The shelter lights flickered at irregular intervals.
Not enough to plunge the room into darkness.
Not enough to feel accidental.
Just enough to remind everyone inside that stability was an illusion.
Rei sat upright on the cot, the communicator still glowing faintly in his hand.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: TERMINATION
The word clung to him.
Not elimination.
Not containment.
Termination.
Like a process.
Like a malfunction.
Aira noticed the way his fingers trembled and gently took the device from him, powering it down.
"They don't get to decide that," she said quietly.
Rei didn't respond.
His eyes were unfocused, staring past the cracked wall, past the dim emergency lights, past the present.
Rena was the first to feel it.
She stiffened near the doorway, her silence field flickering without her conscious control.
"…It's wrong," she whispered.
Zeke looked up sharply.
"What is?"
Rena swallowed.
"The sound."
Suki frowned.
"There is no sound."
"That's the problem."
The silence pressed inward.
Not absence.
Compression.
As if the air itself was holding its breath.
Kai's lightning fizzled and died against his palms. His eyes widened.
"I can't feel the charge."
Rei slowly stood.
The mark beneath his skin pulsed, not bright, not violent.
Patient.
Like something tapping from the inside.
"Everyone," Rei said softly. "Don't move."
Aira grabbed his sleeve.
"Rei?"He shook his head once. "It's not here yet."
The word yet settled heavily between them.
Then the shelter door opened.
No crash.
No force.
Just the soft, polite sound of hinges turning.
A man stood in the doorway.
Average height.
Unremarkable build.
Dark hair, neatly combed.
No visible aura.
He looked normal.
Which made every instinct in Rei's body scream.
The man smiled pleasantly.
"Good evening," he said. "I apologize for arriving unannounced."
No one answered.
Zeke stepped forward half a pace, metal creeping up his forearms.
"You're in a restricted shelter," Zeke growled. "State your name."
The man's gaze slid to him.
Just for a moment.
Zeke froze.
The metal retreated from his skin like it had been scalded.
The man blinked, as if confused.
"Oh. I'm sorry. That wasn't intentional."
He looked back at Rei.
"May I come in?"
Aira's grip tightened painfully around Rei's arm.
"No," she said immediately. "You may not."
The man tilted his head, studying her.
"…Ah," he murmured. "The Moon-bound."
Aira's breath caught.
Rei stepped forward, placing himself between them.
"Who are you?"
The man's smile widened, not cruel, not mocking.
Fond.
"I was hoping you'd ask that," he said.
"My designation is Observer-Theta."
The room felt colder.
Rena whispered, "Designation…?"
"Yes," Theta replied calmly. "Names imply continuity. I do not possess that."
Rei's mark burned.
"You sent the message," Rei said.
Theta nodded. "Correct."
Kai's voice shook.
"You're with the people who want him terminated."
Theta considered this.
"…That is one interpretation," he said. "Though inaccurate."
Suki laughed nervously. "Wow. You say terminate and now you're arguing semantics?"
Theta turned to her.
For the first time, his smile faded.
"You," he said gently, "are scheduled to die in eighteen months."
Suki's fire went out.
The silence shattered.
"What the hell did you just say?" Zeke roared.
Theta raised a hand. The sound died instantly. Voices, breath, even heartbeats muted for half a second.
When it returned, everyone gasped.
"Please,"
Theta said. "No hostility. I am not here to harm you."
Rei clenched his fists. "Then why are you here?"
Theta met his eyes.
"To verify something."
The mark pulsed hard.
Theta stepped forward.
The air distorted around him. Not bending, not tearing.
Updating.
Reality treated him like a system change.
Aira felt sick.
"What are you?" she whispered.
Theta stopped a few steps away from Rei.
Up close, his eyes were wrong.
Not glowing.
Reflective.
Like screens showing something else behind them.
"I am a corrective measure,"
Theta said.
"A contingency created after the failure of the Five."
Rei's chest tightened. "You're not human."
Theta nodded. "Not anymore."
A long pause.
Then he added, almost softly, "Neither are you."
Aira's hand flew to Rei's chest.
"No," she said sharply. "He is human."
Theta looked at her.
"…He remembers being human," he corrected.
The words sliced deeper than any blade.
Rei felt something inside him shift.
"You said you were here to verify something," Rei said. "What?"
Theta raised his hand.
And the world folded.
Not ripped.
Folded.
The shelter dissolved into layers. Walls became outlines. People turned translucent. Time slowed like syrup.
Rei stood alone with Theta in a space that wasn't a place.
Aira screamed his name, but the sound never reached him.
Theta gestured.
"Look."
Images bloomed around them.
Not visions.
Records.
Rei as a child, sleeping in a medical chamber, wires embedded into his spine.
Rei screaming as a teenager, doctors arguing behind glass.
Azeroth standing in the observation room, younger, uncertain.
Rei staggered.
"No… that's not…"
"This is not memory,"
Theta said.
"This is archive."
The image shifted.
A table.
A body.
A prototype.
Faceless.
Unfinished.
A mark burned into its chest.
Theta's voice softened.
"The Riftborn was not born," he said.
"He was assembled."
Rei fell to his knees.
"No," he whispered.
"My life, my choices…"
"Were real," Theta said. "Because they needed to be."
The words echoed horribly.
"Why?" Rei demanded.
"Why make me?"
Theta looked almost regretful.
"Because the last cycle failed," he said.
"The Five became tyrants.
Azeroth chose control.
The world fractured."
"So you built a replacement," Rei said bitterly.
"Yes."
A pause.
"No."
Theta corrected himself.
"We built a vessel."
The mark flared violently.
Theta stepped back for the first time.
"The mark is not power," Theta said carefully.
"It is a door."
Rei's breath came shallow.
"A door to what?"
Theta met his eyes.
"To whatever survives when gods die."
The images collapsed.
The shelter snapped back into place.
Rei gasped, collapsing forward.
Aira caught him, sobbing.
"Rei! Rei, look at me!"
Theta stood exactly where he had been.
Unchanged.
Everyone stared at Rei in horror.
"What did he do to you?"
Zeke demanded.
Rei looked up slowly.
His eyes were different.
Not glowing.
Deeper.
"He showed me the truth," Rei said hoarsely.
Theta nodded. "Verification complete."
Kai shook his head. "Verification of what?"
Theta looked at the team.
"At dawn,"
he said,
"the first Null Zone will activate."
Rena stiffened. "A what?"
"A region where marks fail. Where awakenings collapse. Where gods cannot intervene."
Aira's blood ran cold.
"You're erasing people."
"No," Theta said.
"We're testing them."
Rei pushed himself upright.
"If I refuse?"
he asked.
Theta looked at him for a long time.
Then he smiled.
Not pleasantly.
Proudly.
"Then you become the variable we couldn't predict."
Theta stepped backward.
The air folded again.
Before vanishing, he left Rei with one final sentence:
"When the door opens,
ask yourself who is stepping through."
The shelter shook.
Outside, the ground screamed.
Far below the city, something ancient shifted. Not rising, not attacking.
Turning toward Rei.
Aira clutched his shirt, terrified.
"Rei… what are you?"
Rei stared into the dark horizon, mark burning like a living scar.
"I don't know yet,"
he said.
"But something just recognized me."
And somewhere beneath reality, something smiled, because the door had finally begun to open.
Chapter 16 ends.