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Chapter 3 - Chapter 3 – “Not Alone”

I thought walking through fire would be fast.

It wasn't.

The Trial of Ash wasn't a sprint—it was an endurance ritual designed to break you slowly. The pathway wound between jagged cliffs, a narrow corridor carved by heat and time, filled with glowing embers and strange, phosphorescent fungi clinging to the rocks like veins of alien fire.

My skin was slick with sweat in seconds. My legs shook. Every breath tasted like smoke.

Something moved in the dark ahead.

I didn't run.

I walked.

The words of the elder echoed in my skull: Do not run. Do not turn back.

That command wasn't ceremonial—it was tactical.

Because whatever stalked me along the ridge didn't move like a beast. It waited. Tested. Watched.

My dampener was still fried. My HUD visor cracked in two, tucked into my waistband. I had nothing but instinct—and pain.

And then, something shifted.

A faint ripple of static tickled the base of my neck.

An interface ping.

Faint. Barely there. But definitely human-made.

I paused near a crumbling stone pillar covered in strange carvings. Mixed among the alien glyphs was a single etched panel with a metallic seam. No moss grew over it. The dust parted where my boot brushed it.

I knelt slowly, ignoring the ache in my side, and pressed my fingers to the seam.

It hissed.

A panel slid open.

Inside was a rusted metal plate with a glowing core—pale blue, flickering. A data crystal socket embedded in the center.

I frowned. "A cache node?"

Impossible.

Cache nodes were pre-expansion era relics—buried across colonization worlds for intel backups during terraforming. I'd only seen schematics in training.

And yet…

I brushed the dust away.

Engraved just above the socket, barely visible beneath years of grime and soot, were five small letters in an ancient Earth script:

GENUS.

My breath caught.

Genetic Uplink Surveillance.

No way.

This wasn't just a node. It was a registry beacon—a hidden biometric scanner meant to catalog genetic signatures in high-risk worlds.

This place was surveyed. Cataloged. Maybe even seeded.

I looked up.

The natives thought this path was a spiritual test. But it wasn't just tribal lore. It was built. Engineered.

Maybe long before they even knew what it was.

Which meant…

This Trial wasn't just about survival.

It was a calibration.

A low growl broke the silence.

Behind me.

I rose slowly, heart thundering.

The creature emerged from the fog like a living shadow—taller than a man, plated in bone and sinew, eyes like molten coals. It stalked forward with terrifying patience.

Predator and judge.

My body screamed to run.

But I remembered the elder's words. Do not run.

I turned my back on it.

And walked.

Every step was agony. Each second, I expected the impact. The claws. The end.

But it never came.

At the far end of the path, a series of standing stones rose out of the embers like fangs. Just beyond them: figures.

Waiting.

I collapsed at their feet.

The heat finally overcame me.

Hands caught me before I hit the ground. Strong hands. Rough, calloused, warm.

I opened my eyes.

She was crouched beside me. The warrior woman. Still scowling.

But her blade was sheathed.

"Alive," she muttered. "Somehow."

Her voice was softer this time. Not kind. But no longer hostile.

One of the men spoke. "He bears the mark. Let it be known."

The elder nodded solemnly. "Ashava. Proven."

They began to chant. A low, rising hum that echoed off the stone and into the sky.

I should've felt triumphant.

Instead, I felt hollow.

Because now I understood something dangerous:

This world wasn't wild.

It was made.

And I wasn't the first to be marked.

Later, as the others dispersed, the warrior lingered beside the fire where I sat recovering, sipping from a carved bowl of bitter, steaming herbs. My ribs still ached, but I could sit upright now.

She stared at me for a long time before speaking.

"You did not scream," she said.

I shrugged. "Didn't want to give the fire the satisfaction."

That earned the barest twitch of her mouth. Almost a smile. Almost.

"You walk like a hunter," she said. "But your hands… they speak metal. You are soft inside."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You shouldn't."

I studied her in turn. The scars on her forearms. The layered bone-and-hide armor. The tattoo that ran from her temple down her neck, pulsing faintly with bioluminescence like a living circuit.

Her gaze met mine. Unflinching.

"I am not soft," she said. "Not with your kind."

"You've met others like me?"

She didn't answer.

Instead, she turned away, walking back toward the tents of stretched hide and scavenged metal plating. But just before she vanished into the shadows, she paused.

Without turning, she said:

"My name is Ka'lenna."

Then she was gone.

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