The moment Kael activated the key, the world didn't end.It changed. Subtly. Like a whisper becoming a scream under your skin.
The Vault lights pulsed once — violently — then died.
All sound stopped. All motion froze. Even the fire seemed to flicker in slow motion.
And then came the scream.
Not human.
Not machine.
Something between.
It shook Kael's bones.
System Breach
From every console, every wall, every sensor:
"AFTERMATH PROTOCOL INITIATED."
A new interface bled across the monitors — blood-red lines of jagged code, circling like a corrupted spiral. It wasn't Helix protocol. It was older.
Ashar shouted, "That wasn't just a kill code! That was a call!"
Kael turned, the biometric drive still glowing under his palm. "To who?"
A panel slid open in the floor, revealing an encrypted vault within the vault. Inside: a single human-sized pod.
Rhea stared in horror. "There wasn't supposed to be anything beneath Omega. This place was the bottom."
"No," Ashar said, backing away slowly. "This was a cage."
"For what?" Kael whispered.
Ashar's voice cracked.
"For her."
The Unknown Subject
The pod opened.
Steam hissed out.
Something stepped forward.
She was no older than sixteen. Pale skin, eyes black like a void star, hair that shimmered between shades of midnight and obsidian.
She looked at Kael.
Smiled.
"Hello, brother."
The Sister Project
Kael staggered backward. "No—No. That's not possible."
Rhea was frozen.
Ashar's weapon was already raised. "That's Subject V. Project Vespera. She was shut down years before you were even born."
"Why?" Kael asked.
"Because she wasn't stable."
Vespera stepped forward slowly, barefoot, unshaken by the chaos.
"I wasn't unstable," she said, eyes burning into Kael. "I evolved faster than their machines could lie. So they buried me. Cut out my name from the archives. Made you instead — a diluted version. A sleeper."
Kael's hands trembled. "We're not the same."
"No," Vespera agreed. "I woke up years before you."
"And I never went back to sleep."
Corruption Unleashed
Suddenly, the Vault began to reawaken — but not as it was.
The lights turned a pulsing, unnatural crimson.
The floor panels twisted, revealing dormant biomech creatures — Helix's discarded prototypes — crawling from their prison like insects from an old god's tomb.
AFTERMATH PROTOCOL STAGE II: ENVIRONMENTAL OVERRIDE.NEURAL DOMINANCE TRANSFERRING… TO SUBJECT V.
Kael screamed, grabbing his head. So did Rhea. So did the clones still barely alive in the shattered pods.
All of them linked.
Vespera was rewriting the grid.
Ashar fired — a perfect shot.
The bullet stopped mid-air.
Vespera flicked her fingers.
Ashar was thrown across the room like a ragdoll, his synthetic eye sparking violently.
"I'm not here to kill you, Kael," she said gently. "You and I are the last true versions of what they feared. And now…"
She raised her hand.
"…I want you to help me burn the rest."
Ayla's Interference
Suddenly the grid screamed — not in pain. In protest.
Kael felt it surge through him.
A voice — cracked, distant — echoed in his mind.
"She's not one of us."
"She never was."
Ayla.
Kael's eyes rolled back. He fell to his knees as data spilled into him.
Images. Flashbacks. Files never meant to surface.
Helix didn't create Vespera.
Helix found her.
In the remains of an earlier civilization.
A pre-Grid species. Something lost. Something wrong.
Vespera wasn't a clone.
She was an import.
A virus given skin.
The Truth Behind Helix
Kael stood, body shaking with raw input. "They didn't build you."
Vespera tilted her head.
"They unearthed you. Buried beneath the polar ruins. You're not my sister. You're the template."
"You're catching up," she said with a smirk.
Ashar, bleeding, whispered through clenched teeth, "Helix didn't fear you because you failed. They feared you because you weren't from here."
Vespera nodded slowly. "Every society needs a mirror. I was the reflection they refused to see."
She turned to Kael.
"You're the key because you were built in my image. You're the door. I'm what's behind it."
Grid Fracture
Kael's core flared.
He let out a cry as something inside him cracked open — a psychic dam rupturing.
Rhea tried to reach him but was thrown back by a wave of pure psychic force.
Every monitor exploded.
GRID LINK ESTABLISHED — SUBJECT H-7 TO SUBJECT V: UNSTABLE SYNC.
WARNING: FEEDBACK RISK — FATAL.
Kael's mind collided with Vespera's.
For a second, he saw everything.
Planets lost in data.
Dead galaxies reanimated in code.
Children with wires instead of veins.
And through it all — her laughter.
Decision in the Collapse
Ashar, half-conscious, reached for the last EMP charge in his belt.
He looked at Kael.
At Rhea.
And at Vespera — no longer pretending to be human.
Just a silhouette of chaos wearing a girl's face.
Ashar whispered, "This ends now."
He activated the pulse.
Detonation
The blast wasn't fire.
It was silence.
Pure, empty, consuming silence.
The Vault collapsed inward — steel melted, grid signal shattered. Time itself seemed to fold around them.
And then—
Darkness
Kael opened his eyes.
He was alone.
Buried.
Alive.
Rubble pressed against his chest. Blood ran down his face.
No Rhea.
No Ashar.
No Vespera.
Just the echo of her voice, trapped in the back of his mind:
"You let me in, little brother."
"Now we share the same skin."
End of Chapter Seven
To be continued…