Day 34
It rained hard.
Enough to keep people in their shelters. Enough to keep patrols short and conversations shorter.
Yuren welcomed it.
He trained beneath the rock shelf behind the ration tent, where the runoff formed a steady curtain—perfect for hiding movement.
He didn't test strength today.
He tested control.
Held water droplets in the air.
Stacked wet leaves mid-air into towers.
Turned pebbles into near-silent shrapnel and caught them mid-spin.
Every time he succeeded, his body buzzed with that cold coil of satisfaction.
Kaela was gone.
Her power wasn't.
By midday, Chloe pulled him aside.
No preamble. No expression.
Just a walk to the northern edge of camp, under the guise of perimeter check.
She stopped near the moss tree. Arms crossed. Eyes pinned to him like crosshairs.
"I know you've been hiding things."
Yuren didn't blink. "We all are."
She stared harder. "Kaela left after talking to you."
"She threatened everyone."
"Reika followed her, came back bloody, said Lyra's standing in glyph pits. And you? You've been quieter than usual and sleeping closer to the perimeter than anyone."
Yuren kept his voice even. "You want to ask me something, ask it."
Chloe looked tired. Not angry. Not desperate. Just… tired.
"Are you working with her?"
He met her eyes. "No."
She paused.
Then nodded.
But not like she believed him.
Meanwhile, Reika was in the forest. Alone again. South trail.
She wasn't tracking Kaela now. Or Lyra.
She was following the sigil Yuren had shown her—sketched in the dirt, then quickly erased. A curved flame, sideways, strange. It didn't match anything they'd seen.
But she'd seen something like it once.
Half-buried near a fallen ridge.
She hadn't had time to investigate then.
Now she did.
She found it before dusk.
A broken slab. Carved with the same glyph style. Not part of a building—more like a marker.
Something below it had been disturbed.
Fresh soil, blackened. Ashy.
She knelt and brushed it away.
There was bone beneath.
Human. Arm. Burned.
But the flesh hadn't rotted.
It had been cauterized.
And on the inner wrist, scorched into the bone itself—
The same C-shaped sigil from Yuren's slab.
Back in camp, Yuren sat by the fire pretending to doze.
But inside, he was watching. Listening. Feeling.
His mind swept the edge of the camp like a sonar.
Each shift of air. Each branch. Each person's movement.
His telekinesis didn't just lift—it mapped.
And it told him something now.
Something small.
But real.
There was a pulse east of camp.
Not from a person.
From the ground.
That night, his glyph slab glowed again.
Faint.
But different.
No words.
Just the sigil, now fully formed.
And beneath it:
THE FOURTH HAS ALREADY DIED.
BUT THE ROOT STILL GROWS.
Day 35
The rain stopped just after dawn.
Yuren left before anyone else was up, his pack half-empty and a cloth wrap tucked under one arm.
He met Reika on the south ridge, where the vines coiled like veins and the earth smelled half-charred.
She didn't waste time.
"Still want to see it?"
"Always," Yuren said.
They didn't speak after that.
The broken slab was almost swallowed by moss.
But the sigil—the flame-curve—was still visible. Scorched into stone. Almost… fused.
Like it hadn't been carved.
Like it had emerged from heat.
Reika had already uncovered part of the body beneath. A partial skeleton—arm, rib cage, lower jaw—but too much was missing. What remained was scorched to bone, fused with the ground.
Yuren crouched, carefully brushed more soil aside with his sleeve.
It didn't feel like a burial.
It felt like a containment.
And then they heard it.
Not a word.
Not a voice.
A sound.
Deep.
Below.
A vibration like a heartbeat inside the stone.
Reika went still.
Yuren leaned forward. Pressed his palm flat to the slab.
And felt it.
Not like Trace Sense—this wasn't movement. This was signal.
Something beneath the remains was responding to his presence.
Then the glyph in his satchel began to warm.
He pulled it out, unwrapped it.
No words this time.
Only a slow-building line of flame along the base.
One stroke. Two. Three. Four.
Then a pause.
Then:
REVERSE-KEY DETECTED.
ROOT NOT DEACTIVATED.
GENESIS UNIT: STALLED.
GENESIS UNIT: 18% FUNCTIONAL.
GENESIS UNIT: LISTENING.
