex finds a new host—tell them this:
We buried monsters in the earth, but they weren't sleeping. They were listening. Waiting. Not to be summoned, but to be earned."
A warning light blinked above the exit chamber.
JIRUUN was near.
"And if you're listening, boy—whoever you are—then run. Don't let it consume you. The Codex doesn't choose lightly."
He stood, trembling.
"Or… maybe that's what it wants. Maybe it doesn't want a savior. Maybe it wants a monster that can learn to pretend to be human."
Static burst across the feed. A shadow passed across the glass.
Rhane turned. His last words weren't recorded.
The last thing seen on the blackbox video: a scaled tail, barnacle-encrusted, sweeping across the frame.
Then darkness.
In present time, Kael sat in silence beside the scorched corpse of the hybrid he had killed.
The Codex flickered.
You are not the first host.
Would you like to view Rhane Wu's final entry?
Kael hesitated. Then nodded.
The hologram of Rhane's gaunt face blinked to life.
Kael watched. And with every word, he understood:
He wasn't chosen to save the world.
He was chosen to understand why it ended.