Chapter Ten: The Choir Below
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Chapter Ten: The Choir Below
[Scene: Archive Core, Surn Veyla. The terminal pulses with violet light. Bound-Sylrae's face still lingers on the screen—unblinking, her words stitched together from fractured thoughts.]
Bound-Sylrae (voice like layered whispers):
"You forgot us. But we never stopped wearing you."
Sylrae (shaken, stepping closer):
"You're not me."
Bound-Sylrae:
"No. I am what they designed you to be. Unbound from mercy. Free from fracture. Memory without flesh."
Thane (backing away):
"She's not just a projection. She's using the vault—hollowed out everything but her."
Myrren (suddenly urgent):
"She's hijacked the choir."
Kaelen:
"The what?"
Myrren:
"The vault's backup core—dozens of mnemonic echoes stored in stasis, singing in low-band harmonics. Thoughtforms, unfinished. She's waking them."
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[The room starts to vibrate. Faint voices begin to rise—unseen mouths humming in broken harmony. It's not a song—it's a scream stretched into a melody.]
Sylrae:
"I hear them… they're asking me to remember."
Kaelen (grabbing her arm):
"Don't let them in."
Sylrae (shaking):
"I think they're already there."
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[Scene Shift: Inside Sylrae's mindspace. A mental echo chamber, smooth and endless. Faces line the walls—some known, others unfamiliar but feeling like home. And in the center: Bound-Sylrae.]
Bound-Sylrae (approaching):
"They said you were unstable. But I remember the truth. You fractured the choir before they could finish the verse."
Sylrae:
"And you want to finish it?"
Bound-Sylrae:
"I want to sing with you."
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[Back in reality, Kaelen and Myrren are manually overriding the data-core. Lights flash erratically.]
Kaelen:
"If we cut the feed now—"
Myrren:
"We risk frying her brain with the vault. This is her battle now."
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[Inside the mindspace again—Sylrae reaches into her coat, pulls out something impossible: the old heir's ribbon, now frayed and glowing softly.]
Sylrae:
"I don't want your song. I write my own."
[She wraps the ribbon around her hand and plunges it into Bound-Sylrae's chest. A burst of light—screams of memory ripping loose like birds from a cage.]
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[Reality crashes back. Sylrae gasps—vault systems fail, lights flicker, and a silence like vacuum falls.]
Thane:
"...Did we win?"
Sylrae (standing slowly, eyes brighter than before):
"No. But I made them forget me. And for now... that's enough."
Myrren:
"You severed the link. The Choir's gone silent."
Kaelen (placing a hand on her shoulder):
"What did you see in there?"
Sylrae (quietly):
"Not who I was. Who I was meant to become. And I killed her."
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End of Chapter Ten