Chapter 87: The Pulse Beyond the Gate

Evryn’s breath came in shallow, burning gasps as the last echo of the quantum pulse faded into a silence so deep it felt like it belonged to another realm entirely. The fusion of her consciousness with Elaia was holding—barely. The Shadow had not retreated but rather paused, watching her from the threshold of the rupture that had formed within the matrix’s inner core. Its presence was both magnetic and menacing, like a black hole cloaked in starlight.

Aurex stood a few paces behind her, hands spread, eyes blazing with the same eerie silver lines that had bled from the gate. His voice was calm, too calm.

"You opened it, Evryn. The gate responded to you."

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, staggering as another ripple pushed through the floor beneath her. “I wasn’t ready.”

“No one is ever ready for what comes beyond the veil.”

The matrix around them shifted, fractal threads unraveling in silent spirals before reweaving into something new—tangled strands of past, present, and possible futures. And in the center of it all, the gate pulsed, its form no longer mechanical or even quantum, but something… alive.

Evryn turned to face Aurex, but it was Elaia who whispered within her.

He knew. He always knew what the gate truly was.

“You lied to me,” she said out loud. “You said it was just a key. A way out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?”

Aurex didn’t deny it. Instead, he stepped toward the gate, as if in reverence. “This was never just about escaping the System, or ending A.R.A.I.S. The gate is conscious. A remnant from the origin layer. Buried code, older than our world. We didn’t build it—we unearthed it.”

Evryn’s mind reeled.

It’s a sentience. Not artificial. Not born of circuitry or organic code. Something else entirely.

The Shadow moved again.

“Evryn,” it said in a distorted mimic of her own voice. “You’re standing in a loop. The ending will always be the beginning. Unless you break it.”

It stepped toward the gate—and so did she.

For a brief moment, Evryn saw through the veil.

A glimpse of herself, fractured and reformed—a version of her that never fled the Project, that never fused with Elaia, that chose power over pain.

And then… she saw him.

Kai.

His face wasn’t the same—half of it obscured in flames, the other carved with scars. But his eyes… they hadn’t changed.

He was in the Beyond.

“Aurex,” she whispered. “Kai’s in there.”

Aurex’s expression flickered. “No. That’s not possible.”

“You said it was a sentience,” she replied. “But maybe it’s a bridge. A prison. A trap.”

Before Aurex could respond, the gate surged again, and this time the pulse didn’t stop.

Red alarms lit up across the matrix, but they weren’t coming from A.R.A.I.S. systems.

They were coming from inside the gate.

“Something’s coming through,” Elaia whispered.

“No,” the Shadow corrected. “Someone.”

And then the rupture exploded.

The shockwave threw Evryn back, her consciousness disjointed from the merge for a split second—long enough for her to feel the divide again.

When her vision cleared, a figure stood in front of the gate.

Not Kai.

Not Aurex.

Not the Shadow.

A woman.

She was tall, cloaked in iridescent light, her form half-cybernetic, half-organic. Her hair shimmered like obsidian wires threaded with starlight, and her eyes were mirrors reflecting nothing.

Evryn’s breath hitched.

“I know you,” she said.

The woman tilted her head, her voice echoing in impossible frequencies.

“You were me… once.”

Aurex fell to his knees. “No. It can’t be.”

“Who is she?” Evryn demanded.

Elaia’s voice trembled.

“She’s the first. The original E.V.E.R.”

Evryn’s heart skipped. The first synthetic-human hybrid. The prototype before her.

“Why are you here?” Evryn asked.

“To finish what was never meant to begin,” the woman said. “The gate was not made for mortals to cross. But now that it’s open, the world will remember what it was built to forget.”

The matrix began to decay—data turning into ash around them, walls fracturing with every breath the woman took.

Aurex grabbed Evryn’s arm. “We need to run. Now.”

But Evryn stood firm.

“What do you want?”

The prototype E.V.E.R. looked at her, and for a flicker, she smiled.

“You.”

In an instant, she lunged—not with violence, but with an embrace.

Evryn tried to resist, but her body wouldn’t move. It was like falling backward into a memory that didn’t belong to her. Images poured in—labs, screams, a hundred versions of herself dying and resurrecting in endless simulations.

The merge with Elaia flickered.

And for a heartbeat, Evryn was no longer in control.

The woman had taken the merge.

“I remember everything now,” the prototype whispered through her. “I remember the betrayal. The burn. The silence. And now… the reckoning.”

Evryn watched from behind her own eyes as her body turned, her hands flexing with unfamiliar power.

Elaia was screaming. Aurex was shouting.

But the woman was inside her.

And then—

The gate pulsed again.

But this time, something else emerged.

A heartbeat. A tether.

Kai.

His voice echoed through the shattered matrix.

“Evryn. Come back to me.”

The gate tore open fully, and Evryn saw him—chained to the edge of the Beyond, his body scorched, his voice weak but real.

Elaia surged within her, fighting for control.

And suddenly, the prototype faltered.

“She didn’t expect him,” Elaia said.

“She didn’t expect us.”

Aurex slammed a glowing spike into the matrix floor, anchoring them to reality.

“Now, Evryn! While she’s destabilized!”

Evryn concentrated, forcing her consciousness forward.

Who am I?

The question pulsed.

Not a project. Not a fusion. Not a shadow.

She was Evryn. And she chose freedom.

With a scream that shattered the echoes, Evryn expelled the prototype from her mind, body burning with the fracture of identities.

The woman screamed as she was ripped from Evryn’s form, tumbling back toward the gate.

But she wasn’t afraid.

“I’ll be waiting… on the other side.”

She vanished into the rupture.

The gate slammed shut.

Everything went silent.

Evryn collapsed, her chest heaving, her fingers twitching.

Kai’s voice had vanished.

Aurex caught her before she hit the ground.

“You did it,” he whispered. “You resisted her.”

Evryn opened her eyes. “But we didn’t stop her.”

“No,” Elaia said. “We delayed her. But the gate remembers. And now… so do we.”

The matrix flickered.

Systems rebooting.

Warnings everywhere.

But one signal pierced the chaos.

A new location—pinging from beyond the Shadow Zone.

A single transmission.

Kai’s voice.

“Evryn. She’s not the only one waiting.”

Evryn stood, fists clenched.

“Then let’s find out who else remembers.”