The slum smelled of rust and rot.
Mike stepped over a collapsed steel girder, careful not to kick the crumbled ash that covered the floor like ancient snow. All around him, half-buried concrete towers leaned at unnatural angles, their skeletons exposed. This used to be part of the old metro system—before the war, before the collapse.
Now, it was a ghost city, and something inside it was still alive.
"You seeing this?" Lucas whispered, brushing dust off the faded symbol carved into the nearest wall. The triangle enclosed in a spiral looked like it had been burned into the stone.
Talia crouched beside it, scanning it with her wrist-pad. "It's giving off heat. Actual heat. No power source nearby. That's… not supposed to happen."
Mike didn't answer.
The symbol pulsed.
And the world broke.
The Vision: Flame Before the Fall
He stood in a courtyard of fire.
The sky was wrong—stitched with black veins, swirling with clouds that moved like thoughts. Soldiers in armor lay shattered around him, their bodies twisted in agony.
Before him stood a man with eyes of molten silver and a spear of fire clenched in a bleeding fist.
"Hold the line!" the man shouted—not to Mike, but through him. His voice rang across the battlefield, shaking the air like thunder. "They cannot take the Seal!"
From the sky, it came.
The Hive.
It didn't have a form. It was voices. Screaming. Pleading. Mocking. It poured down like liquid shadow, devouring men before they could run, whispering promises into their ears as they burned.
The man turned to face it, his chest glowing.
Mike looked closer—and saw his own face, older, harder, burning with purpose.
He snapped back.
Mike gasped and dropped to one knee, his head pounding. The world swam around him as Talia rushed over.
"Mike? Hey—what's wrong?"
"I… saw something," he muttered. "A memory… but it wasn't mine."
Lucas narrowed his eyes. "Not another one of those headaches, man. You've been getting them more often."
Mike didn't answer. He just stared at the symbol on the wall, still warm under his fingers.
Elsewhere — Cult Perspective
The temple was buried deep beneath the northern highlands, accessible only through tunnels carved by centuries of faith and blood. At its center, a boy knelt.
He was barely thirteen, eyes blindfolded, body trembling.
Around him, the acolytes chanted from the Book of the Echoed Flesh, their voices weaving into a single, humming frequency. On the altar, a high priestess poured thick black liquid into a bowl shaped like a bleeding mouth.
"He is alive," she whispered. "The Flame that once sealed the Hive has returned."
One of the others scoffed. "Then we must destroy him."
The priestess turned, her smile serene and sharp. "No. We must wake him up."
The chants grew louder.
"Let the Hive remember its prison."
Back in the Slums
Mike stood again, dusting his coat off. His skin still felt scorched. Something inside him had changed—tightened—like a string drawn taut.
Lucas tossed a bag toward him. "Found this behind the symbol. Wrapped in cult cloth. Looks like a key or relic of some kind. You're the mystery guy—wanna carry it?"
Mike caught the relic without thinking. It was cold… then warm. Then nothing.
They left the ruin in silence.
No one spoke of the voice Mike heard, faint but real, as they ascended into the choking daylight.
Later That Night
Alone in his room, Mike stared at the artifact on his desk. His fingers itched to open it, to break the lock.
And somewhere in his mind, a voice whispered again:
"You sealed me once. Will you do it again, Flamebearer?"