POV: Audrina Cromwell
Location: Sector 13, East End, Access Tunnel F-33
Time: 21:16 local
- - -
The alley behind the old bookstore smelled like recursion and lies.
That was the first thing Audrina noticed.
Second: the wind didn't blow here. Not around the glyph. Not within five feet of the melted conduit casing.
Third: her locket hadn't stopped ticking since she arrived.
Audrina Cromwell crouched low in the quiet. Her boots pressed into the loose fusion-grit of the old transit paneling, where memory still clung like rust that forgot how to fade. The silence here was unnatural—shielded, almost repelled from the edges of the wall.
Her fingers grazed the conduit just above the access port.
The glyph burned into the plating was not Federation-regulated. Not Eidolon-script. Not even tribal fringe-calligraphy.
No—this was older.
The glyph pulsed. Dimly. Like it was breathing through someone else's memory.
Audrina's locket clicked. Once.
Then again. This time, a deeper tone—Red.
"Not Violet."
That was worse.
She activated scan overlay with a flick of her fingers.
[LOGGING VISUAL — EIDOLON FRAME 3]
[OVERLAY INTEGRITY: 62%]
[GLYPH TYPE: UNRECOGNIZED]
[RECURSION SOURCE: NONLINEAR]
"Flame-laced vow signature," she murmured. "Unfiltered recursion tag. Not Federation. Not Eidolon. Not… real."
She began sketching the glyph in her pad. Four lines. Curved in strange torque. One broken. The rest—a spiral folding into itself.
A vow trying to remember its speaker.
A voice called out from behind.
"Oi! You authorized to squat on ancient ghost-ink or just flirting with quantum radiation?"
Audrina blinked. Looked up.
A man in a bright yellow SPAL vest (which, according to legend, was neither sanctioned nor internally real) walked toward her with a steaming cup of noodles and a rust-streaked clipboard. On his chest: MIRAGE COMPLIANCE — IN TRAINING.
The badge was real, though long expired.
Sunglasses at night. Pinstriped hat. Smelled like relic grease and bad ideas.
"Name," Audrina said flatly.
"Ferrin. Relic consultant. Parole-adjacent. It's all very technical."
He shoved a half-burned ID chip at her. Somehow, it scanned green.
"Sector Paranormal Abatement Logistics," he added cheerfully. "SPAL. Rhymes with 'pal.' Get it?"
She blinked once. Twice.
"That's not a real department."
"Exactly."
He slurped his noodles.
"Sigils this old? They're not graffiti. They're memories pretending to be burned. If you breathe wrong, you might remember someone else's vow. You ever been ego-flipped by vow-residue?"
"No."
"Exactly." He grinned. "Then don't. It gets all... Alric-shaped."
"You mean 'souped'?"
"No. I mean shaped like Alric of the Splinter Gate. You know, the knight who wore twelve crests at once and forgot which one was his?"
She stared. "What happened to him?"
"He still tries to report to three different gods every dawn. Gets real awkward."
Audrina ignored him and returned to the glyph. Her HUD flickered—then surged. False depth spread across the glyph like light trying to trace a forgotten scar.
Three spirals now. One inner. Two outer. Each rotating in opposite recursion logic.
A vow with no name.
A symbol with no speaker.
Ferrin peered over her shoulder.
"That one? It's not a name. It's a refusal. Half-vow. Memory-burn. You can't log it without destabilizing your perception of cardinal direction."
She didn't flinch.
"You're making this up."
"I might be."
He leaned in, whispering through chapped lips:
"Only gods forget names. Knights bury them in silence."
Audrina leaned closer to the wall.
And there—at the edge of perception—was writing, hidden under the heat stain.
She shifted position. Squatted lower. Tilted her vision with the HUD filters disabled.
It came into view:
"The Ash-Warden Watches."
Not ink. Not paint. A memory scored into matter. The letters curled inward—vow-script mixed with recursion-braid. Forbidden dialect. No clear speaker.
A watcher, not a writer.
Not a god. A witness.
The wall split slightly along the phrase. Like a scar had just reopened.
She reached for her stabilizer pendant.
Clicked it open. It buzzed.
Buzzing is bad, she thought. It wasn't supposed to buzz.
Then—
Her shadow moved.
Not lengthened. Not detached.
Armed.
Her shadow was wearing armor.
Knight-plate. Crest. Blade. It moved independently of her.
She blinked hard.
It rippled—and reverted.
She sat down, hard.
Ferrin had vanished. Again. Possibly into his archival bin.
She didn't pursue. Her locket had stopped ticking. But not pulsing.
[MIRAGE WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED MEMETIC INTERPRETATION]
[CIVILIAN SYSTEM QUARANTINE: F-33 – LEVEL 2 INITIATED]
The wall still glowed faintly.
A ripple passed through the conduit as if it had sighed.
This wasn't graffiti.
This was memory speaking itself aloud.
---
Later, in her apartment, she sat in candlelight.
The same ritual.
No lights. One cup of tea. One blank pad.
Black tea, one spoon. She stirred clockwise—four times. Then stopped.
The ritual wasn't for taste. It was to give her hands something to do while her mind raced.
But her hands shook.
On the table, she laid out what she knew:
Glyph etched by recursion burn, not tool
Flame-bound, vow-class, nonstandard dialect
Phrase: "The Ash-Warden Watches"
Shadow anomaly: armed silhouette
Possible recursion echo from Kaelen's vow
She burned the page.
Didn't trust MIRAGE's passive scanning.
That night, she dreamed.
Of a broken battlefield.
Of knights who forgot how to kneel.
Of a voice behind her spine whispering:
"The vow's already inside you."
"It always was."
She woke up gasping.
The tea was cold. The candle dead.
And her shadow?
Still on the wrong side of the wall.
——————————————
Author Notes:
Hey readers! Just a quick heads-up — I'm not exactly a master of comedy . So if the jokes are bad or the humor misses… yeah, that's on me. But I promise, the pain, drama, and fights? I've got you covered. Thanks for sticking with the story!