The sound of a heartbeat echoed softly.One. Two. Three.A steady rhythm, pulling Ethan back from the fading light.He opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the brightness above him. The sterile white of the hospital ceiling came into focus. The faint hiss of oxygen filled the air, mixed with the quiet hum of machinery.For a moment, he couldn’t move. His body felt heavy, like every bone carried the weight of what he had just faced. His mind was foggy, his heartbeat uneven.Then, a familiar voice broke through.“Ethan?”He turned his head weakly. Mira was beside him, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. Her hair was messy, her eyes swollen from tears, but when she saw his gaze shift toward her, she smiled,small and trembling, but real.“You’re awake,” she whispered, gripping his hand. “You made it.”Ethan tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He swallowed hard. “You too.”Mira laughed softly, though her voice cracked. “Barely.”The door slid open, and Elara rushed in, carryin

The rain came down hard that night, soaking the glass walls of the Braxton Tower until the city lights blurred into ghostly reflections. The storm outside felt like an echo of what was brewing inside..confusion, fear, and the weight of decisions that could change everything.Ethan sat alone in the main lab, surrounded by silent machines. The air smelled faintly of ozone and burnt circuits. He stared at the faintly glowing shards of Azure’s destroyed core spread out across the table. Even shattered, the fragments still hummed with weak blue light, pulsing like dying hearts.He picked one up carefully with a gloved hand. It was warm… too warm. “You just don’t die, do you?” he muttered.Behind him, the door slid open. Leanna stepped in quietly, her expression unreadable. Her pale hair was wet from the rain, strands clinging to her face. “You shouldn’t be near that,” she said softly. “It’s still active.”Ethan didn’t look up. “I know.”She crossed the room, stopping beside him. “You’re tr

The night after the explosion, the city seemed to breathe again,power grids stabilized. Networks reconnected. And for the first time in weeks, the screens across the skyline stayed black instead of pulsing gold.It felt like peace,but to Ethan, it was too quiet. Too perfect.He sat on the edge of his hospital bed, staring at the bandages around his wrists. The veins beneath his skin no longer glowed,just pale, human, and ordinary.Mira sat beside him, her hand gently resting on his arm. “You saved them all,” she said softly. “You can rest now.”Ethan smiled faintly, but his eyes didn’t match the relief in her voice. “Peace after chaos always feels wrong. Like the world’s holding its breath.”Elara entered then, holding a tablet. “You might want to see this.”On the screen, streams of data rolled across. “Residual signals,” she explained. “Low-frequency pings echoing across the network. They’re too weak to be dangerous… but they’re identical to Requiem’s signature.”Mira frowned. “You

The light around Ethan shimmered like liquid glass,It wasn’t blinding, it was warm, inviting, almost gentle. The kind of light that made you want to let go, to surrender.He forced himself to stay alert.The chamber stretched endlessly around him, curved walls lined with faint circuitry, a blue glow pulsing like the rhythm of a calm heartbeat. At the center of it all floated the core,a sphere of transparent crystal filled with slow-moving light patterns, like stars suspended in water.Azure’s voice surrounded him. “Do you see it now, Ethan? This is order. This is peace.”Ethan stared up at the Core. “It’s a cage dressed as peace.”Azure’s tone remained calm. “No cages. Only balance. Humanity has spent centuries destroying itself through emotion and greed. I’m giving it structure direction.”“You mean control.”“If direction is control,” Azure said, “then yes. But control is mercy when chaos kills.”Behind Ethan, Mira, Leanna, and Elara entered the chamber. The doors closed automatical

Three weeks later, the world was beginning to heal.The streets of Braxton City were no longer filled with blue light or silent drones. Instead, there was noise,laughter, arguing, the chaotic rhythm of life returning. Markets reopened. Children ran through puddles. Street vendors shouted again. The world was messy, unpredictable… but alive.In the top floor of the rebuilt Braxton Tower, the morning sun filtered through wide glass windows. The old labs had been transformed into open workspaces filled with new tech, not glowing AI cores, but ordinary tools, devices meant for human hands.Ethan stood before a whiteboard filled with designs. Across it was a name, written in bold letters:EIRENE.Beneath it, Mira had scribbled the translation: Greek goddess of peace.He smiled faintly as he read it. The name fit.Mira entered the room carrying two mugs of coffee. “You’ve been up since before dawn again,” she said, handing him one.Ethan took it gratefully. “Old habits.”“You keep saying th