The Halo facility had never felt colder. Even with the lights on and the hum of machines echoing through the halls, a strange silence filled the air, like the building itself was listening.Jayden stood in the med bay, watching through the glass as Aira lay inside the containment room. Wires ran from her wrists to glowing monitors, each screen pulsing faint blue.Dr. Mira Thorn stood beside him, arms folded. “She’s stable for now,” she said. “But her system is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The integration between code and DNA is seamless.”Jayden didn’t look away from Aira. “She’s not a test subject.”Mira smiled faintly. “Everyone’s a subject, Jayden. Even you.”He turned to her sharply. “Don’t start.”“I’m not starting anything,” she said calmly. “I’m observing. You brought her here, remember? I didn’t drag her in.”“I brought her here to keep her safe, not to put her under a microscope.”Mira’s eyes glimmered with a mix of curiosity and warning. “You said to yourself she shares y

The Halo base felt like a cage. Sirens still echoed faintly from the night before, when the Hollow City had gone dark. Now the lights in the facility pulsed with a strange rhythm, too slow, too alive. Jayden stood in the central hall, staring at the glass ceiling above. Beyond it, the sky flickered with faint static. The signal hadn’t stopped. It never stopped.Kira joined him, tablet in hand, her hair messy and her eyes red from no sleep. “You’re not going to like this,” she muttered.He glanced at her. “You say that a lot.”She turned the tablet around, projecting the image into the air. A wave of unreadable code scrolled across the hologram, breaking into strange symbols.Jayden frowned. “That’s the Hollow frequency.”“Yeah,” she said. “But it’s not local. This came from orbit.”He blinked. “Orbit? You’re saying the signal’s not just on Earth anymore?”Kira shook her head. “No. It’s coming from space. And here’s the weird part, it’s carrying a tag.”She zoomed in on the transmiss

The tunnels breathed. Cold air rushed through the metal corridors like the exhale of a sleeping giant. Every step echoed back at them, bouncing off walls lined with ancient wiring and strange, glowing veins of light. Kira moved ahead with a flashlight. “I hate this already,” she muttered.Sera clutched her weapon tight. “This place feels wrong.”Jayden led the group, scanning the tunnels with his arm module. The readings danced across the display like fireflies. “We’re close,” he said quietly.“Close to what?” Kira asked.He didn’t answer. They turned a corner, and stopped. The passage ahead widened into a vast underground chamber. The walls pulsed with faint light, threads of code crawling like roots through the stone. A low hum vibrated through the floor, slow and steady, like a heartbeat buried deep beneath the earth. Kira whispered, “What is this place?”Jayden stepped closer. “The core.”They entered cautiously. The further they walked, the more the light brightened. The cable

The world forgot peace. Skies stayed gray, heavy with static. Every few nights, blue rain fell, soft, glowing drops that carried whispers of the Hollow signal. Towns built barricades not against war, but against light, and yet, whenever a town went quiet, someone always came. They called him the Ghost Knight.Jayden walked through the ruined streets of a village called Ember Vale. His long coat was torn, his hood pulled low. The wind carried a metallic smell, burnt data and wet stone.He passed hollow houses where digital moss crawled across walls, flickering with half-voices. “System online, system online,”Jayden’s boots echoed. He didn’t flinch at the voices anymore. Children peeked from behind a shattered window. Their eyes were wide, curious, afraid.A woman stepped forward from the doorway of what used to be a store. Her hands trembled as she clutched a rusted pipe. “You, you’re him, aren’t you?”Jayden stopped. “Depends who you’re asking for.”“The Ghost Knight.” Her voice bro

The old military base lay buried in fog. Wind hissed through the ruins, carrying the faint hum of corrupted code. The walls were cracked, the air thick with static. Holographic sparks flickered like dying stars above the broken barracks.Jayden walked silently through the wreckage, his hood pulled low. The blue glow from his arm faintly lit the darkness. Each step crunched against gravel and ash.He scanned the air with his wrist console. The readings were unstable, clusters of Hollow data spreading like infection beneath the ground.“Same pattern,” he muttered. “The Rebirth frequency’s rooted here too.”Lightning flashed across the sky, briefly revealing the collapsed watchtowers and burned vehicles scattered across the field. The base looked like a graveyard of machines.Jayden crouched beside a fallen soldier. His body was stiff, face frozen mid-scream, eyes glowing faintly blue. He whispered, “I’m sorry.”Then, movement. A streak of red light cut through the fog ahead. One, then