POV: Audrina Cromwell
Location: Sector 9 — Recovery Wing / Fragment Dream-Lock Zone
Time: 05:44 Local
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"When memory burns too bright, it stops being history... and becomes a weapon."
— Classified Recursion Surveillance Brief, Federation EchoNet Clearance Tier 5-B
---
The dream began the same way.
Not with blood.
With silence.
Audrina was in her child form. No badge. No locket. No weight of duty.
Just wind.
She stood in a wasteland of soot and warped metal. The sky flickered with resonant echoes, rain falling upward like the world was unraveling. Shadows moved without casting light, and the air reeked of scorched vow-metal and memory ash.
Every step she took whispered a different name for her.
Nightshade.
Daughter of the Wound.
Last Witness of the ■■■■■.
She tried to speak. Her mouth filled with ash.
In front of her, half-buried in the earth, was no sword.
A fistprint.
So deep, the stone around it had melted. Five impact craters radiated outward like old shockwaves in magma. From the center, a heat pulse.
Not hers.
Across the ash field, a figure stood with their back turned—tall, wrapped in soot-stained robes. Not monstrous. Not divine. Just… tired.
"The last stand wasn't fought with weapons," she heard herself whisper. "It was fought with what refused to kneel."
She reached for where a weapon might've been. But there was nothing but scorched soil.
Because Kaelen Ashworth had never drawn a sword.
He was the blade. He'd used his body. His will.
Until the world broke around him.
---
Recovery Wing, Sector 9 – Sub-Level Medical Pod
Her hands twitched before her eyes opened. Not from pain.From the absence of the thing that had moved them.Nightshade had retreated. But not far.
The heat that had wrapped her spine, the blade that had unfolded from her palm—those weren't gone.They were waiting.Like breath held beneath water
Audrina jolted awake. Violet light glinted behind her eyes.
She wasn't in a dream anymore.
She was in a Federation med-pod. Bandages gone. Synth-tape sealed around her ribs. A thin dripline fed stimulant data through her wrist.
But the shadows moved first.
Her shadow didn't follow her—it led.
It pulsed violet, laced with whisper-light, and peeled off the wall like it had waited long enough.
The locket around her neck was warm. Not burning, not sparking. Just steady. Rhythmic.
The HUD inside her visor glitched once:
[AURA SIGNATURE: MIDNIGHT RESONANCE // CLASS: UNREGISTERED]
[ANCHOR DRIFT: ACTIVE]
[SHADOW HOST STATUS: INCOMPLETE BINDING]
[LOCKET SIGNAL CLASS: NONLINEAR // OBSIDIAN-ECHO]
The last time her locket glowed like this, someone had screamed—and it hadn't been her voice. Not entirely.The way her shadow moved now—it followed like memory waiting to be claimed
She moved her hand.
The shadow followed with precision.
It remembered before she did.
---
| Enter — Dorian Cromwell
"Don't think I didn't see you twitch."
The voice was familiar. Not a medic. Not a handler.
Her brother.
Dorian Cromwell stepped into the med room like he owned the entire precinct. Gray Federation coat, gold insignia over his shoulder—Cromwell family crest. Noble blood. Direct Liaison clearance.
But the look he gave her wasn't concern.
It was control.
"You activated something that wasn't cleared."
Audrina said nothing.
She just thought of the alley. The rain. The smell of burning metal.Of the blade—not drawn, but remembered—unfolding from her palm.
That wasn't a glitch.That was a sentence.
One started by Kaelen Ashworth… and finished in her skin
"You know what Nightwail is?" she asked.
She stared straight through him.
"It's not prophecy, Audrina. It's not divine. It's a broken anchor—a glitch left over from the Ascension failures. You triggered it."
She gave a half-smile. No warmth.
"Still quoting Federation propaganda in your collar, Dorian, like they mean something?"
His smile didn't touch his eyes. "I'm here to keep you alive. Or clean up what's left. Don't make me pick."
