Damien stood in the hallway, staring at the paused screen. Ash’s face filled the frame, caught mid-step in a place she insisted she’d never been. The video didn’t have a timestamp or any metadata just her, clear as day.Ash claimed the footage was fake. Eclipse had the tech to create deepfakes on the fly. They’d done worse before. Damien didn’t argue, but unease settled in his gut. Sophia stood behind them, arms crossed and quiet. She hadn’t said much since they left the staging facility.In the command room, Ash pulled up a damaged file Jace had left behind. It was still readable, revealing a manifest of embedded assets. It wasn’t just Sophia; there were others too. Names, ID numbers, and last-known statuses.One file blinked in red: Caleb Kirby. Seventeen years old. Active. Unstable.Ash said he’d been activated three days ago. His location? Washington D.C. His profile matched a known Eclipse trigger sequence. Damien didn’t need to ask what that meant. Suicide directive. Likely a ci

The tunnel felt like a void. When the lights flickered out, Damien didn’t budge. He pressed his back against the cold wall, his sidearm gripped tightly in his hand. Silence enveloped him. No sounds, no signals, nothing creeping up behind him.Just that message pulsing in his comm display: Subject Mirror online.He didn’t even blink.He ran that phrase through his mind, trying to make sense of it. It wasn’t part of the original Eclipse protocol. Not a known asset. Jace hadn’t mentioned it, and Vale had never dared to say it aloud.Mirror.Deep down, he knew what that meant. He just didn’t want to accept it.Taking a deep breath, he turned and headed back toward the main chamber.When he got there, he found Sophia sitting up. She looked pale, her hands gripping her knees tightly. It was like she hadn’t blinked in ages.She said she heard it again.Not quite sound. Not exactly words. Just something beneath all the noise. A breath. A heartbeat that didn’t belong to her.He asked her if s

They spent the night in the old school building. No lights. No fire. No signals. Ash kept checking the windows every hour. Since that message showed up, Sophia hadn’t said a word.Mirror reached activation. Awaiting final deviation.Damien kept an eye on the hallway. He wasn’t expecting an attack. Eclipse didn’t need brute force anymore. It just needed a choice.Sophia was the first to wake up. Her eyes opened wide, not even blinking. Her breathing was calm.She mentioned that the dream was gone. But she never shared what had taken its place.Damien wandered the halls before sunrise. Each door opened quietly, and every room was empty. No traps. No signs of life.This building wasn’t made to hold them. It was built to watch them.Ash checked the comm lines again. Still nothing. No updates. No pings.Sophia sat near a blank whiteboard, reading old writings. Names. Messages. Some are from kids. Others from before the school shut down.She said it felt like a place where things end

The air in the bunker felt cold even after the sun came up.Ash was the first to wake. She moved quietly, checking the motion tripwires and resetting the perimeter charges. Damien observed her from a corner of the room. Her routine was precise, almost too precise.Sophia hadn’t stirred all night. Her breathing was steady, her pulse normal. She had stopped dreaming, and that worried Damien more than any code ever could.Ash settled next to the gear table and started taking apart her rifle. She worked methodically, cleaning and reassembling it, testing each spring. Damien noticed her hands were steady.But there was something else he noticed too.She didn’t flinch when she heard her name.A couple of hours later, Sophia sat by the window, tracing a shallow cut in the concrete sill. It was about an inch long. Then she made another mark. And another.Thirty marks in total.She claimed they were dreams she couldn’t remember.Each one left behind a weight a pressure, not really images or th

They left the safehouse just before dawn.The sky hung low and gray, a thin fog draping the asphalt like a shroud. Ash double-checked the route to make sure the pass was still clear.Ahead lay a small town, a shadow of what it used to be. Storefronts stood closed, flags faded and tattered. Only one gas station was still open. Two patrol drones circled overhead, but they didn’t come down.They needed supplies.Sophia needed new insulin stabilizers. Damien needed burner cell tags. And Ash? She just needed some quiet.So, they split up.Ash took the entrance road.Damien and Sophia headed to the station.Silence hung between them.Inside, the lights buzzed softly. The shelves were mostly bare. There was just one clerk a thin guy in his thirties who watched them, but didn’t move. Damien quickly scanned the counter and grabbed what he needed while Sophia lingered.At the register, the clerk’s gaze lingered too long. His eyes flicked to the scar on Damien’s hand, a reminder of Caracas. To m