The metallic sound of the organic titanium door closing behind them echoed like the end of an era.
The first stage of the Dark Stonecutting Sector was over. An adaptive maze of physical and mental challenges designed to exhaust even veterans, Choi Eun-kyung and Vladimir Kaine had traversed it like sharp blades. Their bodies were covered in sweat, small wounds, and bruises, but their eyes... still burned.
In the dark antechamber that separated the stages, the two faced each other, breathing heavily, their muscles tense. The ground pulsed beneath their feet as if it were alive, as if the environment itself recognized their resistance.
Kaine broke the silence. "I thought you would delay me a little longer. You disappointed me."
Seraphina lets out a dry laugh, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her lip. "Me? I thought you were going to fall into that gravity tunnel. I was almost betting on it."
Kaine then responded defiantly. "Never bet against me, Choi. Otherwise, you'll always lose like the others who did."
The two exchanged a sharp look. Rivals by instinct, shaped by the same steel of tragedy and survival. Yet… there was a curious harmony between their steps. A silent war.
Before they could continue, the sound of the system interrupted them. A robotic female voice echoed throughout the sector. "Phase One complete. Agents Kaine and Eun-kyung, proceed to Phase Two: 'Inner Echo'."
The doors ahead opened in two distinct directions. "Separate, huh?" Kaine said, stretching like a predator about to strike.
"Lucky you. That way you can avoid me for a few minutes." Seraphina said provocatively.
Kaine smiled with his eyes, and for a brief moment, there was silent respect. And then they both advanced.
Inside Seraphina's "Inner Echo" room, the darkness was absolute.
As soon as she stepped through the door, the light of the Umbra Nexus disappeared like a candle blown out by a cruel god. Seraphina stood still, trying to adjust her senses. But there was no sound, no light, no time. Just nothing.
Until... whispers began. Low, intimate, recognizable. And the void began to shape itself. First, shadows danced around her like living mists, then condensed into familiar silhouettes. She shivered. "...Node."
The darkness transformed into the village that had burned before her eyes. The humble houses, the crystal-clear stream, the fields of flowers. And between the houses, walking slowly, the figures of her loved ones. Her mother. Her father. Her grandparents. Her two younger brothers.
Seraphina's or rather, Celeste Callahan heart clenched tightly. A hot, sharp knot. "This is... this is an illusion."
But they were looking at her tenderly. They spoke, though without sound. Hands outstretched, warm smiles. The perfect picture of what had been ripped from her.
She tried to take a step back. But the ground shifted. The earth opened up beneath her feet. A black whirlwind sucked her down. She screamed, tried to resist, but she wasn't fighting her surroundings. She was fighting herself.
"I buried it," she whispered, her eyes shaking. But here, the memories she had hidden beneath layers of anger and purpose rose like hungry ghosts. Her true past, the only real part of Choi Eun-kyung's persona. Her village had been destroyed, and her family slaughtered… and she could still hear the screams.
In the center of the illusory village, her mother knelt. She was covered in blood. "Kyung-ah… why have you forgotten us?"
Seraphina staggered, tears burning her eyes. "I haven't forgotten… I've never forgotten…"
The shadows advanced as if seeking to envelop her. The voices multiplied, now a hellish chorus of pain and guilt. And in the midst of it, she heard the voice of a child. Her own voice, years ago. "I want to be strong… so that this never happens again…"
She screamed. But the room didn't respond. Only silence, darkness, and the weight of the past trying to crush her.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Umbra Nexus, in his own probation room, Vladimir Kaine faced his own demons. But nothing about him was revealed. And the system continued to evaluate, observe… and judge.
The dim light of the room where Choi Eun-kyung or rather Seraphina was found disappeared completely. Suddenly, everything around her was swallowed by a liquid, dense darkness. No walls, no ceiling, no floor. It was as if she was floating within the void itself.
A voice whispered, soft as the wind. "Who are you?" Seraphina closed her eyes. The world disappeared completely.
Glenmore, her home, a village hidden among green hills and eternal mists in the Irish Highlands. A simple place, almost untouched by time, where the world seemed still innocent. She remembered the morning she was born, or at least the stories her mother, Aisling Callahan, had told her. "You were born on a day when the sky was the color of lavender, my little flower.", he would say fondly, his fingers always running through Celeste's golden locks. "And you were already screaming like a warrior," added her father, Finn Callahan, laughing as he shook his homemade pipe.
There was an old tree in the center of the village, where her three older brothers, Darragh, Conor, and Eoin, spent their afternoons training with wooden spears and swords. "Go play with your dolls, Celeste!" Darragh exclaimed. "She's a better fighter than you, Darragh!" Conor would tease, causing her to laugh.
Celeste remembered the staggering steps of the younger twins, Liam and Sean, running after her with branches and giggles. "Cece, Cece, look, we're monsters!" "You're just two gremlins," she would say, laughing with her arms outstretched, waiting for their awkward embrace.
