Night settled over the city like a heavy curtain—thick, unmoving, suffocating in ways that only Kayden could feel. After the incident with Phineas, he walked home in silence, each step dragging the weight of something he couldn't name.
Phineas had nearly been consumed by a faultline.He had seen the anomaly layer.He had become a Conduit.
That alone should have kept Kayden awake all night.
But something else lingered in the air—a pressure, familiar yet wrong, like the world was holding its breath for the next fracture.
He shut his door behind him and sank onto his bed. The quiet of his room didn't comfort him anymore. Not when even silence felt like a thin shell stretched over something vast and watching.
APEX remained dormant, a faint orb of light resting at the corner of his vision. Almost peaceful. Too peaceful.
Kayden rubbed his temple."I need sleep… for once."
He laid back.
The moment his eyes closed—
APEX jerked violently awake.
A harsh digital screech cut through his skull.
Kayden bolted upright. "APEX—?!"
The hologram spasmed, flickering between shapes, symbols, and corrupted lines of unreadable text. Sparks of azure light burst and reformed in the air.
Then—A new message shattered the screen like a crack of lightning:
UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND SIGNAL DETECTEDSOURCE: UNKNOWN ARCLIGHTPRIORITY: RED
Kayden felt his blood freeze.
"Unknown… Arclight?"
His breathing turned sharp.
"There's no one else with that name. No one left."
APEX didn't respond normally. Its voice came fractured—glitching into three tones at once:
"C-Com—mander—In—tru—sion… Dete—cted.Stabi—lizing—f-failed."
Kayden gripped the edge of his desk."APEX, what's happening?!"
The hologram split in half, violently twisting into a spiral of errors.
Then—Everything went still.
A new interface slid into place—not APEX's familiar teal glow, but a darker, colder metallic silver.Old.Ancient.
The air pressure changed instantly, and Kayden felt the hairs on his arms lift.
This system wasn't APEX.It wasn't modern.It wasn't stable.
And it knew him.
A new voice emerged—lower, deeper, colder than APEX's entire library of tones.
"Arclight synchronization attempt… initializing."
Kayden staggered back.
"No. No, I didn't authorize anything!"
The voice ignored him.
"Lineage match: PARTIAL.""Bloodline signature: INCOMPLETE.""Identity: FRAGMENT."
Kayden's chest tightened. "Who are you?"
"COMMAND ACCESS… RESTORING."
A sphere of silver light exploded outward—engulfing his vision.
Everything went white.
Then came the visions.
Kayden stood not in his room—but on a scorched wasteland.
Red sand.Broken steel.Smoke rising into a sky carved by fractures of light.
Figures marched across the horizon—soldiers in armor that shimmered like liquid metal, engraved with sigils he'd never seen. Weapons glowed with blue plasma lines, too advanced for anything on Earth.
But the strangest part—
They saluted.
Not the world.Not the battlefield.
They saluted toward him.
Kayden staggered backwards."No—this isn't real. This can't be real!"
But the vision tightened its grip.
A towering command flag rose above the soldiers—A symbol Kayden recognized instantly:
A circle split by a vertical line.An insignia etched into the APEX panel.The mark of the Arclight Command Division.
Before he could react, the soldiers vanished.
The Second Vision — The Commander
Thunder cracked.
The battlefield shifted.
And then he saw him.
A figure standing on a broken rampart—cloak torn by ash and fire,armor cracked but gleaming under the blood-red sky,a sword of luminescent metal hanging at his side.
White hair.
Kayden's breath caught painfully.
White hair.Just like his.Just like his grandmother described in the stories she refused to tell twice.
The figure turned slightly—and Kayden felt a crushing, cold familiarity wrap around his spine.
His face was blurred.Erased.Hidden by static, as if reality itself refused to show him.
But one thing was unmistakable:
He was Arclight.
And the vision whispered with a voice colder than steel:
"Where are you… Commander?"
Kayden fell to his knees, hands shaking.
"No—stop—STOP! I'm not him! I'm not—"
The vision shattered.
His room snapped back around him, warped by distortion. The walls bent inward, the floor stretched like liquid, and his breath condensed into silver mist.
The unauthorized console flared again—
"SYNCHRONIZATION FAILURE.""COMMANDER NOT FOUND.""RECONNECTING—"
Then APEX returned in a burst of blue-white light—
"STOP THE CONNECTION!"
The dark console slammed shut like a door being ripped from its hinges.
APEX sounded terrified.
Not glitched.Not confused.
"Commander… you must not answer that signal."
Kayden collapsed back onto the bed, chest heaving.
"What was that…?" he whispered.
APEX flickered weakly."That system… predates me."
Kayden's eyes snapped open."What do you mean predates you?! You're supposed to be the original—!"
APEX dimmed, voice thin.
"I am not the first.And whatever contacted you…comes from a war long before this world existed."
Kayden's hands trembled.
"Then why did it call me 'Commander'?"
APEX went silent for too long.
Then—
"…Because you were meant to replace him."
Kayden's blood ran cold.
Him.The blurred commander.The one with white hair.The one standing on the impossible battlefield.
His vision blurred. "APEX… am I seeing the future?"
"No, Commander." APEX's voice dropped low.
"You are seeing our past."
Kayden's heart stopped for a beat.
Before he could breathe, a sharp knock rattled his door.
Kayden flinched violently.
"Kayden? Are you awake?"Phineas. His voice tense. Alert.
Kayden wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Yeah," he said shakily. "Come in."
Phineas entered slowly, eyes locking onto Kayden immediately. His expression shifted—surprise sharpening into concern.
Kayden realized why.
He still looked pale.Shaken.Unsteady.
But more importantly—
Kayden's eyes were glowing faintly silver.
"Kayden…" Phineas whispered."What happened to you?"
Kayden didn't answer.
Because he didn't know how.
APEX whispered one final line before fading out:
"Commander… this was only the first attempt.The signal will return."