2025-08-14 03:09:39Kael's thoughts were clouded by the echoes of his mother's voice from the Erevan's final broadcast as he trekked through Exile Prime's rocky terrain. With each step, the harshness of the landscape got worse. In the distance, towering obsidian cliffs that were black as night appeared to have been carved by ancient hands. She had gone to this location. where her narrative came to an end—or perhaps began again. The trip was exhausting. Ash storms whipped across the plain, forcing Kael to take shelter in a natural rock alcove. He powered up his wristpad and looked over the fragments he had downloaded from the Erevan while he waited for the storm to pass. He discovered encrypted files with a strange symbol that did not belong to the Erevan crew among the logs. When Kael cracked the code, a series of confidential reports spilled onto the screen.
His mother, Yara Solari, had previously worked for the Atlas Foundation, a covert unit of the Unified Colonies. She had been a military commander on paper. She had been involved in an unofficial mission to recover dangerous and unstable alien technology that was deep beneath Exile Prime. The Erevan was not just conducting research. This was a retrieval operation. And it went wrong.
Kael stared at the screen in disbelief. Even his father had not been informed by his mother. After the mission failed, she had gone rogue and fled the very people who had sent her. His thoughts were interrupted by a deep hum. The storm had passed outside, and the cliffs were now lit up in a faint glow. Not sunlight. not flames. Other things. Kael followed, ascending fractured rock until he reached a sharp cliff face opening. Ancient markings that were similar to those in the Atlas reports were carved into the stone. He stepped inside.
The air was dense and energetically charged. The walls of the cavern seemed to be alive with a faint pulse. At the center stood a pillar of crystal, humming with power. A military-grade metal box marked with his mother's identification was embedded in the base. A data drive and a voice recorder are on the inside. The recorder was activated by Kael. Yara’s voice returned, calm but heavy.
"Kael, if you're hearing this... I knew you’d come. I'm sorry I left you behind, but the things we found here were too risky for Atlas's purposes. This is not just another colony on this planet. This is a vault. More than just relics were left behind by someone or something. And they wanted to keep it a secret." She stopped. Don't take the route they want you to take if I don't return. Atlas is not trustworthy. And don’t trust the signal.”
Kael sat in silence, the weight of her words sinking in. He hadn't just lost his mother in a car accident. She had been kept silent. He was now in the same spot and faced the same decision. He wandered through the cavern. The power that sat here was ancient. Untouched. But not slumbering. His wristpad beeped as he put the drive in his pocket. In a far-off sector, a new faint pulsed signal had been detected. It didn't come from Earth. And it wasn’t random.
Kael stood up and stared intently out the cave's shadows. The past had found him. The future was calling right now.
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Chapter 14 — Return To The Unknown
The battered Erevan loomed silently behind Kael as he stood at the edge of the landing platform. Although the storm had passed, its reverberation could be heard in the broken sky above Exile Prime. Strange tremors rattled the ground beneath his feet as the planet had become agitated by the surge of energy from the core. Somewhere deep inside the ruins, something had awoken. His communications were softly crackled by Echo's voice. “Systems are unstable. The power grid in the Erevan fluctuates. We must leave quickly. Kael’s gaze drifted to the horizon, where the twin suns began to rise. The vast unknown stretched endlessly beyond the place where his journey had begun, and where it might finally come to its climax. Yet, he wasn’t ready to leave. No, not yet. The truth about his mother, the ancient power buried beneath this planet, the force that called to him, all of it pulsed through his veins like a warning and a promise. Even though he had only found fragments, those fragments had al
Chapter 13 — Whispers From The Void
