Beneath the city, far below Haven’s forgotten infrastructure, where light hadn’t touched in decades, something had awakened.It pulsed once.Twice.Then grew.Not with roots, nor with branches—but with thought.The Sixth Relic, known only in Andrew’s encrypted protocols as Eden, was not made of stone or gem or glass like the others. It was a seed—but not one that bore fruit.It bore memory.And now, it remembered Reya.Reya stood before the containment chamber, breath shallow.Glass curled outward, cracked like old bone. A faint glow spiraled upward from a hollow pedestal where the relic once lay dormant.“It’s... alive,” Mira whispered beside her. “That thing’s growing without soil.”“No. Not without soil,” Reya replied. Her eyes never left the pedestal. “It’s growing in me.”The chamber lights flickered, momentarily replaced by visual pulses—frames of images from Reya’s past:Her as Lyenne.Her as Calista.And even further—moments she didn’t recognize. A child with violet eyes. A wo

The skies above Haven shimmered unnaturally. Blue lightning cracked silently along the edges of buildings, spiderwebbing through clouds that weren’t supposed to exist.The relic network had felt Eden’s pulse.And now, the city remembered.Reya stood atop Sector Zero’s watchtower, the seed core of Eden in her palm, pulsing softly with rhythm like a second heartbeat.Mira emerged behind her, hair windswept, clutching a diagnostic pad. “We’ve confirmed it. Nodes all across the city are responding to the new protocol.”Reya’s gaze didn’t leave the skyline. “Good. That means the override is holding.”“What happens now?” Mira asked.Reya slowly turned to her. The glow in her irises hadn’t faded since the merge with Vayna.“We begin planting memory that can’t be rewritten.”Lukas was still shaking.He sat in the wreckage of an old service depot, blood smeared on his chest, knuckles torn open.The Mirror had fought back.When he had refused its last command—to assassinate Orin—it had turned o

The first glitch came at dawn.A woman in Sector 3 screamed as her daughter vanished mid-sentence—replaced by an older version of herself who didn’t recognize her mother.Within thirty minutes, seven more cases were reported.By noon, the city grid was swarming with inconsistencies: buildings shifted design. Statues appeared where none had stood. Names were forgotten, entire families unlinked.Orin stood in front of the Memory Tree’s node array, teeth grinding as data scrolled in corrupted waves.“It’s happening faster than I thought.”Reya stepped beside him. “The clone’s behind it.”Inside a surveillance bay deep beneath the Core Tower, Mira projected holograms across the walls.Each glitch shared one thing in common:A presence.Flickering. Human-shaped. Glowing faintly red around the eyes.Sometimes it was walking through crowds. Sometimes staring at the camera.Always… with Andrew’s face.“Same build. Same voice pattern. But look here,” Mira said, enhancing one of the stills.She

At first, it felt like calm—a welcomed reprieve after days of relentless chaos. But Reya knew better. Silence was rarely innocent. It was often a mask worn by what came next: revelation, betrayal, or worse—truth.From the terrace of the decaying observatory, Reya watched the twin moons inch across the horizon. Their light reflected off the blackened glass towers that once shimmered with pride. Now, they stood like broken fingers clawing the sky. The city had changed since Mirror was shattered, and even though the neural frequencies had stilled, the air buzzed with dormant electricity—an echo of everything that had been lost.She could hear him breathing behind her.Lukas.He hadn't spoken since they returned from the excavation site, not even when they found the symbol—an old crest buried under kilometers of ash, etched in obsidian: the First Crest of Syn."Say it," Reya whispered without turning.Lukas remained still, his silence brittle. But eventually, his voice cracked the night l

Matthew stood at the edge of the balcony, arms resting on the iron railing as the sea wind tousled his hair. The horizon was beginning to bleed into warm shades of dusk, but his thoughts remained as stormy as ever. Inside the hotel room, silence clung to the walls like damp air. Only the muffled sound of waves crashing against the shore below reminded him that the world hadn’t paused with his spiraling mind.Behind him, the door creaked open softly. It wasn’t Max. It wasn’t Tiffany. It was Laura.She stepped in hesitantly, barefoot, her floral robe cinched tightly at the waist. Her eyes moved from Matthew to the half-drunk glass of scotch on the table, and then to the untouched dinner by the window.“I thought you said you’d join me for dinner,” she murmured, keeping her tone light.Matthew didn’t answer. His jaw was clenched, his focus still fixed far beyond the horizon.Laura approached slowly, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. “You’ve barely spoken to me since the incide