Alka's POV
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The gem rested in the hollow of her palm like a closed eye, still veined with the sticky residue of a recent past. Alka rubbed it gently with a cloth soaked in red herb solvent—precise, methodical, almost tender gestures. She hadn't slept in two days. Not really. Just shards of consciousness between silences. The kind of wakefulness where you listen for a whisper that never comes, an expected echo, a consequence… or a curse.
The base was finally completed, a monolith of steel and stone built upon the silence of ruins, and around her, military routine was settling in. The sound of boots, murmured reports, shouted orders forced into discretion in the corridors.
She remained there, sitting in her spartan room, within the still-warm walls of freshly poured concrete. The hero's gem shimmered faintly under the neon light. Alka wasn't meditating. She was clinging to the image of a future she believed she could control.
And then the words fell.