"And I'm not here to fight you. I'm here because your name flagged a ghost entry. One that ends with a Kaelen Ashworth file no one was supposed to have access to."
Audrina blinked slowly.
He didn't know. None of them did.
Nightshade hadn't risen for them.
She had risen in spite of them.
---
| Federation Propaganda Thread – Intercut Flashback
Kaelen Ashworth was a traitor.
Sector 2's Deserter. The Ember That Wouldn't Dim.
He rejected the Federation's Ascension Protocol.
And his memory is unauthorized.
— Extract from Federation Educational Broadcast, Sector 3-B, "Heroes and Heresies," 2nd Cycle Edition
---
Later, long after Dorian left, Audrina stood in front of the archive vault.
Kaelen Ashworth's file was listed as locked. "Hazardous Philosophy // Do Not Review."
She opened it anyway.
The interface glitched. Audio screamed for a second. Then cleared.
Inside the access rail, scratched by fingernails, was a message:
"Memory is not meant to be preserved. It's meant to choose."
---
Night again. The Dream is different this time.
Ash.
Sector 2 in ruins. The sky gone. The ground cracked open. Buildings collapsed into each other like exhausted lungs.
Kaelen stood on the edge of the rubble. Bleeding. One arm useless. The other clenched around nothing.
His aura wasn't fire—it was the heat left after everything burned.
"If I burn slow enough…" he said, staring at her. "Maybe someone like you burns brighter."
She took one step.
The crater swallowed her.
---
Audrina sat at the desk.
Her coat folded neatly. Her badge turned upside-down.
She wrote:
Case Header: UNKNOWN CLASS — UNRESOLVED
Location: Sector 9 → Bone Market Proximity
* Four children. All marked.
* One courier. Disappeared.
* All "resolved" before investigations.
* Eclipse brand confirmed.
* Red Null node verified.
She tapped the locket.
It pulsed once.
And then she whispered:
"My body moved, but I wasn't the one moving it."
"The shadow remembered… before I did."
---
| Unknown Backroom Conversation — Unflagged Audio Cache
Voice: "You saw her rise?"
Voice 2: "Not rise. Become."
Voice: "Her echo rating?"
Voice 2: "Off-chart. Dream pressure bending local sectors. We think she's linked to the Crown."
Voice: "Of Echoes?"
Voice 2: "No. Of Endings."
---
Audrina stood in front of a mirror.
The reflection shimmered.
One version of her was in armor. Another held a child's hand. One bled. One had no face.
They all whispered:
"You are the Cathedral of Echoes."
"You carry memory the gods feared would return."
"When the Iron Moon rises again… it will look for you."
Audrina didn't blink.
But the mirror stopped showing her.
It showed Nightshade.
Watching her from the other side.
Nightshade didn't speak.But Audrina felt the same weight she had felt when the veil cracked.
The moment in the alley wasn't a burst of power. It was a memory claiming her body like a glove.
The blade hadn't been summoned.
It had been inherited.
---
Precinct Rooftop View, Sector 9
Audrina stood at the edge of the precinct's roof by morning.
The wind was sharp but dry.
No rain. Not this time.
She stood alone on the roof, coat flaring like a flag.
From her left hand, the Crown of Echoes flickered faint—three crescents, silent.
She didn't feel stronger.
She just felt awake.
And somewhere below her— the precinct still pretended to sleep.
But Sector 27 didn't.
The Bone Market whispered.Not just a name.
A warning.
Crimson had moved. And Nightshade would need to find him—before the Iron Moon rose again.
---
"The Federation doesn't erase memory. It buries it beneath purpose."
— Entry 41, Nightwail's Unindexed Logs
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AUTHOR NOTE:
Just a quick heads-up — the ".5" chapters aren't side stories or filler.
They contain important character moments, background lore, and sometimes key revelations that tie directly into the main plot. If you skip them, you might miss something crucial about Ryuu, Audrina, or the world beneath the surface.
So if you're reading straight through, please don't skip the .5 chapters.
They're small fragments — but in this story, even fragments carry fire.
Thanks for reading!