Chapter 10: Fragment Bloom

The wind outside was a scream wrapped in static.

Inside the hideout, it was quiet. Too quiet.

Eros hadn't moved in hours.

The chip player sat on the edge of the bench, its tiny screen dark now, battery long gone. He'd replayed the file until the sound became more than words. More than commands. Until it became a low, mechanical whisper under his skin.

He hadn't noticed Prion return.

He only realized it when the air changed—when the faint scent of metal and dust and rain twisted with something colder. That subtle signature Prion carried without meaning to. Calculated stillness. The sense of a mind running years ahead of everyone else in the room.

Eros looked up slowly.

Prion stood near the shelves. Hoodie damp, shadows clinging to the curve of his cheekbones, black hair soaked and dripping onto the cement.

He didn't say anything.

Didn't ask what Eros had decided.

Didn't explain why he'd left.

That silence, too, felt deliberate.

"I'm not your project," Eros said finally. "I'm not your weapon either."

"I know," Prion replied, without hesitation.

Eros narrowed his eyes. "Then why are you doing this? Why me?"

"I told you," Prion said. "Because you're the one who used to say don't break."

"That doesn't answer the question."

A pause.

Then Prion stepped forward—quietly. Deliberately.

Not fast.

But close.

Too close.

The space between them shrank until only a breath remained. Eros tensed, not out of fear, but instinct—because something about the nearness made it harder to breathe. Prion wasn't touching him. He didn't have to.

"You want the truth?" he asked, voice low.

Eros didn't answer—but didn't stop him either.

Because he couldn't.

That close, Prion's presence felt like a live wire. Something coiled just beneath the skin. Controlled, but waiting. Every word he spoke hummed with a quiet, dangerous clarity.

"I escaped New Era because I could rewrite," Prion said. "I survived… because I knew the system from the inside. But what kept me sane—what kept me... human—wasn't the code. It was you."

His eyes didn't waver.

"You don't remember the fractures. But I do. Every loop. Every time they made you forget me. Every time I begged them not to. You were the control subject meant to stabilize me. But it didn't work the way they thought. You weren't my anchor because of protocol. You were my anchor because you chose to be. Until they stripped that choice."

Eros flinched.

Not from the words—but the weight behind them.

Then—finally—he stepped back.

Just once. A half-step. Enough to feel the cold slide back in between them.

But Prion didn't follow.

He turned instead, walking slowly toward the cot by the wall. He sank down, folding his hands, his body small against the shadows.

For the first time since Eros had met him, he looked... not weak, but weary.

"I've spent so long trying to reach you," he said. "And every time I almost do, someone rips you away again. I know what that does to a person."

He didn't look up.

"I know how it feels to not trust yourself."

Eros stood still, pulse still recovering.

This wasn't a trap. Prion wasn't baiting him. That was the problem.

It would've been easier if he was.

Because that would mean he could shoot. Walk away. File the emotion under programming error.

But this...

This was worse.

"Don't make me choose between you and what's left of my sanity," Eros muttered.

"You already did," Prion said softly. "You just haven't remembered it yet."

As Eros steps outside to breathe, the wind carries static again—and a tracker buried under his coat flickers back to life.

Eros stood outside, arms crossed against the cold. The wind scythed through the narrow alley like it was trying to cut memory from bone.

He wasn't shaking. But his body was too still. Like he was waiting for his own breath to betray him.

The door behind him didn't creak. Prion hadn't followed.

That was worse.

Because now the silence was full of him.

His voice. His eyes. The way he stepped close like nothing between them ever broke.

Anchor, he'd called him.

You were the one who said don't break.

But that wasn't real. Couldn't be.

Eros didn't remember saying that.

And yet—

Somewhere deep in his ribs, the phrase felt like it belonged.

A low beep.

Not his comm. Not New Era's override.

Something smaller. Hidden.

He looked down.

A single dot on the inner lining of his coat blinked faint blue. A tracker. Burned into the hem. Undetectable to anyone without a neural map.

He hadn't installed it.

New Era had.

Before this loop.

And it was active now.

Meaning they knew.

Meaning they were watching.

Meaning… this entire moment, this fracture of hesitation, could've already been recorded and flagged.

He swallowed hard and pressed his thumb against the micro-emitter. It sparked once—then died.

Static.

Then another sound.

From across the alley.

A figure, moving. Just a shadow.

Eros drew his blade instantly. Not for a kill—but for silence. For focus.

But the figure didn't approach.

They stopped near the streetlamp. Their face half-shadowed, half-glow.

And then, like a projection through wet glass, their voice filtered in.

"You're glitching, Subject Anchor."

The voice was smooth. Neutral. Genderless.

But familiar.

A field handler. Not someone from the lab, but someone from deployment. The ones who watched assets when they were too volatile for command.

"You should've killed him already," the voice continued. "We've cleared forty-seven seconds of unstable latency."

Eros didn't reply.

The blade remained in his hand.

"Do you know why they paired you with him?" the voice asked.

Silence.

"Because he needed a mirror. Not a protector. Not a partner. Just a wall to crack against."

"You've already lost him," Eros said quietly.

The figure tilted their head. "Then why haven't you reported back?"