But perhaps what warmed her chest the most was the voice of her grandfather, Padraig, and grandmother, Moira, sitting by the fireplace. "The ancients said that some children are born with souls made of blue fire," Padraig whispered. "And these souls, even broken, refuse to go out," Moira added with shining eyes, her wrinkled fingers sewing another blanket.
The nights were filled with tales of Celtic warriors, forgotten gods, and forest spirits. Celeste listened to everything lying on her mother's lap, her heart pounding with excitement, never with fear. These were her roots.
But the roots were about to turn to ash that day. Celeste was seven years old when everything changed. The day was too hot. A subtle buzzing filled her ears, something only she seemed to notice. A vibration.
The smell of wet grass and fresh bread invaded her senses in the morning, like any other day. The warmth of a true home enveloped her. Her bare feet ran across the field. "Celeste! Don't run without your shoes, girl!" her mother shouted, laughing, her hands covered in flour.
She turned and laughed back, her red hair blowing like flames in the wind. And her golden eyes shining like a dawn. "But it's hot! The grass tickles!"
One of her older brothers, Aidan, reached her easily, lifting her off the ground. "You're a feather, you know?" he said, spinning her around in his arms. "One day, you'll fly out into the world!"
"I'm never leaving!" Celeste replied firmly. "They all go one day, my little one." said her grandfather, sitting under a tree, smoking a pipe as he watched his grandchildren with serene eyes. "But we take home with us."
Her grandmother approached, carrying a leather-bound book. "Story time?" Celeste asked excitedly. Her grandmother replied with a calm and gentle smile, "Legend time, mo cailín."
Celeste snuggled between her younger siblings as her grandmother opened the book. "Today, I'm going to tell you about the Tuatha Dé Danann... and how some chosen ones are born with too much light in their hearts for the ordinary world."
Celeste felt that, at that moment, she was happy, unconditionally. Some time later, she felt something strange and ran towards her house, where her parents and other siblings were.
"Mommy... Daddy... something is wrong." She whispered, entering the kitchen where her parents were having dinner with her siblings. "You're just tired, daughter," her mother said, smiling. "Go lie down with your siblings."
But Celeste didn't listen. She ran back to the field, feeling the vibration grow. The sky was torn apart by explosions. There were no sirens. There was no alarm. Only death, coming from above.
Bombs fell silently. When the impact began, she tried to run back, but it was too late. The gas spread. Invisible. Burning. Silent. Lethal.
She fell to the ground. She coughed. Her eyes burned. She screamed for her parents, for her siblings, but no one answered. Only the bodies... and the smell. That smell. That she would never forget. "No... please..." she whispered, choking. "Aidan... Mommy... Daddy... please get up..."
Seraphina fell to her knees in the illusion of the mental room. She was there again. Among the bodies. Her child's dress covered in blood and dirt. Her small hands trembled. "Why me?" she whispered. "Why did I survive?"
The voices of her siblings echoed around her. Laughter that turned to screams. Screams that turned to empty echoes. "You don't belong anywhere." "You're alone." "You're a mistake."
Seraphina squeezed her eyes shut. But then... Another voice came, clear, firm. Cold. "Celeste Callahan. Do not forget who you are." It was him. Oblivion Sage.
The words he had said in the park came back to her: "I will never forget the day I found you. You were bleeding inside, but you were still crawling toward life." Seraphina slowly lifted her face. The EVP began to stir in her veins. "You are not weak, Celeste."
"I am not," she murmured, now standing. "I am not that lost girl. I am the result of their destruction. And also... the instrument of their downfall."
The EVP exploded on her skin. A lilac aura tore through the darkness. The figures were shattered. The memories violently undone by the force of conviction. Seraphina stood in the center of the mental clearing, her eyes steady.
"My name... is Celeste Callahan." she declared in her mind like a statement to the heavens. "And I will become the ruin of those who took everything from me."
And then reality returned. She was standing in the training room of the Umbra Nexus. Breathing deeply. Sweat on her forehead. Heart racing. But she was more alive than ever.
And it was these memories she had visualized that protected her now. Even though she had been shaped by suffering, even though she had become Pandemonium, there was something in her that remained intact. An echo. A reminder of who she had been.
For a short while, as Kaine snapped his fingers and grumbled about the difficulty of the new gravity simulation, he commented: "You really are made of iron, Choi. Others fall and you remain standing."
Seraphina only glanced sideways, with a small, restrained smile. "I am not made of iron. I am made of what remains after everything turns to ash."
"Poetic. And dramatic. But still annoying," Kaine replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
In the opaque glass wall, she saw her reflection…and for an instant, Celeste's face was there. The little girl from Glenmore. Her sister. Her daughter. The one who laughed in the sun between emerald hills. She closed her eyes and whispered in her mind, like a vow to her relatives who had left that day, "You live in me. Always."