Standing on the blustery ridge with a view of the demolished city's spires, Kael The weathered and silent ruins of Exile Prime's forgotten civilization stretched out before him. There was no map of this location. He had found this secret sector beneath layers of encrypted files thanks to the data he had retrieved from the core of the Erevan. a location that was previously only known to those who had nothing to lose by disclosing it. The cliffs' jagged edges were being whipped by the wind behind him. As he shielded his face from the ash and sand, Kael adjusted the scarf around his neck. As he sank toward the first structure, the hardened earth caught his boots. Silence pressed on him as he moved. There were no plants or animals in this area. There was no city at all. He entered what seemed like an old chamber. Its metallic walls were scarred by time, and flickering lights sputtered dimly above him. He finally saw it. A circular symbol carved into the floor, the same emblem that had be
Chapter 12 — Echoes Of Tomorrow
The horizon was illuminated in violet light as Kael stood atop Exile Prime's jagged cliffs. Orange and indigo streaks were painted on the clouds as the two suns sank below the horizon. Below him, the ruins of an ancient structure pulsed faintly, a soft hum echoing into the wind. He moved forward a step. He appeared to awaken the structure, half-buried and lost to time. It had strange markings that glowed like living circuits along its curved walls. Erevan wasn't the one. It was older. a lot older. Kael turned on the wristband's scanning module. The readings fluctuated erratically and were inconsistent. “This place shouldn’t exist,” he murmured. A soft, layered, mechanical and human voice suddenly carried in the wind. "Kael, you've returned," he said. His body got cold. "Who are they?" He exclaimed. No response. However, with a deep groan, the structure's entrance opened. Against his better judgment, he descended the moss-covered steps inside. The temperature went down. The air be
Chapter 11 – Echoes Beyond The Horizon
Kael stood at the cliff's edge, looking out over the vastness of Exile Prime. Long shadows were being cast by the two low-lying suns over the red soil that was cracked and the twisted metal ruins that were scattered below. The distant, eerie hum of a machine far below the horizon was the only sound that broke the deep silence, which was both haunting and strangely familiar. Kael's thoughts had been consumed by a single question ever since he discovered the hidden transmission in the previous signal: what lay beyond this deserted planet? The messages suggested that something or someone was still alive and waiting to be discovered. As if her secrets were guiding him through the void, his mother's legacy seemed to be heavier than ever. Kael recalled the map he had pieced together from pieces in the Erevan archives as he adjusted the straps on his worn-out gear. It pointed toward a subterranean facility hidden beneath the Ashen Fields, a place that supposedly held answers to the crew’s fa
Chapter 10 — Horizons Within
The rough surface of Exile Prime was shrouded in long shadows as the sun rose. Kael was the only one who could hear the whispers of the wind. Standing at the edge of the cliff, he could see that the vastness of the alien world stretched out before him, and the horizon was now more than just a promise. The Memory Core hung heavy behind him, a legacy not only of his mother Selene but of all those who had dared to look for the truth in the void. Kael took a deep breath as he felt the weight of everything he had discovered press down on him while simultaneously lifting him higher. His journey had been one of mystery, danger, loss, and hope, but now it was quiet clear. He wasn't the same kid who had arrived on Exile Prime in search of answers. He was the one who would shape the future. --- The silence was broken by Nyra's soft hum. "Kael, the ship is prepared to leave. We’ve scanned nearby sectors. The Orian Nebula is bordered by the next Veil. With his eyes fixed on the horizon, Kael no
Chapter 9 — The Weight Of Legacy
The corridor wound its way through the center of Exile Prime like a gold thread. The air around Kael and Nyra, who were hovering close, shimmered with memory rather than heat as they moved. There wasn't just rock on the walls. They were screens that displayed time fragments. places, faces, and voices from long ago. This was more than just a road. It was a calendar. He was also at the center of it all. Each step Kael took echoed louder than the last. Not in sound, but in meaning. Not only was he moving forward, but he was also delving deeper into the life that his mother had left behind and the secrets that she had guarded. The corridor led to a chamber unlike any Kael had seen. A platform that floated above nothingness was framed by towering light pillars. Space twisted beneath it like a whirlpool of stars. A huge, pulsating, and alive crystalline sphere floated just above the platform. Nyra spoke more subtly than usual. “That’s a Memory Core central to the Veil. Selene's research, th
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