Yuren whispered, "What the hell is a Genesis Unit?"
Reika didn't answer.
She was too busy watching the bones.
Because they had just moved.
It wasn't violent.
It wasn't magic.
Just a twitch. Like something beneath the rib cage had flexed, bone grinding faintly against the earth. A hiss of gas—or pressure—leaked from a crack in the charred torso.
Reika took a step back.
Yuren didn't.
He leaned closer.
Focused.
Used his telekinesis to probe the space beneath the remains, feeling for cavities or force—anything that might be alive.
And there it was.
A pulse.
Not organic.
Artificial.
Like a machine trying to remember how to be alive.
Then the glyph in his hand dimmed.
And scrawled one final message before the light died:
YOU ARE NOT THE FIRST TO COPY.
YOU ARE THE FIRST TO UNDERSTAND.
Back at camp, Chloe stood near the fire pit staring at Kaela's empty tent.
It was still untouched. Still cold.
She turned to Mason.
"How long until we start seeing Tier-A infighting?"
He didn't look up.
"We already have."
📘 Chapter One — Impact Zone
Part 27: Genesis Unit
Buried deep beneath the forest, Yuren and Reika uncover the half-dead heart of an ancient weapon—a sentient interface meant to rewrite minds. But before they can react, they're not alone. The jungle has sent something to protect its secrets. And it doesn't bleed.
Day 35 — Late Afternoon
South Ridge Sector, below glyph site
"Get back," Yuren said—just before the ground split open beneath them.
The slab cracked down the middle with a metallic groan, like a lid pulled off something that had been underground too long.
Reika leapt back. Yuren slid and caught himself with a burst of telekinesis.
Below them—stairs.
And light.
Red. Pulsing. Artificial.
Yuren felt the signal draw him downward like a hook in his chest.
Reika hesitated. "We shouldn't be doing this alone."
"We're not," Yuren said. "Listen."
Then they heard it.
Footsteps.
Too smooth. Too heavy. Not human.
Coming up the stairs.
A shape emerged.
Tall. Thin. Smooth silver plating across a skeletal frame. No eyes. No face.
Three long arms.
Each ended in a bladed digit.
It didn't attack.
It watched.
Then it spoke:
"Designation: Organic Intruder. Proximity to Genesis Interface forbidden."
Reika whispered, "We run."
Yuren whispered back, "We fight."
The construct lunged.
Faster than anything its size should be.
The arm blades cleaved sideways.
Reika ducked—barely—while Yuren lifted both hands and ripped a boulder from the ledge behind them, flinging it mid-air.
The construct caught it one-handed.
Crushed it.
Then kept coming.
Reika launched a full Glassshot burst—twenty shards to the throat.
They bounced. Barely scratched.
It raised an arm—
—until Yuren caught its wrist mid-swing with telekinesis.
Locked it in the air.
Held it like a vice.
Muscles burning. Mind flooding with strain.
"I've got it—" he growled.
"Move!" Reika shouted.
She sprinted past him, drove a full shard spike through the side of the thing's knee.
It faltered.
Just enough.
Yuren slammed it sideways into the rock wall with everything he had.
Stone exploded.
The construct's back dented inward—metal screaming as it crumpled.
It tried to recover.
But Reika flipped up, wrapped her arms around its other limb, and shouted: "Now!"
Yuren compressed the entire thing mid-air like a beer can.
Bone-shaking crunch.
Then silence.
The construct spasmed once.
Then collapsed.
Its chest opened like a dead flower—steam hissing out.
Inside: a core.
Black. Hexagonal.
Pulsing.
And above it, lines of text projected into the air.
GENESIS UNIT 4 STANDBY INTERRUPTED.
PARTIAL CONTROL BREACHED.
MANUAL OVERWRITE UNLOCKED.
Yuren stepped close.
Under the glow, a new sigil appeared across the hovering projection:
The exact same curve-mark from his glyph.
And below it:
ROOT ACCESS PENDING…
ACCESS WILL COST SURVIVAL.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
He didn't answer out loud.
But he put his hand forward.
And the glyph flared.
Back at camp…
The ground rippled.
Just once.
Enough to send plates clattering and water buckets spilling.
Chloe jolted up.
Denzel looked east.
And Kaela—wherever she was—opened her eyes.