The morning lights flickered on across the base one sector at a time.
Security bots rolled through the corridors, scanning for standard maintenance faults. Everything looked normal—too normal.
Shivani walked into the command wing with a cup of black coffee in her hand, dark circles under her eyes.
She hadn't slept much, not after what happened the night before.
Om Sai followed, yawning loudly, hair sticking up like he'd fought the bed and lost.
"Kid better still be asleep," he muttered. "If he's pulling another midnight training stunt, I'm shaving his head."
Shivani shot him a glare. "You'd need to catch him first."
They turned down the hall toward the containment section.
The glass doors slid open—silent as always.
At first glance, everything looked exactly the same.
Lights steady.
Vitals monitor green.
Containment field humming.
Then Shivani frowned. "...Om Sai."
He looked at her, then followed her gaze.
The cot inside the chamber was empty.
A cold silence filled the room.
Shivani moved fast—checking the readings.
"Vitals show normal," she said quietly, voice tightening. "But there's no one in there. The system's reading a ghost signal."
Om Sai's grin was gone. He ran a hand through his hair, staring at the glass. "That's impossible. The lockdown doors need dual clearance."
She pressed her ID on the panel—no response.
Om Sai tried his—nothing.
The system wasn't locked. It was looping.
Still displaying last night's data as if time had frozen.
Shivani whispered, "…He found a way through the failsafe."
Om Sai crouched near the terminal. "Yeah, and didn't trip a single alarm. Kid must've been guided… or the system let him out."
Shivani's eyes sharpened. "What do you mean?"
He pointed at the log on screen. The access code wasn't hers. Not his.
It was a designation neither of them recognized:
ACCESS GRANTED – PROJECT ECHO / SUBJECT 7
A chill passed through the air.
"Subject 7?" Shivani read aloud, frowning. "What the hell is that?"
Om Sai stood slowly, expression grim. "Something above our clearance. Something they never told us."
She turned to the console again—and froze.
A folded piece of paper rested beside it, written in uneven ink.
Her hands shook slightly as she unfolded it.
If I stay, someone will die. If I go, maybe you'll live to hate me later.
Thank you—for believing there's still a 'me' left to save.
Don't follow.
—Arin
For a moment, the entire room went silent.
Om Sai read over her shoulder. His usual jokes, his lazy grin—gone.
He took a long breath, staring at the words. "Damn it, kid…"
Shivani folded the note back carefully, almost reverently, and pressed it to her chest.
"He's trying to protect us," she whispered. "Even now."
Om Sai looked at the empty chamber one last time.
Then turned away, voice low.
"If he's out there alone, he won't last long. Not with that thing inside him."
Shivani's eyes hardened. "Then we find him. But not as soldiers."
Om Sai raised a brow. "Then as what?"
She met his gaze. "As the people who refused to give up on him."
The room's monitors flickered faintly—one screen glitching for a heartbeat.
Lines of hidden code scrolled by before stabilizing again:
PROJECT ECHO – SUBJECT 7 STATUS: ACTIVE. LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
Neither of them noticed.
Outside, the storm from the night before still lingered on the horizon, faint thunder rolling across the plains.
Somewhere beneath that sky, Arin walked alone—his aura dim, his purpose clear.
He didn't know it yet.
But his disappearance had just awakened forces far older than any of them could imagine