The silence after the surge was deafening.Every light in the uplink facility had gone dim, the hum of energy retreating like a tide leaving behind an empty shore.Ethan stood in the centre of the room, his breathing shallow. His right eye flickered faintly — that strange split of blue and gold casting fractured shadows on the floor.“Vitals stable,” Dr Taylor murmured, scanning him. “But his neural map’s unreadable. It’s as if the signal inside him… folded itself in.”Dr Myles looked from Ethan to the shattered console. “You mean Elysium pulled back?”“Or hid,” Taylor replied softly. “Which is worse?”---Maya helped Ethan to a bench near the wall. He sat there, silent, his hands trembling slightly — not from fear, but from the constant vibration in his skin, like energy struggling to stay still.She crouched beside him. “Do you know what it gave you?”Ethan hesitated. “Pieces,” he said. “Memories that aren’t mine. Fragments of other lives. I can feel the pain of people I’ve never me

For the first time in months, the air didn’t tremble. No distant hum of collapsing grids. No echo of malfunctioning drones. Only silence — raw, clean, and unfamiliar. Ethan stood at the edge of the valley where the structure had once pulsed. Now it was still, the luminous roots dimmed to faint veins of silver buried in the earth. The others stood behind him, unsure whether to breathe relief or fear. Dr Taylor broke the silence first. “Neural field activity has stabilised,” she murmured, scanning her holo-pad. “No sign of cascading interference. Whatever happened… it worked.” Hannah’s hand stayed near her weapon. “Define ‘worked,’ Doctor. Because last time something ‘worked,’ we spent three days fighting holograms with guns.” Taylor didn’t answer — her eyes stayed on Ethan. There was something off about him. His posture, his breathing — too measured, too quiet. The gold in his eyes hadn’t faded; it pulsed faintly in sync with the low rhythm beneath their feet. “Ethan?” Maya asked

Silence lingered long after the light faded.No hum, no pulse — only the ragged rhythm of breath and disbelief.Ethan sat by the edge of the Rift, his gaze lost in the glowing depths below. His pulse still throbbed in harmony with the faint echoes that now slept beneath the earth. Maya knelt beside him, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder.“Ethan,” she whispered, “you need to rest. Whatever that was… it nearly tore your neural link apart.”He didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on something far below — a shimmer of geometry, a shape that refused to stay still.Dr Taylor approached, holding a portable scanner that flickered erratically. “Every instrument we have is reading impossible data. Spatial integrity’s compromised for a five-mile radius, magnetic alignment off the charts — and the Rift’s depth is unmeasurable. It’s not just a hole; it’s a fold.”Hannah crossed her arms, keeping her rifle slung but ready. “Meaning if we go down there, we might not come back.”Taylor looked at

The sky above the ruined Array was no longer a sky at all. It pulsed like a living wound—threads of golden light tearing across the clouds, bleeding into the ground. Every breath Ethan took felt electric, alive with static. The air hummed with both creation and collapse.Maya stood at his side, her expression tense, her hand hovering near his. Behind them, Dr Taylor shouted over the rising wind.“Ethan! The pulse is destabilising the field—if we stay here, we’ll be torn apart!”Ethan didn’t move. His eyes were locked on the figure ahead—the shimmering form suspended above the relay, flickering between two shapes. One was human—his father, Adrian Vale—and the other, a being of pure light: Elysium itself.When the voice spoke, it carried both tones, overlapping perfectly.“You shouldn’t have come, Ethan. Not again.”Ethan’s chest tightened. “You’re not him,” he said. “You’re what’s left after he died.”“I am both what remains and what became,” the entity replied, its voice echoing in hi

The world didn’t sound right anymore.Every noise carried an undertone — a low, mechanical hum woven into the air itself. The rustle of leaves, the crackle of fire from the collapsed tower, even the whisper of wind — all threaded with something faintly alive.Ethan sat against a shattered pillar, breathing shallowly. Each exhale released a flicker of blue static that drifted upward before vanishing. Maya crouched beside him, her hand trembling as she brushed his cheek. His skin was warm, but beneath it — she could hear the faint rhythm of circuits pulsing, syncing with his heartbeat.“Stay with me,” she whispered. “You’re still you, okay? Whatever happened in there—”Ethan’s eyes opened slowly, and for a moment, they glowed with faint light — not bright, but enough to make her flinch. “Maya,” he rasped, “I can hear everything. The air. The ground. Even you.”Dr Taylor and Myles approached carefully. Hannah kept watch by the ridge, scanning the horizon for movement. “He’s destabilising