The eastern sky bled rust and gold as we left the survivors behind.
No one looked back.
Every step forward was like walking into a memory that wasn't ours. Faded murals clung to crumbling walls. Statues shattered at the waist, arms reaching to a sky that no longer answered. The wind moaned through the skeletons of towers, and sometimes… metal groaned beneath the dust.
We didn't speak much.
Silence was safer.
Around midday, we found it.
A tunnel — jagged and half-swallowed by collapsed concrete. Its entrance gaped unnaturally wide, like something tore it open from within.
"Transit line?" Navi crouched low, scanning the rim.
Kara ran a hand along the edges. Her expression darkened. "No. This was sealed. Intentionally."
Liora didn't speak. But her eyes—sharp, tense—told me everything.
She recognized this place.
"Kara?" I asked.
She rose, hand moving to her blade.
"There's movement below."
Navi froze. "Alive?"
Kara hesitated. "Awake."
We went in.
Darkness met us like a second skin. The light died behind us. No signal. No orientation. Just the echo of footsteps on old steel and the hiss of breath too tightly held.
The deeper we went, the colder it got.
Then we heard it.
A hum. Low. Faint. Felt more than heard. It pulsed through the air, vibrating in bone.
And then—we saw them.
Pods.
Hundreds of them. Embedded into the tunnel walls like forgotten cocoons. Their surfaces glowed faintly, veins of blue light flickering like dying circuitry.
"What the hell…" Navi murmured.
Liora stepped forward. "Stasis chambers. Old Directive tech. Emergency containment."
"Survivors?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. Weapons."
Something hissed. A pod unsealed.
We jumped back, weapons raised—too late.
A figure stepped out.
It stood like a man. Moved like one. But the glow beneath its skin said otherwise—lines of light rippling beneath translucent flesh, eyes white and depthless.
"Designation breach detected," it rasped. "Cycle protocol terminated. Awaiting new directive."
Kara stepped in front of us, blade drawn.
"Hold." Liora's voice cut through.
The machine paused—staring directly at her.
"You carry Core resonance," it said slowly.
Liora flinched. Just slightly.
"What's your name?" she asked.
The thing tilted its head.
Then: "I no longer possess designation."
"Choose one," she said.
A pause. Then: "Call me Ashen."
Kara narrowed her eyes. "You trust it?"
"No," Liora replied. "But I remember what it was made for. And what it was left for."
Ashen's voice returned, softer. "If the Cycle is gone… I have no purpose."
"Then find one," I said.
He looked at me. And nodded.
We left by dusk. Behind us, the tunnel groaned and collapsed—whether by sabotage or age, we didn't wait to find out.
Ashen walked with us now. Silent. Observing.
The survivors we left behind would have feared him. Maybe we still did.
But he walked east with us.
And that meant something.
We camped inside a shattered observatory dome. Glass cracked above like a spiderweb across the stars. Kara sat on watch. Liora leaned against rusted railing, eyes locked on the horizon.
"I wonder how many more pods are still active," she said.
"Too many," Kara replied.
Navi checked his blade. "If we really broke the Cycle… what woke them?"
I thought of that boy back in the marketplace.
Was it really the end?
And in the silence, I understood:
Endings don't rest.
They echo.
Especially beneath the dust.
[End of Chapter 17]