Neon Requiem — Chapter 5: "Ghost Circuit"
The air beneath Neon Haven is different.
Thicker. Older. Like the city is remembering itself.
Lyra leads us through a narrow tunnel lit by rusting neon strips, the hum of distant generators echoing through the pipes. The walls are wet with condensation, pulsing faintly with blue light. I can feel the pulse beneath my skin too—like the city's rhythm has synced with mine.
> You are the Signal, the voice inside me whispers again.
Find the Origin.
I ignore it. For now.
Lyra moves ahead, scanning each corridor with her handheld tracker. She's focused, but I catch her glancing at me every few seconds—as if trying to decide whether to trust me or destroy me. Maybe both.
"This place used to be a transport grid," she says, voice low. "Before the Spire went up. Now it's where the broken systems hide."
She's right. Around us, scavengers and black-market engineers work in the dim glow, trading old code for battery packs. A child passes, eyes flickering with static. He stares at me—no fear, just recognition. Like he knows what I am.
I grip my blade. Its edge hums softly, the neon etching of my name glowing brighter as we move deeper.
We stop at a massive steel gate marked with a fading symbol: R-09.
Something in my chest twists.
Lyra notices.
"You've seen this before, haven't you?"
I don't answer. My hand moves on its own—touching the mark. The metal warms under my palm, and for a split second—
—I'm somewhere else.
FLASHBACK — MEMORY ECHO
White light. Machines whispering.
A boy—me—strapped to a table.
A woman's voice, soft and trembling.
> "Kael… please remember who you are."
Her face flickers, data tearing through her image. The light explodes—
BACK TO PRESENT
I stumble back, gasping. The glow fades from the wall. Lyra steadies me.
"Hey—what did you see?"
I shake my head. "A face. A voice. I think… she knew me."
Lyra studies me for a long moment. "You're starting to fragment. The memories—they're bleeding through the neural firewall."
"So this is what being alive feels like," I mutter.
She smirks faintly. "If you call that alive."
The gate creaks open on its own. Beyond it lies an enormous chamber filled with hanging wires and broken server towers—like a metallic forest, humming with data ghosts. Holo-screens flicker on the walls, replaying fractured newsfeeds from decades ago.
Lyra's scanner beeps. "This is it. The first node."
We step forward. The moment I do, the air thickens. The holo-screens shift to one image—me.
Not as I am now, but as I was then. Younger. Innocent.
> Project Requiem: Subject 09 successfully activated.
Memory partition 87% complete.
My heart feels like static.
I reach out, and the hologram flickers. The voice returns, faint and distant—
> "Kael… you weren't built to destroy the city. You were built to save it."
Lyra frowns. "Who's talking?"
I stare into the glow. "My mother."
A sudden surge of light bursts from the node, throwing us backward. The entire chamber shakes—alarms echoing through the tunnels. Red warnings flood the walls.
SYSTEM ALERT: SIGNAL DETECTED. SPECTRES EN ROUTE.
Lyra grabs my arm. "We need to move—now!"
But I'm still staring at the node. In the static glow, I can almost see her face again—her eyes full of sorrow and hope.
> "Kael… if you're hearing this, the Requiem has already begun."
Then the node collapses, and the light dies.
We run.
Through the tunnels. Through the flickering dark.
Behind us, the sounds of the Spectres return—cold, mechanical, relentless.
Lyra shouts something, but her voice fades into the chaos. All I can hear now is the echo of the past… and the name I once had before the world forgot me.
Kael.
The last human code.