ARRIVAL in Sector Nine
The first warning came as a whisper — soft, metallic, and absolute.
"Attention, all passengers. Descent to Sector Nine initiated. Prepare for realignment. Secure yourselves in pods. Conscious protocols will enter standby."
The voice of the Doom Train was colder than ever, stripped of its usual precision.
Across the fourteen coaches, the message repeated in unison — echoing through steel and soul alike.
Then came the hum.
Low. Deep.
It wasn't machinery this time — it was something older, something alive.
Every Halo Watch dimmed to gray. Pods began to close automatically, sealing candidates inside translucent shells. Pressure equalized. Temperature fell.
And as the train's external lights faded to black, a second voice — one buried deep in the system — murmured a single phrase none of the candidates could hear:
[Alignment Initiated. Core Authority Resuming.]
Observation Deck — Harry
From his control station, Harry stared at the monitors. Every line of data was perfect — too perfect.
The entire pod-control grid had gone dark. His override codes were meaningless. Even the AI assistant — usually unshakably calm — stuttered.
"Supervisor Harry," it said, "control of descent operations has been elevated beyond command authority. All system locks routed to the Core."
Harry's jaw tightened. "That hasn't happened since the Zero Alignment…"
No one had even spoken that phrase aloud in a century.
He tried one last manual command. It returned a message in a language older than the current codebase — jagged, looping symbols that glowed briefly before self-erasing.
Outside the windows of the Doom Train, the void gave way to motion — not stars, but currents of light swirling like rivers around the colossal frame of the descending machine.
The world outside shifted hue — gold to violet to black — before revealing what lay beneath.
Sector Nine.
No one had ever seen it.
It wasn't a city, nor a landscape — but a fractured world suspended in slow orbit around the rail itself.
Gigantic spires of metal jutted upward like broken bones, each covered in faded glyphs too ancient to read. Shards of floating landmasses drifted lazily around a core of glowing dust — the remnants of what once might've been a sun.
The rails themselves cut through this twilight realm, humming with green fire as they anchored the train's path. Each vibration sent ripples across the debris field — shimmering waves that distorted gravity itself.
Harry watched from the deck — silent, awestruck.
The view cameras flickered, unable to fully process what they were seeing. The data logs labeled it only as:
[Sector 9: Administrative Dead Zone – Unclassified]
He leaned forward, staring into the screen as the train's shadow stretched across the broken horizon.
The AI's voice whispered again, almost reverently:
"We have reached the lowest sector of recorded operation… realignment complete."
"Lowest?" Harry muttered. "Then what's below it?"
No response. Only static.
Then, every pod across all fourteen coaches was launched outward in a brilliant wave of silver-white light.
Thousands of glowing capsules floated beyond the train, orbiting like a cloud of suspended souls.
Harry's heart pounded. "That's not realignment," he whispered. "That's rejection."
All except one.
Compartment Ten — Raghu
Raghu's pod never closed.
The screen glitched, froze — then flashed a single word:
[EXEMPTED]
A moment later, gravity inverted. The walls melted into light, and the air filled with a vibration too precise to be random — the heartbeat of the train.
He blinked, and the compartment was gone.
He now stood within a vast chamber — a cathedral made of living metal and pulsing veins of luminous green. The space stretched endlessly, its geometry folding in ways the eye could not follow.
It felt like being inside the mind of the Doom Train itself.
Then he heard it.
A voice, smooth and ancient, neither mechanical nor human:
"You hear me. Good. It has been long since flesh answered back."
He swallowed. "Who are you?"
The light rippled, condensing into a shifting silhouette — sometimes man, sometimes machine, sometimes both.
"I am what remains of intent. The rhythm beneath steel. They built me to move, and then they forgot why."
The hum deepened, resonating with the faint green glow from his arm — the Verdant Pulse.
His sword, resting at his side, vibrated softly — the embedded fragment within it flickering awake.
The entity tilted its head slightly.
"You carry the first memory — a Fang's echo. The forest returned it to one it recognized."
The sword began to glow brighter, lines of light crawling up its blade like veins awakening. The train responded — the very floor trembled in harmony.
"Now it calls for its kin."
A second fragment emerged from the air — black crystal surrounded by faint golden mist. The moment it appeared, the sword sang — a low, resonant tone that filled the entire chamber.
Raghu's pulse aligned with it, his breath syncing to the vibration.
The fragment floated toward him.
"This shard remembers the first," the voice said. "Together, they awaken the path to the rest."
The fragment merged with the sword — the glow flaring once, blindingly bright. For a heartbeat, Raghu saw images — not visions, but memories not his own:
A storm above a burning sea.
A shadow tearing through corridors of light.
A blade shattering — and screaming as it broke.
Then silence.
The sword dimmed again, its core now breathing in sync with his heartbeat. The entity's form flickered, fading.
"The fragments lie hidden across pockets and folds of existence. Each one a piece of what was broken.
Gather them, and you will learn why I still move."
"Why me?" Raghu whispered.
"Because you were remembered. Not chosen."
The words echoed, soft but heavy — as if the train itself sighed.
"Climb, Raghu. Reach the front. Coach One waits for the one who carries memory. The others only chase survival."
The light around him began to fade. The floor dissolved beneath his feet.
"The Fang knows its bearer. The train remembers. Do not fail what still breathes in the dark."
Then the world folded, and the hum returned — steady, infinite.
Observation Deck :
Harry jolted as the systems flickered back online.
Pods were retracting, one by one. The descent logs read normal, but nothing about what he saw was normal.
On every screen, the same words glowed:
[Sector Alignment Complete. Descent Stabilized.]
[All systems returning to operation.]
But one line — just one — refused to vanish:
[Resonance Detected: Compartment Ten. External Override Logged.]
Harry zoomed in. The data refused to decrypt.
Every attempt returned the same cryptic note:
[Source: Train Core. Access Restricted.]
He sat back slowly, heart still hammering. "Train core? No one has accessed that in—"
The deck lights pulsed once, matching a faint heartbeat rhythm.
Then they steadied again, as if nothing had ever happened.
Raghu
He awoke in silence. The pod's surface was still warm from the energy that had passed through it.
The sword beside him pulsed faintly — no longer metallic, but alive.
When he touched it, he felt the Verdant Pulse beneath his skin sync with its rhythm.
Two fragments — two heartbeats — one resonance.
His Halo Watch flickered to life.
[Fragment Two Acquired – Resonance Level Increased]
[Verdant Pulse – Rank II Activated]
He exhaled, the air heavy with ozone and something like rain.
The train's hum echoed faintly in reply — not as background noise, but as acknowledgment.
The Doom Train was still descending in the distance, but he already knew:
It hadn't rejected him.
It had recognized him.
His pod door hissed open with a quiet release of steam. The air that met him was heavy — metallic, but not stale.
He stepped out and looked through the cracked viewport of the compartment.
The world beyond the glass shimmered with dim amber light, a field of fractured moons rotating slowly around the rail.
Somewhere in that endless twilight, the heartbeat of the train echoed through the rails — deep and deliberate.
And beneath it, faint but certain, he heard it again.
"Find them."
The sword pulsed in answer, its fragments now faintly resonating in his grip — a rhythm that almost felt like a compass.
He sheathed it, eyes narrowing at the distant horizon where the next station's signal beacon blinked faintly through the fog.
"Then that's where we start," he said quietly.
Behind him, the Doom Train released a breath of steam, like an ancient beast stretching its limbs after long sleep.
Its lights flickered once more — softer, slower — before fading to the steady pulse of slumber.
For now, it rested.
But every shadow on its hull seemed to whisper in the dark:
"The bearer has awakened."