The world was burning.
Kael didn't know how old he was in this memory—six, maybe seven—but he remembered the heat. The kind of heat that melts breath into smoke and makes a child believe the sun has fallen from the sky. He stood barefoot on shattered stone as flames climbed the wooden beams of what had once been his home. The air shimmered in waves, thick with dust and the screams of people whose names he had already forgotten.
Or perhaps he never truly knew them.
Because the first thing he remembered—truly remembered—was not his mother's face, not a father's voice, not even his own name.
It was the sound of metal.
A low mechanical hum, too calm for the chaos around him. Too steady. Too cold.
He heard it now, just behind the roar of the fire.
Thrum… thrum… thrum…
Something was moving beyond the burning buildings. Something large. Something heavy. Shadows stretched against the smoke, long and skeletal, like the arms of giants sifting through the wreckage for anything still alive.
Kael's legs trembled, but he didn't dare move. Children react to terror in strange ways—some run, some scream, some freeze like animals waiting for the predator to pass.
Kael froze.
He clutched the small metal disk in his hand.
He didn't know where it came from or why he had it.
But he knew it was important.
The disk had markings—sharp, geometric lines carved into its surface. Even as a child he sensed meaning behind them, though he couldn't read it. The edges were warm, almost pulsing, as if the object itself were alive.
He would learn years later that the symbol belonged to a project the Dominion had buried from the world.
A project whose origins began with him.
But as a child, he only knew one thing: the disk was all he had left of whoever he had been.
And the world was ending around him.
---
"Kael!"
That voice—he remembered it like an echo, distant and uncertain. A woman's voice. Desperate. Calling his name. Or perhaps giving him one.
"Kael, run!"
He turned toward the sound. A silhouette moved through the smoke, coughing, stumbling—trying to reach him. A woman with short hair and a torn cloak, her arms outstretched.
He wanted to run to her, but his small legs wouldn't move.
The ground trembled.
Another shadow appeared behind the woman—tall, metallic, glowing red across its visor. Dominion infantry armor. The kind used in early phases of the Century War. The kind designed to kill anything that moved.
Kael's breath hitched. The woman saw the soldier behind her. She froze. And in that brief moment, time slowed.
She didn't scream.
She didn't beg.
She simply whispered, "I'm sorry."
The soldier raised its weapon.
Kael lifted the metal disk. He didn't understand why—maybe to defend himself, maybe because something inside him told him to.
The disk pulsed.
Light erupted—not bright, not blinding, but strange. A soft blue shimmer, like a ripple through air. The Dominion soldier staggered, its visor flickering and glitching with static.
The woman gasped.
Kael blinked.
The world snapped.
The soldier regained itself first. It lifted its weapon again—
Boom.
The blast threw the woman backward, her body hitting the ground with a sickening thud. Kael screamed, sound tearing out of him raw and broken.
He dropped the disk.
He ran to her—even though he knew, deep in the childish corners of his heart, that it was already too late.
Her eyes were open.
But not seeing.
Her hand twitched once, reaching for him, fingers brushing his cheek.
"Kael… survive…"
Then nothing.
The fire crackled. The Dominion soldier took slow steps forward, scanning for survivors.
Kael pressed his forehead to the woman's chest, sobbing. The smell of smoke and blood clung to him. He didn't look up. He didn't want to see the machine that killed her.
But the world made him look.
Metal fingers closed around the back of his neck and lifted him like a stray animal. His legs kicked wildly, feet dangling in the air.
The soldier's red visor glowed bright, scanning him.
"Subject located," a distorted voice said. "Descriptor match: Prototype—"
Static. Words corrupted.
Kael didn't understand then. But the message was not meant for him. It was a report to the Dominion command.
A report confirming that the last surviving asset of a classified experiment was in enemy hands.
Him.
The soldier tightened its grip.
Kael choked, gasping as the machine lifted him higher. His fingers clawed at the armored wrist, nails scraping uselessly against metal. He screamed, the sound piercing through smoke and fire.
Then—
A gunshot.
The soldier's head jerked violently, sparks erupting from its visor. It dropped Kael, who fell onto the cracked ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
More gunshots.
Kael rolled onto his side, vision blurring. Shadows rushed forward—human shapes this time. Soldiers in ragged gray uniforms. Coalition rebels.
Their leader, a tall man with a scar across his jaw, grabbed Kael by the arm and pulled him behind a fallen wall.
