In the quiet room, the ticking of a HoroGraph clock echoed like a memory.
It read 12:00 a.m., the date flickering faintly: Third of Proto, 5678 Unified Calendar.
Rain whispered endlessly against the polyglass windows, weaving its rhythm into the dimness. A storm that never truly stopped.
Suspended slightly above the floor, Galen Xarotar swayed gently in his VertiCradle a bioengineered seat tethered to the ceiling by StratoCords, adjusting to his balance like muscle responding to breath.
Wrapped in a thermal-reactive blanket, worn thin from age, Galen's frame remained still.
A soft blue pulse blinked near his left temple
Moon, a memory-integration chip implanted at birth. Every Homonexis bore one.
It's named after the man who once sacrificed himself to end the Dubeon Rebellion centuries ago.
Moon wasn't just code; it was legacy.
Galen's eyes, aug-encrypted and low-light adapted, scanned the dim room without strain. Across from him hovered Brody, a projection held mid-air via SpectraGlass a floating holo-panel that shimmered gently as it displayed a series of archival visuals.
Brody's voice, calm but weighted, narrated the sequence:
"He was arrested for the murder of his best friend, Bayuq.
Lured into an illusion… designed to trap him in the act.
Your father Oguxn wanted revenge.
But he didn't go the right way.
They excrucirayed him alive… and he smiled while it happened."
Galen said nothing. He turned slightly, letting the blanket cover half his face.
"It's been years since your father passed," Brody continued.
"I know hearing his story every night has become ritual…
but you need to ask yourself:
Is it memory, or is it a cage?"
Galen remained silent, eyes closed now, floating in the silence between memory and sleep.
Brody stood. With a wave of his hand, the SpectraGlass dimmed, dissolving into the room's ambient dark. The embedded Wall Nodes followed, shutting down the house lights into deep night.
He stepped toward the exit.
"You were his Dubeon-in-trust," Brody said softly, pausing at the door.
"But you weren't there when he killed his friend.
You weren't there when he stood execution.
And yet, you believe everything you were told…"
Galen opened one eye quiet fire beneath lids heavy with fatigue.
"Did you say I manipulated this? You need to understand—" Brody began, but Galen cut him off mid-sentence.
His voice shifted mocking, rehearsed, the same line he'd heard too many times.
A bitter mimic of Brody's own words:
"That I'm always with him... but I'm at the buildsyn for hours, working to feed our families."
He scoffed softly. "Same story. Every time."
He pulled the blanket tighter around him.
"My family. You should leave, Brody. Good night."
Brody lingered, but said nothing more only shadows followed him out the door.
Brody hesitated a moment longer… then vanished, his projection blinking out like a candle in wind.
Galen sat there, the Moon chip still glowing faintly beside his temple. Outside, the storm clawed at the windows ancient rain, unbothered by human history.
The voice of the rain carried through the city, steady and ceaseless. Galen's thoughts
were a storm of their own, shifting and unpredictable.
This was Lefex one of the oldest provinces of the great Afrovia, a continent where joy was performed like theater and pain hidden like contraband.
Far to the west, past the drifting Sky Cities that floated above seismic fault lines, lay Lukopem the promised continent of the Homonexis, the last faithful remnant of humankind.
Their capital was built from mudbrick, timber, and steel a patchwork city clinging to nature as it withered season by season.
The rain had not stopped for twenty-one years. Not torrential, but relentless enough to fill a bucket over days, enough to dampen the spirit of a people whose fate, the Forfeihuman, now hung by a fraying thread.
Outside one such home, Habituh stood beneath the shelter of a pillar. She was young, yet carried herself with the poise of someone born into waiting. Her almond-shaped eyes caught the silver flashes of lightning, reflecting them like pools of dark water. Long braids framed her face, falling over a figure sculpted by the rhythms of daily labor. Her lips soft, unpainted curved in neither smile nor frown, but in the stillness of thought.
At her feet sat a metal bucket, half-filled from days of patient gathering. Tonight, the rain fell heavier, drumming the tin until it nearly brimmed before softening again.
From the doorway emerged her mother, Solenne, wrapped in a heated graphene-fiber shawl whose faint gold threads glowed with stored warmth. She draped it over Habituh's shoulders, the fabric humming faintly as it came to life.
"You should come inside," Solenne murmured.
"You once told me there were seasons… rain and dry," Habituh said, still staring at the moon through the gauze of clouds. "That the sun could rise for days without hiding. I wonder what that feels like."
"It was real," Solenne answered softly. "And it will come again when the Messiah arrives."
"But why does it feel like we are the last of our kind? Why does everyone feel it?"
Her mother's hand moved to her back, gentle but firm. Solenne did not answer. Instead, she guided her inside. Their doorway bore a small wooden cross, a dim LED flickering behind it.
Inside, the air smelled of cedar oil and old wool. Though forced from the Sky Cities years ago, the family had carried civilization into the earthbound home chairs, a worn couch, a table polished smooth by generations. Everything whispered of a world the rains had drowned.
"You should rest," Solenne said. "By morning, the bucket will be full."
"Good night, Mother."
Habituh lingered by the window after her mother left. A massive cat twice the size of its ancient ancestors, fur thick as winter moss curled into her arms. Its slow purr grounded her thoughts, even as the thunder deepened outside.
Then a crack of electricity split the night.
Habituh rushed to the window. Across the street, arcs of blue light danced over walls as Forfeihumans stumbled into the open, spasming. Their attackers came riding sleek, four-legged exo-mounts genetically modified bonobo apes clad in bio-armor, each wielding a shock lance that spat arcs of ionized air. More appeared, vaulting from rooftop to rooftop, herding the humans into submission.
The house lights snapped on. Her father stood in the doorway, flanked by her sister and younger brother. All three stared at Habituh, their fear mirrored in her wide eyes.
"The devil's creatures are here," she whispered, her voice trembling.
They didn't deny it. They simply stood there, caught between fight and flight.
"What are we going to do?" she asked..