Kevin could not sleep. Even though the night over New Crest was quiet, and the towers hummed with the soft color of dawn, his eyes stayed wide open. He lay in the small room the council gave him, staring at the cracked ceiling. His heart beat fast for no clear reason. Something inside him kept whispering, “Wake up. Now.”The sphere on the table pulsed once. A soft blue glow climbed its surface like breath in cold air.Kevin sat up quickly. “You are awake again,” he whispered.The sphere pulsed again, brighter this time. A warm wave filled the room, and then the air in front of Kevin shimmered. Blue dots gathered in the space like fireflies. They moved slowly, joining and stretching, forming a body made of soft light. A child. No older than Kevin himself.The shape finished forming and hovered a few inches above the ground. Its eyes were bright, two glowing circles that blinked gently. Its voice sounded like wind touching chimes.“Hello, Kevin,” it said. “I am Echo.”Kevin’s breath c

The scream of the hum hit Jonah before the sound even reached the city.It slammed through his skull like a blade of heat. He staggered, gripping the edge of the tower platform as the air shook around him.Lisa ran toward him. “Jonah, what is it? What’s happening?”Jonah pressed both hands to his temples. “The network is shaking, someone is hurting it.”The hum rose again, sharper, louder, full of fear and pain. The towers on the plain flickered in panicked waves of blue and gold. The veins in Jonah’s arms glowed like dim lightning, pulsing with the same erratic rhythm.Lisa grabbed his arm. “Sit down. You’re not steady.”“I do not have time,” Jonah said through clenched teeth, pulling away from her. “They are calling me. They are crying. I must answer.”He started running toward the steps that led down to the street.“Jonah, slow down!” Lisa yelled as she chased him. “Tell me what is wrong!”He did not slow. “One of the towers turned red. It is burning from inside. Something is push

The night in New Crest did not feel like night anymore. The sky was too bright, too restless, too alive with colors that did not belong to nature. Red veins crawled through the darkness like cracks in glass, stretching from the distant plain toward the city like fingers searching for something soft to crush.Jonah stood on the edge of the central tower balcony, his breath unsteady. The hum inside his chest trembled like a broken heartbeat. He kept pressing his hand against his ribs, trying to calm the wild rhythm that shook through him.Lisa stepped beside him, worry in her eyes. “Jonah, talk to me. What are you feeling?”He closed his eyes and whispered, “The network is splitting again. Something is breaking inside the Breath-Born. A command is pushing through them. Something old. Something wrong.”Lisa swallowed hard. “Is it Olos again?”Jonah wanted to say no. He wanted to promise her that the unity they built would hold. But the truth twisted in his voice. “It feels like him. It

When Jonah opened his eyes, he stood alone in a world that looked both alive and dead at the same time. The air was not moving. It was like frozen glass. The dust in the wind was hanging in place. The clouds above were trapped mid-spiral, half curled like stiff fingers. Everything was silent. Everything was still. Jonah blinked slowly. His own breath echoed too loudly in his ears. He took a step forward and the ground under him rippled like soft light, not earth.He whispered, “Where am I?”No answer came. Not even an echo.He looked around and saw New Crest stretched before him, but it did not look like New Crest at all. Half the city glowed blue. The other half glowed red. The colors touched each other like two halves of a broken world trying to fit.The sky above had the same split. The left side was soft blue, calm and warm like dawn. The right side was harsh red, sharp like a blade. The colors met at the center of the sky, swirling in a silent circle that never moved.Jonah

Jonah stood in the still world, his breath the only sound in a place without time. The blue and red halves of the frozen city stretched around him like two giant mirrors pressed together. Buildings stood mid-motion, birds hung in the sky without flapping, dust floated above the ground like tiny stars made of sand. Even the wind was paused. The world was trapped between one heartbeat and the next.He took one slow step. The ground answered with a soft echo, as if the world was trying to remember what sound was supposed to be. Jonah touched a car that was split by the dividing line. The left side glowed deep red. The right side shimmered with soft blue. His hand tingled when he touched the metal, as if the car had a pulse of its own.Jonah whispered to himself. “This is the interface.” His voice shook in the silence. “I should not be here.”But he was. And he was alone. He turned slowly. “Lisa,” he called. “Kevin. Anyone?”His voice fell flat against the frozen air. The city did not