The coffee was cold, forgotten in its mug. The Oracle's Eye office, usually a hive of activity, was silent around them, the other journalists having long since departed for the night. Hours had passed since Kiran first spoke, each word a chisel chip to Elena's carefully constructed world. He didn't embellish, didn't dramatize the horrors. He simply stated the facts, chilling in their stark simplicity. The Eclipse Foundation was real, a clandestine black site dedicated to awakening latent magic in children with specific genetic markers, often taken from vulnerable, forgotten populations. He spoke of the Eclipse Gauntlet, the brutal training, the psychological warfare designed to break them down and rebuild them. And then, the terrifying purpose: not to create soldiers, but to breed human vessels for ancient entities, beings from beyond the Veil, waiting for the right moment to cross.
Elena listened, her journalist's mind warring fiercely with her sister's grief, her ingrained skepticism battling the growing tide of horrifying truths. It was insane. It was impossible. Yet, as Kiran spoke, details she'd dismissed as anomalies, fragmented data she'd found in her own research, began to click into place with terrifying precision. The sudden, untraceable influx of venture capital into a shadowy tech conglomerate called Neo-Eclipse. The rapid, unexplained expansion of their bio-engineering division, acquiring patents for bizarre, almost ritualistic genetic manipulation. The increasingly strange, almost ritualistic patterns in the disappearances she'd been tracking – always from specific bloodlines, always children with unusual markers. Kiran produced encrypted files from his worn device, data fragments he'd salvaged from the collapse, cryptic diagrams that looked like ancient runes superimposed over complex biological schematics of the human nervous system. "This isn't science as you know it, Elena," he explained, his voice low, pointing to a particularly disturbing image of a glowing, arcane symbol pulsing over a diagram of a child's brain. "It's… applied sorcery. They're trying to replicate what the Foundation did, but on a grander, more efficient scale. They're perfecting the process."
Her anger, momentarily stunned by the sheer, cosmic scope of the conspiracy, began to reignite, burning hotter than before, tempered by a chilling, growing dread. This wasn't just a missing persons case; it was a global, generational evil stretching back into pre-history. "So, these 'ancient entities'… they're real?" she asked, her voice barely a tremor, the question feeling absurd even as she asked it. Kiran nodded, his eyes distant, as if seeing beyond the walls of the office, into realms she couldn't possibly comprehend. "They're not what you think. Not spirits. Not demons. They're… hungry. And they're patient." He didn't elaborate, but the single word, filled with a primal dread, was enough. Elena leaned back, her chair creaking under the sudden weight, her mind reeling.
Then, the journalist in her took over. She pulled up her own encrypted network, reaching out to deep-web contacts, whistleblowers she'd cultivated over years, and even disgruntled ex-employees of various corporate entities. She fed them coded questions, fragmented data points from Kiran, watching as their responses, slowly, hesitantly, began to confirm the impossible. A former Neo-Eclipse researcher, anonymous and terrified, sent her a single, grainy screenshot of a lab schematic with the distinct "Zero Cabal" symbol hidden in the corner. Another provided a cryptic tip about unusual energy readings in a remote, newly acquired Neo-Eclipse property. The world, as Elena knew it, was irrevocably shattered. Her brother hadn't just vanished; he had been a pawn in a game stretching back millennia, and she was now firmly on the board, a player in a terrifying war she was only just beginning to understand. The truth was far worse than she had ever imagined, and it was only just beginning to reveal itself.