CHAPTER SIX: AFTERLIGHT Day 8
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Jex hated mornings.
He hated waking up in ash, with his mouth dry and something growling outside the walls. He hated the ache behind his eyes, the constant twitch in his fingers like his body wanted to burn something just to feel alive. But most of all, he hated how quiet it was.
Too quiet.
He lay in the remains of what had once been a fortified bunker, now half-swallowed by the earth and Rift corrosion. The roof was cracked open, a sky the color of faded bruises overhead. Pale Riftlight filtered down in soft shafts, catching on the crumbling walls of Ephra Dusk.
Their new home. Their ruined sanctuary.
He sat up slowly. The others were scattered nearby. Silas meditating by the west corridor, his shadow flickering unnaturally in the glow. Senya crouched over a cluster of broken screens, fingers moving like a codebreaker with something to prove. Nira slept, her breaths shallow but even. Torren stood near the entrance, unmoving, like a silent sentinel carved in iron.
Jex exhaled and ran a hand through his hair, which was still matted with soot and old blood. Everything itched. Everything burned. The Trial had taken more from him than he liked to admit.
Not just physically.
The Beacon's mirror hadn't shown him his sister. Not really. It had shown him the version of himself that let her burn.
"Still here," he muttered, mostly to himself.
A soft voice answered. "Regretting it?"
Jex flinched. Senya hadn't looked up from her work.
"No," he said. Then paused. "Maybe. Not the surviving part. Just... the remembering."
She made a soft noise. Not quite sympathy. Not quite dismissal. Something in between.
"The Forge doesn't forget," she said. "Neither do we. But memory's just pressure. Use it, or let it crush you."
He grinned, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Did you major in cryptic metaphors, or is that just trauma talking?"
Senya finally glanced at him. "Both."
A shadow passed overhead. Jex flinched, instinctively reaching for the hilt of his blade, but it was only a Rift scavenger—an insect the size of a large dog, dragging what looked like an old drone casing.
He stood and stretched, bones popping like dry twigs.
"So what's the plan? We fixing this place up or letting it kill us slowly?"
"Both," Silas said without opening his eyes. His voice was calm, but edged with exhaustion. "We stabilize the structure, scavenge materials, secure the perimeter. The rest... depends."
"Depends on what?"
Silas finally opened his eyes.
"On whether or not the Tribunal finds us first."
Jex stopped grinning.
---
Later that morning, the Forge finally gave them something back.
Torren returned from the southern wing with a box wrapped in Rift-steel, still humming with ambient energy. The moment he stepped into the core vault, the room seemed to inhale.
Nira was the first to speak. "That's a Resonance Cache."
Senya stood, brushing dust from her hands. "From the Old Era?"
"No," Nira said quietly. "From the Forge. It's a reward."
Jex raised an eyebrow. "We get prizes now? Should've nearly died sooner."
Torren didn't smile. He dropped the box in the middle of their makeshift campfire pit.
"It's keyed," he said. "To us. Open it."
Silas stepped forward, fingers hovering over the surface. As his palm touched the metal, the box cracked open with a whisper of shifting glass. Light spilled out. Not blinding. But deep. A presence rather than a glow.
Inside were five items.
A dagger wrapped in fire. A shard of obsidian that pulsed like a heartbeat. A silver-threaded glove. A sliver of liquid light in a vial. And a metallic spinal shard.
Each of them stepped forward. Each knew which one was theirs.
Jex took the flame dagger. It burned against his hand but didn't scar.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"An Evolution Key," Senya said. "That's not just a Boon enhancer. That's a Contract trigger."
He swallowed.
"Guess we're not done changing."
No one corrected him.
---
Night fell slowly at Ephra Dusk.
Unlike the Hollowforge, the ruin here did not scream. It whispered. It watched.
Nira stood beneath the broken arch of what had once been a cathedral entrance, staring up at the Rift-stars. They shimmered wrong. Like holes torn through reality.
The vial of liquid light sat in her palm.
It pulsed.
"Yours has memory," Senya said, stepping beside her.
Nira didn't look away. "How do you know?"
"Because it's not light. It's thought. Stored resonance. Memories from the Forge. From something—or someone—it consumed."
Nira finally turned to her, eyes shadowed. "And if it's a memory I can't survive?"
Senya's gaze didn't waver. "Then survive anyway. That's what we do now."
Nira nodded once. She uncorked the vial. The light inside didn't spill. It climbed her fingers like a living thing.
When it touched her eyes, she didn't scream.
She fell.
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In her vision, she stood in a city of light. Towers of glass, roads paved in Riftsteel, voices whispering in code and song.
Then fire.
Then metal.
Then them.
The Original Remnants.
One by one, she saw their forms—some human, some not. Some gods, some mistakes. Each one a different face of the same truth: power, once taken, could never be returned.
She saw her own body—cracked open, filled with wires.
And behind her, a face she had never seen before. Smiling.
"You're not the first," it said.
Nira gasped awake. Eyes wide. Chest heaving.
Senya caught her before she hit the floor.
"What did you see?"
Nira's voice was hoarse. "A message. Buried in light. From before the Fall."
Silas approached, eyes dark. "Did it name the Remnant?"
She nodded. "Yes. But not mine. Yours."
Silence fell like a blade.
Jex muttered, "Guess we're all haunted now."
No one laughed.
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