Rain never truly stopped in Nova Helios.
It only grew quieter.
Droplets slid down the dark glass of towering skyscrapers, reflecting the cold glow of neon advertisements. The city moved as it always did—transport lines humming above the streets, crowds rushing beneath flickering holographic signs, and somewhere in the lower districts, someone selling a memory for a handful of credits.
But here, on the outskirts of the city, things were different.
The border of the Echo Zone began just a few steps ahead.
The air inside looked heavier. Streetlight beams bent at strange angles, as if reality itself had trouble deciding how it should behave.
Adrian Vale stopped at the warning tape.
"Ready?" someone asked behind him.
Adrian turned.
Marcus stood there—the leader of their small hunter team. Tall, broad-shouldered, his armor worn and scratched, the faded emblem of the Echo Hunters Guild still visible on the chest plate.
"Ready," Adrian said.
Marcus nodded and activated his scanner.
The device flickered with a soft blue glow.
"Echo signature is weak," he muttered. "Should be a simple cleanup."
"There's no such thing as a simple zone," said the third member of the team, Kira.
She checked the edge of her blade—a weapon forged from alloy reinforced with Echo energy.
Adrian said nothing.
He stared at the border of the zone.
It barely looked like anything at all—just a faint distortion in the air.
But he could feel it.
Echo.
A cold pressure somewhere deep in the mind.
Marcus stepped forward.
"Alright. Moving in."
They crossed the boundary.
The world changed.
The sound of rain vanished.
Not completely—but it felt distant now, muffled.
The streets inside the zone looked almost identical to those outside: old apartment blocks, shattered shop windows, abandoned vehicles.
But something was wrong.
Too quiet.
"I hate this place," Kira muttered.
Marcus glanced at his scanner again.
"Remnant somewhere ahead."
Adrian followed them slowly.
Echo Zones could behave strangely.
Sometimes they were simply dangerous.
Sometimes unpredictable.
But sometimes…
Sometimes they whispered.
He felt it again.
A faint pressure in his mind.
As if something was trying to remember through him.
Adrian stopped.
"Wait."
Marcus looked back.
"What?"
"There's something—"
He didn't finish.
A figure stepped out from the shadow of a collapsed building.
A Remnant.
But it wasn't like the others.
Remnants were usually twisted things—shapes of unstable Echo energy, violent and erratic. Most of them don't last long. But the dangerous ones… they remember fragments of who they used to be
This one looked almost… Human.
A blurred silhouette stood in the middle of the street.
Watching them.
Marcus raised his weapon.
"Contact."
Kira activated her blade.
But the Remnant didn't attack.
It simply stood there.
Looking directly at Adrian.
Adrian took a step forward.
"Don't," Marcus said quietly.
Remnants almost always attacked.
But this one…
Did nothing.
It tilted its head slightly.
And then the impossible happened.
The Remnant spoke.
The voice sounded distorted, like words echoing through water.
Broken.
Unstable.
But understandable.
"…you…"
Kira froze.
"You heard that too, right?"
Remnants couldn't speak.
It wasn't possible.
The figure stepped closer.
Its shape flickered, like a memory struggling to stay whole.
The voice came again.
"…you… returned…"
Marcus slowly lowered his weapon.
"What the hell…"
But the Remnant was still staring only at Adrian.
Its blurred eyes seemed to focus, as if it were trying to remember something.
Adrian felt the cold again.
Deep inside.
The Echo around him trembled.
Then suddenly—
A flash.
A fragment.
Someone else's memory.
White light.
A laboratory.
Figures in protective suits.
And a child inside a glass capsule.
The vision vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Adrian inhaled sharply.
"What happened?" Kira asked.
He didn't answer.
The Remnant stepped closer.
Then spoke again.
"…I… remember…"
Its form began to collapse.
Echo energy flickered and scattered, like a fading memory.
The last words came out almost as a whisper.
"…you…"
Then the Remnant vanished.
Gone.
As if it had never been there.
The street fell silent again.
Marcus was the first to speak.
"Well…" he said slowly.
"That was weird."
Kira turned to Adrian.
"You know that thing?"
Adrian stared at the empty space where the Remnant had stood.
He could still feel the Echo trembling in his mind.
The fragment of memory hadn't disappeared.
The laboratory.
The capsule.
The child.
He slowly shook his head.
"No."
But deep inside, he knew something was wrong.
Something in that zone…
Knew him.
And that was impossible.
Because Adrian Vale remembered almost nothing about his early childhood.
Yet the Remnant had just said:
"I remember you."
And for the first time in many years, Adrian felt something close to fear.
What if…
Someone remembered his past better than he did?