The Vault Beneath

There were things even ghosts feared to remember.

And as the air thinned and dust thickened with every step, Eris realized that this place — buried beneath the monastery ruins — wasn't just a vault. It was a tomb of forgotten minds.

She moved carefully, her pistol drawn, scanning the flickering path Kestrel had carved ahead. The collapse hadn't sealed everything — not completely. Beneath the blast site, a side tunnel curved deeper into the earth. Kestrel said it had been part of the old Mirror infrastructure — a neural bleed chamber. A place they experimented on subconscious transfer, echo retention, and memory grafting.

A place they'd promised never existed.

"You sure you want to see this?" Kestrel asked over his shoulder.

"I need to," Eris said. "If she's syncing with Echo, I have to know what that means."

Kestrel's silence was answer enough.

They passed fractured walls embedded with old tech — memory trees whose branches blinked erratic pulses. Some of them still whispered faint voices in fractured code. Eris could swear she heard someone humming.

When they reached the central chamber, her breath caught.

Cocoon pods lined the walls.

Dozens of them.

Some cracked open.

Some still sealed.

And one, at the far end, flickering — as if occupied.

Kestrel walked to a central console and activated a hardlight screen. Old schematics bloomed like veins.

"Project Mirror wasn't just about Echo," he said. "It was about fracturing consciousness across multiple vessels. Echo was only one of seven designed to self-adapt, evolve, and link back to the central node."

"And the central node was—"

"Amelia."

Eris swallowed.

Kestrel brought up a file marked "Hive Bridge Theory: Revision 4".

It showed neural maps — dozens of identities spliced into one dominant consciousness. In each simulation, one mind absorbed the others, becoming stronger, more erratic, more dangerous.

"I think Mirror wanted to build something unstoppable," Kestrel murmured. "But it went wrong."

Eris nodded toward the flickering pod. "What's that one?"

He hesitated. "That… that's the original Prime. The first bridge."

Before Eris could speak, the pod sparked.

Something inside it moved.

Kestrel drew his weapon.

The pod hissed open.

Inside was a boy.

No older than ten.

Pale. Eyes clouded with code-light. Skin translucent — like glass trying to be flesh. He blinked, slow. Confused. Then whispered:

"Amelia?"

Eris froze. "Is he… connected?"

"No," Kestrel whispered. "He was connected. But he's been in stasis for years. He shouldn't have survived."

The boy looked directly at Kestrel now, and said something in a voice that wasn't his:

"The seed is waking."

Up above, Amelia sat on the floor of her room, legs crossed, head tilted back.

Her fingers twitched.

Lines of unfamiliar symbols crawled up her forearm — like a slow burn from beneath the skin. They faded as quickly as they appeared.

Her body kept betraying her.

She heard whispering.

Not outside her door — inside her mind.

Echo's voice was soft, patient, cruel.

"You're not losing control. You're shedding your chains."

Amelia shook her head violently.

"You're not me."

But part of her wasn't sure anymore.

When she closed her eyes, she could feel other minds breathing with her.

Dominic sat outside her door, jaw clenched. He'd been watching her behavior escalate over the past two days — the way her words slipped into synthetic cadence, how her pupils sometimes flashed silver.

He hadn't told her what he saw in the atrium.

He hadn't told anyone.

He feared that if he did, they'd try to isolate her.

Or worse… kill her.

But he couldn't protect her from what was inside her.

And he was starting to fear that what was inside her… wasn't her anymore.

Back underground, the boy shivered.

Eris knelt beside him. "What's your name?"

He blinked slowly.

"They called me Kirin."

Kestrel's breath caught.

"Kirin was the codename for the prototype Amelia was cloned from," he said. "But they shut that project down after it destabilized."

"He's not just a memory imprint," Eris

whispered. "He's alive."

Kirin grabbed her wrist.

His grip was stronger than a ten-year-old's should be.

"I have to find her," he rasped. "She's bleeding into the others. The hive is waking."

"What hive?" Kestrel asked.

Kirin's voice shifted — layered, metallic, impossible.

"The ones who remember dying."

That night, as storm winds howled across the monastery and shadows crawled through the corridors, Amelia opened her eyes in the dark.

A whisper echoed inside her skull.

"You left me behind."

Her breath hitched.

At the edge of her vision, something moved.

A shape.

A silhouette.

And then, Echo stepped out of the mirror.

Not flesh. Not full.

But a projection strong enough to smile.

"You're almost ready," she said. "And when you are, there'll be no more pretending."

Amelia stood, fists clenched. "I'll never let you take me."

Echo tilted her head.

"Who said I need to?"

The mirror shattered.

And with it, Amelia's last moment of silence.