"Kid, you alive?" the man asked.
Kael couldn't answer. He could only clutch the metal disk again and stare at the flames swallowing his world.
The man looked at the disk. His expression changed—wariness mixed with recognition.
He turned and shouted to his squad, "We have to move! Dominion reinforcements inbound!"
One soldier protested, "Sir, that's just a kid!"
"That 'kid' is what they came for," the leader snapped. "And now he's our responsibility."
Kael was lifted into someone's arms, carried through the collapsing ruins, gunfire echoing behind them. Heat scorched his skin. Smoke stung his eyes.
He twisted his head to look back.
The woman's body was gone—swallowed by fire, or hidden by rubble, he couldn't tell.
All he knew was that he was leaving her behind.
A part of him died that night.
Another part awakened.
---
Kael drifted in and out of consciousness as he was carried through the ruins. Voices swirled around him—muffled, urgent.
"—taking him to Outpost Helion—"
"—Dominion tracking signature—"
"—that disk, it has the symbol of Project—"
Static. Silence. Darkness.
Then a bright room.
Cold metal walls.
Machines humming softly.
Kael lay on a table, blankets wrapped around him. His small fingers still gripped the disk even in sleep. A door opened, and the scar-jawed man from earlier walked in.
His voice softened.
Not kind. But not harsh.
"You got a name, kid?"
Kael stared.
He didn't know.
The man sighed. "Alright. We'll call you what that woman called you. Kael."
The name felt heavy. Like it belonged to someone else.
The man sat on the edge of the table.
"You're safe now. But the Dominion… they want you. And until we learn why, you don't leave this outpost. Understand?"
Kael nodded slowly.
But deep inside, he sensed the truth:
He wasn't safe.
Not here.
Not anywhere.
Something was wrong with him.
Something that made entire armies hunt him.
As if his birth alone had been an act of war.
---
That night, Kael lay awake under dim lights, staring at the disk. When he pressed his thumb to the center, it glowed faintly—blue lines spreading like veins across the surface.
A whisper vibrated through the metal.
<
Kael jerked his hand away.
The light faded.
He wasn't imagining it. The object spoke. And it wasn't in human language—it resonated directly in his mind.
Fear coiled in his chest.
He curled under the blanket, clutching the disk to his heart, trying to hold onto the last thing that connected him to the woman who tried to save him.
Outside, the outpost alarms blared.
Kael shot upright as soldiers rushed past the door.
"Dominion scouting unit approaching!"
"How the hell did they track us so fast?!"
Kael looked at the disk.
It pulsed.
He realized too late:
They weren't tracking the rebels.
They were tracking him.
---
The outpost shook with the first missile strike. Dust rained from the ceiling. Lights flickered.
Soldiers scrambled to defensive positions. Shouts filled the corridors. Weapons charged.
The scar-jawed man burst into Kael's room. "We have to move, now!"
Kael clutched the disk, his small legs scrambling as the man lifted him into his arms and ran.
The outpost's metal hallways blurred. Sirens flashed red. Explosions thundered above them. The doorway ahead glowed with daylight.
But as they neared the exit, a towering silhouette blocked the path: another Dominion soldier, visor burning red in the smoke-filled air.
The scar-jawed man swore, turning to shield Kael.
But the soldier didn't fire. It paused.
Scanning.
Then its voice crackled:
"Prototype: secured."
Kael felt something twist inside him—fear, confusion, recognition.
The disk glowed.
The soldier stepped forward.
The Coalition man raised his rifle, but he was too slow—
Kael screamed.
The disk erupted with blue light.
A wave of energy blasted outward. Not fire, not electricity—something stranger. Something older. The Dominion soldier staggered, systems glitching violently.
A second blast followed.
The soldier crumpled.
The scar-jawed man stared at Kael in shock. "Kid… what are you?"
Kael didn't know.
But the war did.
---
They escaped the outpost moments before it collapsed behind them.
And in that burning dawn, holding the crying child in his arms, the soldier made a decision that would shake the world many years later.
"Kael Voss," he said quietly. "If fate built you for war… then I'll teach you how to survive it."
The boy looked up at him, tears streaking soot down his cheeks.
In the rising light, among the ruins of everything he once knew, Kael made a silent promise:
This world took everything from me.
One day, I will return the favor.
The Century War had gained a new soldier that day.
One its enemies would regret creating.
---
End of Chapter 1.