2025-08-24 02:29:41Shayne stared at the floor of the chapel, where the fallen cassette had cracked open.
Instead of tape reels, a silver coin tumbled from its hollow core—engraved with the same symbol as before: the Watcher’s Mark, but now encircled with flames.
He touched it, and the ground vibrated faintly beneath his knees.
Not a tremor.
A heartbeat.
The pulse wasn’t his own.
It belonged to something beneath the facility—something buried.
Then the voice returned.
Not from the coin. Not from inside his head.
This time… from the walls.
“Find the vault. Before they do.”
⸻
Elysia Vorn sprinted through Sector Nine, bypassing biometric locks with stolen credentials. Her ID pinged red, but she overrode it without blinking.
She couldn’t explain why she was doing it.
All she knew was this: the symbol on Shayne’s neural scan matched the one in her brother’s final message—the symbol he died for.
And now Shayne was carrying it inside him.
She pulled up the old Accord blueprints from before Facility 9’s renovation—before the “faith reform” buried every trace of what they’d once worshipped.
The vault was real.
It wasn’t listed on any active map, but if her guess was right… it lay beneath the chapel.
⸻
Shayne pried up a floor tile with a shard of broken lighting glass.
It cracked with a hiss.
Underneath, steel.
He scraped again.
This time, a seam appeared—a recessed panel in the floor with an embedded fingerprint pad long burned out.
But when Shayne placed his hand over it, the metal shimmered.
Recognition granted.
The floor split in two, revealing a narrow stairwell descending into darkness.
He hesitated only once, then stepped down.
Behind him, the chapel door sealed shut.
⸻
The stairwell curved in a spiral, deeper and deeper, until Shayne felt pressure in his chest from the altitude drop. The air thickened. Warmer. Like steam from underground fire.
When he reached the bottom, a long corridor awaited—lined with cracked stone, unlike the sterile steel of the facility above.
Symbols lined the walls, carved deep into the stone. Not just the Watcher’s Mark now—there were others. Spirals. Flames. A broken crown. A veiled eye. A sword striking a globe.
He touched one, and a whisper flickered through his bones.
“They were the first.”
He pulled his hand back.
⸻
At the corridor’s end, a massive vault door stood.
No handles. No keypads. Only a single engraving:
“You will either rise… or burn.”
Shayne stepped forward.
The coin in his pocket pulsed.
He pressed it to the door.
Nothing happened at first.
Then—an echo.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The vault responded.
Not opening.
Calling.
⸻
Back upstairs, Elysia reached the sealed chapel.
The door didn’t recognize her. But she wasn’t here to be recognized.
She planted a thermal charge beside the biometric scanner, set the delay to five seconds, and turned her back.
The blast rocked the hallway, sending dust and scorched metal into the air.
The door buckled.
Elysia kicked through and rushed inside—just in time to see the open stairwell.
She descended without thinking.
⸻
Shayne watched as the vault’s center glowed.
A line of light appeared, tracing a perfect circle.
Then the door whispered open.
Beyond it lay a chamber of ash.
And in the center of that ash…
a figure knelt.
He couldn’t see its face. Couldn’t tell if it breathed.
But as he stepped closer, his heart dropped.
The figure raised its head slowly.
And it wore his face.
A mirror. But not a reflection.
Another Shayne.
Paler. Eyes pitch black. Skin scorched in streaks like lightning burns.
Shayne froze.
The twin spoke.
“They separated us to make you forget.”
“But I remembered everything.”
⸻
Elysia entered the corridor just as Shayne disappeared into the vault.
She saw the open stone door, the glowing walls, the ashen scent in the air—and she knew she was no longer in Accord territory.
She crossed the threshold—
—and felt the weight of an ancient presence descend on her shoulders.
She drew her weapon.
But something deep within told her it would do no good here.
⸻
Inside the vault, the twin Shayne rose to his feet.
Their eyes locked.
“Who are you?” Shayne whispered.
The other tilted his head. “I am the flame.”
“What does that mean?”
“You were made to carry the gate,” he said. “But I… I was born to burn it down.”
Before Shayne could react, the ash around them rose.
Floating. Spiraling.
Forming symbols in the air. Chanting whispers. Names long forgotten. Wars not yet fought.
The ground trembled.
From beneath, cracks opened—and light poured upward, golden and searing.
The vault was no longer a prison.
It was a womb.
Something was coming.
Something holy and terrible.
⸻
From the corridor, Elysia watched as Shayne stepped back from his twin—
But it was too late.
Their palms touched.
The ash ignited.
And all at once, the Vault of Flame split open, flooding the underground with a fire that didn’t burn,
but remembered.
Shayne screamed.
Not in pain.
In awakening.
Because in that instant…
he saw everything.
And for the first time since birth—
he knew who he was.
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