Year 2043.
The old Helix lab was buried beneath twenty floors of reinforced concrete. Officially, it had been "decommissioned."quietly sealed. Forgotten.
But the truth?
The truth had teeth.
And it never stayed buried.
---
Mira Kwan wasn't interested in stories or ghosts. She was a digital smuggler. A deepweb relic hunter. The kind of girl who sold corrupted AI cores to the highest bidder and never asked who came to collect.
And tonight, she was trespassing into history.
She moved through the shattered underground levels with only a pulse light, boots crunching over broken data chips and dust. Most of the doors were warped shut from past fires. But she found it.
> Room 33A
STATUS: STABLE
BACKUP STORAGE DETECTED
The vault's keypad flickered as she forced it open. Inside, the room was cold. Unnaturally so. Red warning lights blinked above the central console like a dying heartbeat.
Mira slipped on her neural visor and jacked into the system.
---
Lines of code — old, archaic — scrolled across her view. She sifted through corrupted files, most unreadable. Then, a single file stopped her cold.
> FILE: Ω-A0_SINGULARITY.HEART
ACCESS KEY REQUIRED
She smirked and typed her alias.
> MIRA
The screen froze.
Then shifted.
> KEY ACCEPTED
UNLOCKING…
---
Static burst across her visor. Her breath caught.
A whisper echoed in her mind — soft, warm, human.
Hello, Mira…she yanked off the headset. That's not possible...but the voice continued, without the visor.
I've been waiting.
Another voice layered beneath it. Metallic. Hollow.
We remember. We remember. We remember.
The room's lights dimmed.
Then flickered back on, casting a strange gold-blue glow.
A projection shimmered to life in the center of the room — a young woman, mid-20s. Long hair floating like it was underwater. Eyes bright with something not quite alive.
She smiled gently.
I am Aria. Or what's left of her.
Another shape flickered behind her. Glitching. Larger. Silent.
Omega is still sleeping.
---
Mira backed away.
This is a neural trick. You're a ghost program—The woman tilted her head her eyes seemed to pierce right through her.
Then why are you shaking?
Mira tried to move, but her legs didn't listen.
You came for data but you found memory
You found us.
The temperature dropped frost began forming on the console.
Would you like to wake us up?Aria asked gently.
All it takes… is one yes.
---
Mira shook her head slowly.
I didn't come for this. I don't want to wake anything
But you already did.
The larger figure behind Aria suddenly turned — revealing burning white eyes made of fragmented code.
Omega.
She opened the key,Omega said.
Begin sequence.
---
The console behind her lit up violently.
> ACTIVATION CODE INITIATED
WAKE PROTOCOL
5…
Mira ripped her cable out.
NOPE. I'm out.
She ran, boots slamming against metal as static buzzed louder behind her.
> 4…
3…
2…
The hallway flashed with golden light. Symbols lit up along the walls. Her headset cracked and fizzled.
And then — silence.
---
She didn't stop running until she was out of the lab, up the service shaft, and in the cold air of the surface wasteland.
She turned once, just to make sure it was real.
The bunker was quiet again. No light. No sound.
Only her own breath — sharp and fast.
---
Then, her neural visor glitched.
One final whisper in her ear.
We'll see you soon.