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116: The Echoes We Carry
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2025-04-16 10:32:28The room fell into a deafening silence as the flickering screen bathed Damien’s face in a sickly green glow. The image of his mother—Eve—stared back at him from the monitor, her features carefully reconstructed from footage and records. It wasn’t a live feed. It wasn’t really her. But the expression, the voice—it struck him with the force of a bullet.
Aurora took a step closer, her hand brushing against Damien’s arm. He flinched at the contact, his eyes locked on the screen. She didn’t pull away.
“Damien…” she said softly, uncertain if she should say more.
But the screen spoke again, overriding her.
“You’ve become everything I feared you would. Everything Monroe promised yo
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Broken Vows, New Promises 117: Beneath the Silence
The makeshift war room inside the crumbling facility buzzed with quiet tension. Terminals flickered as Julian and Kira coordinated with their external networks. A map of the world lit up before them, glowing red dots pulsing across continents—every point marking an active Monroe site, every pulse a countdown.Forty-eight hours.Forty-eight hours until all of Monroe’s sleeper facilities would trigger whatever version of the clone protocol he’d perfected.Forty-eight hours until everything Damien had fought to bury would claw its way back into the light.He sat on the edge of a rusted cot near the far wall, away from the noise, elbows resting on his knees, head low. His mind replayed the voice from earlier—his mo
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16Broken Vows, New Promises 118: The Threshold
The night sky stretched above them like a living thing—vast, starless, and full of tension. A bitter wind howled through the mountain pass as the convoy moved in near silence. Snow crunched under the tires of the armored vehicle Damien rode in, his eyes fixed ahead through the windshield.The coordinates they’d extracted led them to the Carpathians—a remote and treacherous range in Romania. Fitting, Damien thought. Monroe’s obsession with rebirth and myth had always leaned into the theatrical.And now they were heading straight into the heart of it.Inside the vehicle, the only sounds were the low hum of the engine and the rustle of gear. Julian sat beside Kira, reviewing surveillance feeds on his tablet. Behind them, Aurora sat opposite Damien, her gaze fixed o
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16Broken Vows, New Promises 119: Shatterpoint
The sound of the gunshot cracked through the cavern like thunder.Monroe’s body jerked back, blood blooming across his chest as he crumpled to the floor beside the pod. Silence followed, not triumphant—but taut, like the moment before a storm breaks.Damien didn’t lower his weapon.The others froze, waiting—watching. But Monroe didn’t move. His eyes were wide open, the smug smile finally erased from his face. The man who had haunted Damien’s entire life, who had orchestrated pain with the precision of a surgeon, now lay motionless in a widening pool of crimson.And yet, the hum of the chamber didn’t stop.Aurora stepped forward, her voice low.
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16Broken Vows, New Promises 120: What Remains
The wind whispered through the ruins.Ash floated like snowflakes across the mountaintop, softening the jagged scars left by the Vault’s collapse. Where once a hidden stronghold pulsed with synthetic power, there was now only silence and smoke. The earth had reclaimed what had been stolen.Damien sat at the edge of the cliff, a blanket draped over his shoulders. His wounds were mostly bandaged, but the tremors in his hands hadn’t stopped since the Vault fell. The neural link had left its imprint—somewhere deeper than skin.Behind him, Aurora stood quietly, arms crossed against the mountain cold. She didn’t speak, didn’t try to console. She just stayed, close enough to be an anchor, far enough to give him space.
