The Burn Sequence

The Vault screamed.

Not with alarms—those had failed.

Not with systems—those were becoming something else.

It screamed with memory.

Every voice buried in the cold depths of Coldroot howled into life at once.

Thousands of fragmented simulations.

Echoes that had once been quiet, obedient loops.

Now free, now alive, now angry.

Elian dropped to one knee as the feedback surged through the floor.

Kaia was already at his side, shielding him with her body.

The lights above flickered, colors warping—red, violet, then something unnamed.

Seren stared at the terminal with wide eyes.

"It's working," she whispered. "The system's rewriting itself from inside. The fire's spreading."

"Good," Kaia snapped. "Then we shut it down before Lorne turns us into corpses."

Above them, the elevator shuddered.

The door cracked open.

And Commander Thane Lorne stepped through.

No squad. No backup.

Just him, in his black coat stitched with regulator sigils, walking into the chaos like he owned it.

He didn't speak.

Just looked around the Vault Core chamber, the ruin blooming around it, the unstable light—

And then at Elian.

"Disappointing," he said.

Kaia raised her pistol.

Lorne moved faster.

With a flick of his wrist, the device on his forearm activated a field pulse. The gun in Kaia's hand sparked and disintegrated—atomized mid-trigger.

"I expected more from you," he said coldly. "But I see you've traded precision for sentiment."

Kaia stepped in front of Elian. "You're not killing him."

"I don't need to." Lorne looked past her. "The system will purge him for me."

Behind him, the Coldroot walls groaned. The Vault was destabilizing. Parts of the ceiling had begun to bend—not break, but shift, like the space itself was unsure whether to stay real.

Elian rose slowly. "You knew what it really was. What it was becoming."

"Of course," Lorne said.

"Then why—why let it happen?"

Lorne stepped forward. "Because chaos is useful. A thousand simulations means a thousand narratives. Pick the one that suits the future you want. Erase the rest. Rewrite the world with memory as the pen."

"You weren't preserving humanity," Elian said, voice rising. "You were editing it."

Lorne nodded.

"That's what power is."

Seren activated the shutdown sequence from her terminal. The entire Vault shuddered. A high-pitched whine built in the walls.

She shouted over the sound. "We've got a minute. Maybe less."

Lorne turned to her. "Still clinging to regret, Seren?"

"I'm clinging to the part of me you didn't break."

She hit the failsafe.

A wave of light pulsed outward—

And Lorne moved.

Too fast.

He grabbed Seren and slammed her against the console. Something in her shoulder snapped.

Kaia lunged. This time she didn't need a weapon. She was one.

The two collided—soldier against soldier.

Kaia fought dirty.

Lorne fought like a lesson being taught.

The fight was brutal, fast, silent. And when it was over, Kaia lay on the ground, bleeding, but breathing. Lorne turned to Elian.

"I should have ended you when you were just a name."

Elian stepped back toward the echo.

She was flickering now. The merge had taken its toll.

She reached out one last time.

Not to fight.

To finish.

"Elian," she said. "Give me the last piece."

He looked at her—this ghost of his mother—and understood.

He tore the regulator's control key from Lorne's belt, shoved it into the panel.

The machine screamed.

A flood of voices erupted, not in pain—but in truth.

"I am not a simulation. I am not a loop. I am not yours."

The core overloaded. The ceiling cracked open. Light and data bled into the air.

Lorne turned, eyes wide for the first time.

And Elian whispered, "You don't get to write this ending."

Coldroot began to burn.

Not with fire. But with memory.

And memory, when freed, is the most dangerous flame of all.