The Last Silence

Location: Edenfall Core Vault, Below Citadel Depths

It was cold.

The kind of cold that hummed against the bone, not from lack of heat, but from absence like the vault had forgotten what warmth even was.

Director Revenant stood alone before the sealed gate. The chamber beyond hadn't been opened in nearly three decades. Not since Protocol: Oblivion was sealed behind fourteen biometric keys, black-vault consensus, and a memory tax so deep even she could only sense what she was about to lose.

She placed her hand against the gate.

It hissed.

And for a moment… her reflection didn't match her face.

It showed her younger idealistic. Smiling. Before power hardened her jaw, sharpened her eyes, and made her name mean obedience instead of truth.

"I warned you," a voice said behind her.

Kalix.

Of course he'd follow.

He stood there, shaking his head, soaked in ash and doubt.

"If you launch Oblivion, you won't just erase the myth."

"You'll erase the memory of what started it."

"You'll erase yourself."

Revenant looked down at her palm. Blood was seeping through the glove from how hard she had clenched her fist. She hadn't even noticed.

"Good," she said.

What She Built, What She Broke

She walked inside.

The chamber glowed soft gray like fog made of wires. At the center stood the Eraser Throne a seated machine of amnesia. It required sacrifice. Not just of memory, but of identity.

To kill a myth, Oblivion demanded the myth-maker's mirror.

And somewhere, Revenant had known, deep down…

She was part of what birthed Ember.

She ordered the purge. The fire.

She pulled the trigger on the day Matherson's family died.

That memory flickered in the back of her mind, trying to scream. But she had already started forgetting.

Her voice was flat as the code lit up.

"Protocol: Oblivion, execute on primary anchor Ember Vale."

The system responded:

WARNING: CATASTROPHIC LOSS OF PERSONA DETECTED.

CONTINUING WILL RESULT IN EXECUTOR-LEVEL ERASE.

Proceed?

Kalix reached for her.

"There's another way"

But Revenant didn't look back.

"No. There isn't."

She pressed her hand to the core.

"I made her."

"So I'll end her."

But Then… a Song

The system stuttered.

From the throne's speaker came something impossible.

A child's hum.

Off-key.

Gentle.

Ember's lullaby.

Revenant froze.

Her hand trembled.

"How…?"

A soft pulse of light filled the room. Not red. Not Edenfall's sterile white.

But starlight.

Ember's voice whispered not from speakers. Not from comms. But from memory itself:

"I forgive you."

"But I don't need to disappear."

"You do."

And just like that…

Revenant vanished.

Not in fire. Not in glory.

But in forgetting.