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16Broken Vows, New Promises 121: The Weight of Quiet Things
The house was quiet, save for the ticking of the old clock in the hallway and the occasional creak of the wooden floorboards as they settled for the night. It had been days since the Genesis Vault's destruction—days that felt like both a breath and a lifetime.The chaos had retreated, but in its place, silence reigned. A silence not of peace, but of pause. The world had stopped holding its breath, but Damien hadn’t.Aurora found him on the back patio, seated in the chair he always favored, a blanket of dusk wrapping around his silhouette. The horizon was smeared with lavender and gold, the sun slipping behind the distant hills as if reluctant to leave them in darkness.She watched him for a moment before stepping outside. “You didn’t come in for dinner.”“I wasn’t hungry,” Damien replied quietly. His voice held no coldness, but it was frayed around the edges, like a page weathered too many times.She hesitated before sitting beside him. For a long while, they said nothing. The breeze
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-17Broken Vows, New Promises 122 : Beneath the Quiet
The soft glow of candlelight flickered against the glass of the kitchen window, casting elongated shadows across the tiled floor. The night outside was still. A rare kind of stillness, the kind that came not from peace, but from exhaustion—like the earth itself was catching its breath.Damien sat at the small round table, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee gone cold. He hadn’t touched it. His eyes, though open, were lost in a distant place, replaying fragments of the letter Eve had left behind. Each word still echoed in his mind, heavier with each repetition.Aurora leaned in the doorway, barefoot, wrapped in one of his sweaters. Her hair was damp from the shower, framing her face in loose waves. She watched him quietly, resisting the urge to speak too soon. She had learned that Damien needed silence the way most people needed air—especially after unraveling something raw inside him.“I can hear the gears turning,” she said softly, breaking the stillness like a stone dropped into wa
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-17Broken Vows, New Promises 124 : The Silence Beneath
The air was cold.Deeper into the underground corridor, Damien’s boots echoed off the concrete like faint drumbeats in a tomb. Aurora walked beside him, flashlight cutting a path through the pitch-black void. The deeper they went, the more the stillness pressed against their lungs—too quiet, too still.“This place wasn’t just a research site,” Aurora whispered, her voice swallowed by the stale air. “It feels like... a mausoleum.”Damien nodded once. He could feel it too. The walls were lined with sealed doors, some corroded with time, others freshly reinforced, as if someone had come recently to preserve what was left behind. The further they went, the more the facility’s secrets seemed to throb beneath the surface.They reached a fork in the hallway.“I’ll take the left,” Damien said.Aurora grabbed his arm. “We should stay together.”He met her eyes—firm, unreadable at first—but something softened within him. “Alright.”As they took the left corridor, the hum of old machinery return
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-17Broken Vows, New Promises 125 : The Space Between
The sky was beginning to pale with early dawn.A hush lingered over the forest clearing where Damien, Aurora, and Null had emerged hours earlier. The ruined facility behind them was reduced to distant smoke and the occasional aftershock trembling through the earth. But above, stars faded gently into morning, and for the first time in a long while, the air felt breathable.Damien stood at the edge of the clearing, his gaze fixed on the horizon. Not quite sunrise yet. Just that in-between glow—blue and soft. His arms were folded across his chest, posture tense but still. Watching. Processing.Behind him, Aurora knelt beside Null, wrapping a blanket over his shoulders.He hadn’t spoken much since they escaped. He sat curled slightly on himself, back against a tree, still shirtless, trembling—not from cold, but something deeper. Trauma lived in every flicker of his eyes, every stammered breath.“You did good,” Aurora said softly, her voice low, soothing. “You got us out. You made the choi
Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-17
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Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 149 : Ashes of the Failsafe
Silence pressed against their ears as they approached the lowest chamber. The air was heavier here—thick with ozone and dread, as if the facility itself exhaled the weight of its own malice. Damien’s flashlight beam danced across the walls, revealing veins of circuitry pulsing beneath steel plates. Each step echoed like a verdict.Aurora’s grip on her rifle tightened. “This corridor leads straight to the core. Seraph must be close.”Asher flanked Damien’s other side, unblinking in the dim light. Though forged in Monroe’s broken crucible, the boy’s courage was pure—a reminder that hope could grow from ashes.Null’s voice crackled in their earpieces. “I’m seeing systems coming back online. Ten minutes before full lockdown. We need to move.”Elias checked his watch. “Understood.”They rounded the final corner and stopped.A vaulted chamber yawned before them. In its center, illuminated by a ring of harsh white light, stood Seraph. Taller than a child but smaller than an adult, she was fr
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 148 : The Sleeper Below