Another silence.

Then the handler's voice lowered. Just a notch.

"You're hesitating again."

"I'm not," Eros muttered.

"You are."

The figure stepped back into the mist.

But not before they said—

"We'll be sending a replacement."

Inside, Prion opens a worn folder with trembling fingers. Inside it: a single photo. A child with brown eyes. Beside him—a familiar shadow.

Eros didn't go back inside right away.

He stood under the half-flickering streetlamp until the clouds shifted and the wind thinned into silence.

The handler's words weren't loud.

But they didn't need to be.

They had that voice. Flat, clinical. Engineered to slide beneath your skin and settle behind the ears, where emotion might grow.

"You're hesitating again."

Like the fracture was his fault.

Like it hadn't always been there.

Like it wasn't planted inside him the first time they told him to kill a boy who never fought back.

He finally moved.

Not into the house.

But to the far side of the alley, where an old grate leaned off-kilter and the rusted edge of a maintenance terminal blinked low yellow.

He pried it open.

Buried inside—beneath ancient wrappers and bio-scanners stripped of parts—was a sealed utility case. Not his. Prion's.

Left here on purpose.

He hesitated.

Then opened it.

Inside:

A collapsed burner weapon. Modified. No ID trace.

A set of vials—serotonin regulators. Illegal.

And a small data shard, colourless.

When Eros tapped it against his wrist implant, the screen lit.

Not video.

Not protocol.

Just lines of Prion's code.

Looped.

Personal.

Written in his own style—distant, calculated, but human in a way that felt wrong inside a kill file.

One phrase repeated:

"They said Subject 0 to 6 failed.

You were supposed to fail too.

I wasn't.

But I broke first."

Eros's hand tightened.

His breath caught.

He didn't remember this code.

Didn't remember writing any of it.

But one phrase flashed again.

"You were the first thing I tried to protect. Not the last."

The file ended.

No signature.

Just the hum of old data and the ghost of something left unsaid.

He closed the case. Locked it again. Left it where it was.

When he finally returned to the safehouse, Prion hadn't moved.

Still on the cot.

Still distant.

But when Eros entered, Prion's head turned slightly. Just enough.

Like he'd heard something before the door even opened.

Eros didn't speak.

He walked past him, leaned against the far wall, and closed his eyes.

For a long moment, nothing moved.

Then Prion's voice, quiet:

"They're deploying another."

"I know."

"They'll use your name again. Your voice. They always do."

Eros didn't answer.

But his hand twitched slightly at the thought.

Because even if it was a lie—

It was the first lie he almost remembered.

At New Era's subterranean lab, a voice plays back audio from the handler's report. In the dark, someone smiles. "We only need one of them to break."

The storm had passed.

But the silence it left behind was worse.

Eros hadn't said a word since returning from the alley. Prion hadn't asked. He rarely did.

They existed in a temporary stillness, like two systems balancing just enough to not collapse.

But that balance wouldn't last.

The soft sound of running water broke the tension. Eros stood by the sink, running his hands under it longer than necessary—like he was trying to wash something off that wouldn't leave.

Behind him, Prion sat against the cot, legs drawn up, hoodie sleeves tugged over pale fingers.

He watched in silence.

Then, voice quiet:

"Are you afraid of me?"

Eros didn't turn around. "I don't know."

"Fair."

Another pause.

Then:

"You didn't ask if I planted the handler."

Eros dried his hands slowly. "Would it matter?"

"It would've… before."

A quiet admission. No defence. Just the slow crumble of truth in layers.

Eros finally turned, the shadows under his eyes heavier than before.

"Did you?"

"No."

Eros walked closer. Not quickly. One step at a time, until they stood only a meter apart.

Prion's eyes lifted, unreadable.

"You always do that," Eros murmured.

"What?"

"Sit like you're waiting for a verdict."

Prion's expression didn't change. "Am I not?"

Eros inhaled sharply and crouched beside the cot, one knee touching the cracked tile.

He studied Prion's profile—too pale, too still, like if you blinked, he'd vanish.

And then—

"I remember the deprivation cell."

Prion flinched. Just slightly.

Eros didn't stop.

"You didn't speak. Not once. But the moment I entered, you knew it was me."

"I recognized the sound of your breath."

It was barely a whisper.

A pause.

Eros looked away. "Then why didn't you fight harder to keep me?"

Prion turned his face toward him slowly. There was something old in his eyes. Not ancient—just tired.

"I did," he said. "They wiped you before I could even reach the room."

Eros closed his eyes. The ache in his chest wasn't from memory. It was from the space between what he knew—and what might've been true all along.

The silence stretched.

Then Prion moved—just barely. His fingers, resting on his knees, uncurled. His hand brushed Eros's where it rested beside him on the cot. Just a second.

Not a touch.

Not even comfort.

Just the act of not withdrawing.

And Eros didn't pull away.

At a distant New Era terminal, a technician isolates a data fragment labelled: Echo Directive: Phase Reintegration. It includes Prion's voice. The directive was never supposed to exist.

Would you believe someone who never tried to convince you—only told the truth you didn't want to hear?

They don't speak much—but sometimes, silence is louder than confessions. And memories… don't always ask permission to come back.