Location: Arcadia Ruins – The Buried City beneath Eden Spire
Ash had memory.
It clung to the ruins, to shattered pillars and data-scorched monuments that once pulsed with the hum of a thousand lives. Now they whispered only echoes. Names lost. Futures rewritten.
Aeris walked among them like a shadow come home.
Each step stirred dust and ghosts alike.
Lucien followed in silence behind her, scanning what was left of the Eden Spire's undercity—a place erased from official maps and memory, but not from Aeris's bones. She had once hidden here. Bled here. Dreamed of a world without masters.
But even dreams rot when buried long enough.
"They called this Arcadia," she said softly, trailing her hand along a broken arch. "My mother's first experiment in obedience. They rewrote instincts. Made peace feel like purpose. Programmed entire cities to love their chains."
Lucien stepped beside her. "And you were the exception."
"I was the mistake," she corrected, lips twisting. "I loved freedom more."
"And that's why they fear you."
She didn't reply.
The silence around them was too loud.
But below the ruins, something stirred.
It wasn't a sound. It was… pressure. Like the air exhaled regret.
Lucien glanced down the black chasm that opened ahead of them—spiraling stairs descending into an abyss where Arcadia's deepest sins were locked away.
He held his weapon tighter. "They're here, aren't they?"
"Yes," Aeris answered. "The revenants."
---
Location: Level -9, Arcadia Subcrypt
They were not alive.
Not truly.
The revenants were remnants of failed immortality—bodies half-saved, half-erased, suspended in a limbo between man and machine. Soldiers who had once believed in peace so violently, they'd burned entire cities to "protect" it.
Her mother had called them saviors.
Aeris had buried them.
But now, they were waking.
In the center of the crypt, massive cylinders of containment pulsed a dim blue—life-support systems flickering after decades of neglect.
As they stepped inside, Aeris stopped.
Lucien noticed her breath catch.
One of the cylinders was open.
Empty.
Lucien moved forward instinctively, weapon raised—until Aeris stopped him with a hand across his chest.
"No," she said. "Don't threaten him."
"Him?"
From the shadows, a man stepped forward.
Young. Beautiful. Unnaturally still. His eyes weren't eyes—they were archives. Golden lenses that flickered with old data, as if reality was a recording he was decoding in real time.
He didn't speak.
He simply looked at Aeris.
And then he knelt.
"My Queen," he whispered.
Lucien stiffened beside her.
Aeris, still frozen, stepped closer. "Designation."
The man's voice was like static laced with poetry.
"Unit 03. Eden Protocol. Name: Sol."
Lucien's voice was sharp. "He's one of them. He was made to follow your mother."
"No," Aeris said slowly. "He was made to follow the throne."
Sol lifted his gaze. "And the throne returns."
---
Location: Temporary Camp – Arcadia Outskirts
Night fell.
And with it, questions neither of them could shake.
Lucien sat across from Aeris near the low flame of their field generator, watching her stare into the dark.
"You're thinking about him," he said.
"I'm thinking about what it means," she answered. "The revenants weren't supposed to wake without blood command."
"But they woke for you."
Aeris hesitated.
"I don't want followers," she murmured. "I don't want to rebuild a world of weapons."
"You won't."
"You're sure?"
Lucien reached across the fire, taking her hand in his.
"I've seen the way you lead," he said. "It's not in code. Or control. It's in choice. That's why they'll follow. That's why I do."
Her eyes glimmered with something unspoken.
Lucien leaned closer. "You've already changed the world once. Now you just have to protect it."
A long pause.
Then Aeris whispered, "What if I become her?"
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
Lucien leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers.
"Because you let people break your heart. Because you care enough to ask that question. Because you'd rather fight than control. And because I won't let you forget who you are."
The fire between them flared.
And the space between their lips dissolved.
Their kiss wasn't desperate. It wasn't warlike.
It was home.
A promise carved in flame.
---
Final Scene: Sol's Private Memory Drive
Later that night, alone beneath the stars, Sol opened a hidden chamber in his core.
Inside: a vision.
Of a woman.
Not Aeris.
But like her.
Her mother.
Still alive.
Watching.
And waiting.