The silence grew heavier the deeper they went.Null’s map guided them through a maze of subterranean halls—some cold and sterile, others torn by time and disuse. The smooth hum of generators still echoed in places, interspersed by flickering emergency lights that bathed the world in sickly red pulses.Damien led the way with Aurora and Asher close at his heels. The boy in the containment pod had given them everything—coordinates, access routes, and warnings. Seraph wasn’t like Daemon or Omega.He was worse.“Bio-signature locked,” Null murmured, eyes on the scanner as they reached another sealed door. “There’s something down there. No readable vitals, but movement… constant. Pacing, almost.”“He’s waiting,” Aurora said.Asher’s small voice cut in, soft but certain. “He doesn’t think. He reacts. He was made to become… everything they wanted me to be.”Damien knelt beside him. “You don’t have to face this.”Asher looked up. “I do. If we don’t stop him, he’ll come for us. For others.”Au
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 147 : Into the Heart
The elevator doors closed with a reluctant groan, sealing them in.Inside the narrow shaft, the only light came from their tactical gear—soft glows against skin and metal. Aurora stood beside Damien, her hand brushing against his, an anchor in the silence. Asher stood between them, staring straight ahead, lips pressed into a thin, focused line.The descent felt longer than it should have. As if the very walls were stretching around them—preparing to swallow them whole.Then the lift jolted to a stop.A hiss of depressurization followed. The doors slid open with a groan, revealing a corridor bathed in cold white light. Clean. Too clean. The sterile scent of disinfectant and ozone clung to the air like a ghost.“This is it,” Null said quietly. “The Core Lab.”They stepped out as one.Unlike the upper floors, this level was pristine. Not abandoned. Not even neglected. Lights functioned. Doors responded to biometric scans. Cameras followed their every move, some still tracking with soft c
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 146 : Before the Storm
The sun dipped low, setting fire to the horizon in hues of crimson and ash. From the ridge above the temporary camp, Damien stood alone, watching shadows stretch over the forest like fingers reaching for something they could never quite hold.Below him, the others prepared in near silence. The kind of silence that didn’t come from fear—but from knowing. From understanding just how close they were to the end.The wind curled around him, carrying the scent of pine and steel and something colder. A storm was coming. Not of weather—but of reckoning.“You always find the highest place when you need to think.”He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.Aurora’s voice always settled beneath his skin like a familiar hum—gentle and steady.She stepped up beside him, hands tucked into the sleeves of her jacket, her gaze following his to the horizon.“You used to be quieter,” he said. “Before all this.”“I used to have more to be afraid of,” she replied, half-smiling. “Now I just have more to lose.”He
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 145 : A Name Among the Ashes
The boy didn’t speak of the dream again.But something in him shifted after that night. His steps were a little steadier. His gaze no longer darted to the exits first. He stayed near Damien, yes, but not like a shadow clinging to light. Now, it felt like a tether, an anchor—not dependence, but choice.Damien noticed it when they trained in the clearing behind the safehouse. The boy followed directions without flinching, without looking over his shoulder every five seconds like he expected Monroe to appear from behind the trees. And when Kai handed him a blade—not sharp, just a practice knife—he held it with the curiosity of someone discovering a piece of themselves.“What do we call him?” Eli
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 144 : Echoes in the Light
The morning sunlight felt wrong.Too bright. Too open.After days in the Hollow’s synthetic twilight, Damien squinted at the skyline like it was some forgotten relic. The world outside was still broken, scarred by everything Monroe had built, but out here—beneath real sky—it felt like breathing for the first time in weeks.They moved through the forest trail in silence, Aurora walking beside Damien, the child—now clothed in a borrowed jacket and boots too large—staying close to Damien’s side like a shadow tethered to light.No name.No past.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 143 : The First Breath
The air inside the chamber thickened as the hum of the cryopod deepened, soft lights tracing across its surface like veins awakening after a long slumber. Damien stood with his hand hovering just above the control panel, eyes locked on the boy within. A-00.The child who shouldn’t exist.The child who had been discarded—forgotten—yet had outlived the project meant to replace him.Aurora touched Damien’s arm gently. “Are you ready?”He didn’t answer right away. His gaze was still fixed on the boy’s face. So young, so still. Yet somehow, it felt like staring into a mirror that refused to reflect.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 142 : Into the Hollow
The helicopter blades sliced through the Ural sky like a warning.Beneath them, the forest spread like a sea of frozen pine and fractured stone, untouched and unwelcoming. The coordinates Null had provided pointed to a narrow canyon—its jagged sides veined with ice and shadow—where no human path should've ever led.Damien sat beside Aurora, eyes locked on the narrowing terrain below. The cold had begun to seep in through the insulated layers, but it wasn’t the temperature that clenched his gut.It was the silence.Even at this altitude, the absence of wildlife was unnerving.As if nature itself refused to brea
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 141 : Fractures Beneath the Surface
The wind had changed by morning.Geneva’s neutral calm felt different now—like something sacred had been disturbed beneath its manicured stillness. The team gathered in the briefing room of the underground complex, still shaken from what they’d uncovered the night before: Damien’s prototype—Subject A-01-D—and the fractured remnants of Monroe’s last vault of secrets.No one spoke for a long while.Elias was the first to break the silence. “So what now? We’ve seen the start of it. That clone—your prototype—it changes everything. Doesn’t it?”Null nodded slowly, pacing. “It suggests Monroe’s e
