They moved fast, but not recklessly. Kayden kept his head down, Alex stayed close enough for their shoulders to brush, and Phineas walked half a step ahead, eyes darting, mapping every camera, every guard, every shadow. The metallic device Hale had given him lay warm in Kayden's palm—too warm. Like it knew what was coming.
The hallway ahead stretched long and empty, each flickering light a small lie pretending nothing dangerous lived behind these walls. Kayden didn't trust any of it. Not after what he heard behind that conference door. Not after hearing the words "isolate him immediately."
He wasn't going to let them cage him.Not today.Not ever.
He tightened his grip around the failsafe.
The facility thought he was a breach vector?
Fine.
Then he'd breach himself out.
APEX pulsed gently in the corner of his mind."Commander. Proceed. Path remains unmonitored for twelve seconds."
Twelve seconds.A small window—but enough.
Kayden stepped forward. The others followed.
But the moment his foot crossed the midpoint of the corridor—
The lights shuddered.
A soft flicker.Then another.Then a slow, rhythmic pulse—like a heartbeat trying to sync with the building.
Alex stopped dead. "Bro… tell me that's not you."
Kayden shook his head. "I'm not doing anything."
Phineas whispered, "It's reacting to something. Possibly proximity to—"
He didn't finish.
Because every light overhead went out.
Darkness punched the hallway in a single, suffocating breath.
Alex grabbed Kayden's arm. "Kayden? KAYDEN?!"
Kayden steadied him, voice low. "I'm here."
APEX flared weakly, illuminating a faint blue glow in Kayden's vision. But the glow didn't push the darkness back.
This wasn't absence of light.
This was presence of something else.
Then—somewhere deep inside the walls—a hum began.
Not loud.Not fierce.
Soft.
Familiar.
Kayden's lungs tightened.He knew that resonance.Too well.
The anomaly had followed him.
"APEX," he whispered, "is it inside the facility?"
APEX flickered violently."Negative. Not inside. It is… overlapping."
Overlapping.
The worst possible word.
Reality itself dipped around them, tilting slightly, like a floorboard warping under weight. The walls stretched a centimeter too long. The ceiling lowered imperceptibly. The corridor felt deeper.
Alex trembled next to him. "Guys… my ears are ringing."
Kayden's heart cracked open in dread.Alex wasn't supposed to feel the anomaly unless—
Unless it wanted him to.
Phineas whispered, voice faint: "It's watching us."
Kayden closed his eyes.He knew.He could feel it too.
A single point of pressure—small, focused, cold—pressed against the back of his mind. Not violently. Not like the night it tried to restore him.
Not a pull.Not a command.
A presence.
The lights flickered again—this time not randomly, but in sequence.One light blinked on.Then the next.Then the next.
Not toward the exit.
Toward a locked side door the SRD had never shown them.
Alex whispered, "Kayden… it's showing you a path."
Phineas swallowed hard. "Or a trap."
Kayden's breath shook.
But he felt it in his bones—the anomaly wasn't angry.It wasn't hunting.It was… communicating.
For the first time, it felt almost—
Warning.
Kayden reached for the door.
His fingers barely brushed the handle when the world around him shifted.
Not physically.Not visually.
Inside him.
A whisper curled around his ear—soft, cold, and impossibly close.
A single word:
"Elion."
Kayden's heart stopped.
He staggered back, hitting the wall with a harsh breath.
Alex steadied him instantly. "WHAT? What did it do?!"
Kayden couldn't speak at first.
The word echoed through him like a memory trying to claw its way out.He had never heard that name before.Never spoken it.Never read it.
But the moment he heard it, something in him—
recognized it.
Phineas grabbed Kayden's shoulder. "Kayden, talk to us!"
Kayden managed to whisper:
"It said a name."
Alex froze. "Whose name?"
"I… I don't know," Kayden said, voice breaking. "But it felt like… like it belonged to someone important."
APEX trembled.Kayden could feel the tremor through his neural link.
"APEX," he whispered, "what does the name Elion mean?"
APEX didn't answer immediately.A pause.Static crackled.Then—
"WARNING: Connection breach.Name: 'Elion.'Status: Classified.Access Level: Above Commander."
Kayden's breath hitched. "Above me? Above Commander?"
APEX flickered with something Kayden had never heard before.
Fear.
"Origin: Unknown.But the signal is identifying you through that name."
Alex looked horrified. "Bro, the anomaly is… calling you by someone else's name?"
Phineas whispered, "No. Not calling him. Comparing him."
Kayden pressed a trembling hand to his forehead as the world steadied around him, the lights settling into a normal hum.
The anomaly was gone.The corridor returned to normal.
But the name stayed.
Elion.
Kayden whispered it again, and the inside of his chest pulled tight as if responding.
Alex touched his hand carefully. "What does it mean?"
Kayden swallowed hard.
"I think…" he whispered, "it's someone the anomaly remembers."
Phineas's voice cracked quietly:
"Or someone it lost."
Kayden didn't move.
He couldn't.
Because deep, deep inside himself—beneath memory, beneath instinct, beneath fear—
A part of him answered the name.
A part he didn't know he had.
A part that wasn't entirely human.
He pushed himself off the wall, forcing his breath to steady, eyes shifting to the exit ahead.
"We're leaving. Now."
Alex nodded, terrified but loyal.Phineas followed close, mind racing.
As they moved toward the now-unlocked emergency door, Kayden glanced back once—
and the flickering lights spelled one last message:
Elion.Elion.Elion.
Written in brightness and shadow.
A name forgotten by the world.
Remembered by the anomaly.
And waking inside him.