Embers of the Forgotten

The room Kairo took them to rested well below the old facility, buried in dust from the fallen building and rusted metal. The temperature dropped as they went down, a reek of smelted metal and centuries-old ashes sticking to every step.

At the end of a twisting hallway was a round room, lit by glowing mystical runes. There was a strange dais in the center, inscribed in a spiral of fire-scrawled symbols, some holy, others hellish.

"This is where we attempted to stabilize you," Kairo said, his voice low and vibrating. "The core of the experiment. I've revamped it—for a ritual that will unlock your mind to the entrapped memories."

Ren moved closer, his gasps harsh. The room pulsed with something raw. Living. As if the flames in his blood were already reacting.

"What will it actually do?" Sera stood beside him, arms rigid.

"You'll get a mental reconstruction," Kairo explained. "It's as if you're reliving a dream. but it's real. Every hurt, every sensation—you'll relive them. If your mind can't handle it, it will shatter. But if you're willing to recall the truth, it's the only option."

Kaela's brow furrowed. "Can you extract him if something goes wrong?"

Kairo shook his head. "No. The moment we start, it's his ride alone."

Ren took a slow breath, then climbed up onto the platform.

"Do it."

Kairo moved to the rim of the circle, palms outwards. The runes blazed with orange and blue flame—antimony forces burning in counterpoint to one another, as Ren's inner flame burned.

He spoke in words they didn't understand, his voice low and thunderous at first, rising higher. The platform blazed at Ren's feet, and a pillar of light exploded up around him.

Then—the darkness.

—

Ren opened his eyes.

He was in a white corridor, impossibly bright. The walls glowed with antiseptic perfection. No dust. No sound.

He spun around—and saw himself. A child, no more than five, standing by himself in a glass room. White, silent. Hooked up to machines and encircled by equipment that whispered with gentle threat.

"Where…"

Before he could form the words, the world staggered.

Suddenly, he was in the room. White-coated scientists stepped out from behind the glass, their voices barely above a whisper. They gazed at him as a specimen, not a child. One of them—a younger Kairo—remained there silently, expression unwavering.

A voice boomed over an intercom:

"Subject 001-B. Phase Three initiation."

The machinery came to life. Blue fire erupted within the containment chamber. The child screamed, his small body engulfed.

Ren's head gripped. He could feel it—the burning, the ripping feeling in his veins. The raw pain.

It wasn't memory.

It was him.

He fell to a knee, gasping.

The fire subsided. The child fell, trembling. The scientists stood frozen, amazed.

"He lived," someone whispered. "No instability. That can't be done."

"No," said Kairo's younger self. "He's adjusting."

Ren pulled himself up, stumbling forward. The vision faded once again.

And now he was in a corridor of heavy doors. Behind each of them—more children. Some screaming. Some not. Some… lost.

Project Ignis.

All had been test subjects.

And Ren the sole survivor.

Another vision flashed ahead.

This one, fire in a room. Shouts filled the air. A figure collapsed at his feet—an older child, burned into unrecognizability.

Ren stood there amidst the chaos—a barely ten—took in where he was, and blue flame flickered across his palms but his eyes were empty.

"They used you as their weapon."

The voice behind him.

Ren turned around.

A robed figure with hood up stood there. Face covered, but whether or not anyone doubted his existence was irrelevant.

"I… I don't know you," Ren said.

"Now, I know you," the man said. "I saw them passing on the flame to you. I buried the truth with them. And now… you've crossed a line now where you cannot go back."

"Who are you?" Ren shouted.

The man moved in. Holy fire and hellish darkness swirled around him.

"I am what you would have been."

Their feet slid across the creaking floor as the vision crumbled to flames.

Ren was falling—plummeting through memories that weren't his but burned like they were. His first true kill. The constant training. The solitude. The cold gaze of his handlers. The unsettling nickname they'd given him: Ashborn.

He fell to the ground with a gasp.

The room reformed itself around him. He was in the ritual room. But he was changed.

His hands shook. The fire within him… softer now. But deeper.

Sera ran to his side. "Ren! Can you hear me?"

He nodded, hesitantly.

"I saw everything."

Kaela glanced over at Kairo. "Did it work?"

Kairo examined Ren's eyes—now struggling with a steady beat of blue.

"Yes," he replied. "He's awakened his core. The Blue Flame no longer has him in its grasp. Now… he has it under his control."

Ren stabilized himself.

But still, something ate away at him.

"That man," he breathed. "In the vision. The hooded one."

Kairo's eyes grew dark. "Then it is true. The second half of the project survived."

"What?" Sera demanded. "You said only Ren."

"He was… the only one to escape." Kairo's tone was bitter. "But there was another—a failsafe. A second container. One bound not only to the flame… but to the source of hell behind it."

Ren's blood turned cold.

"He's coming, isn't he?"

Kairo nodded.

"And he won't be gentle.".