Chapter 17: The Place It Began
The road curved through dense woods and forgotten highways, leading them far from the city's chaos. Mira glanced at Cyan in the passenger seat. His jaw was clenched, eyes lost in memory.
They weren't running. They were heading toward the place where it all started.
A small, fenced-off facility on the outskirts of an old military town. Abandoned to the public. But Emberlight had left traces—burnt files, shattered glass, corrupted archives.
"This is where they trained us," Cyan whispered, stepping through the creaking gate. "Not soldiers. Not spies. Tools."
Mira followed closely, heart pounding. The walls echoed with silence and ghosts of experiments too cruel to name.
In one of the underground chambers, Mira found a name scrawled on a cracked whiteboard:
Project Seraph — Subject 09: Cyan Aves
And beside it, faint but clear: Subject 10: Mira Leane
She staggered back.
"They knew about me?"
"I tried to erase you from their systems," Cyan said quietly. "But someone put your name back in."
It wasn't a coincidence they found each other.
It was design.
But fate? That… that was all theirs.
They sat on the edge of the facility roof that night, staring at the stars. No masks. No secrets. Just truth between them.
"If we were meant to be weapons," Mira said, voice soft, "then maybe love is our rebellion."
Cyan reached for her hand, fingers locking.
Together, they would rewrite the story—one truth at a time.