The air was wrong.
It shimmered around Arin like a warped lens, distorting sound and light in ways her senses couldn't process. Static buzzed in her bones—her thoughts slow, too loud. Each blink sent ripples through the Riftspace interface as the Codex adjusted to her presence.
[Neural sync stabilizing… 67%… 84%… 99%] [WARNING: Host psyche under stress. Initiating memory buffer.]
A rush of images flooded her mind.
Not memories. Not hers.
A forest made of bone. Suns that bled across white skies. People—walkers?—with Soulmarks glowing like constellations, their faces blurred by time and interference. The Codex had seen too much. Held too much.
Then: her mother's voice, sharp and soft all at once.
"You were born in the afterglow of a storm, Arin. That means you survive."
The vision shattered.
Arin gasped awake on her back, staring into the mirrored sky of the Glass Mire. Her fingers twitched. Her chest ached—where the Soulmark had carved itself into her skin, a perfect helix of light and shifting pattern. The pain was gone, but something deeper remained. As if she'd been rewritten on a level no medic could reach.
The entity was gone. But the Rift wasn't empty.
A sound—no louder than a breath—rustled nearby. Arin snapped to her feet, reflexes responding with unfamiliar precision. Her HUD pulsed: enhanced motion tracking. Her field of vision had widened, sharpened. The Codex had already begun adapting.
Her wrist glowed faintly, Codex data syncing in real-time. A soft chime echoed through her mind.
[Codex Sync Rate: 11.3%]
[New Interface Unlocked: Emotional Echoes – Phase Alpha]
She barely had time to process it before a figure stepped through the Rift shimmer.
Cassian Vale.
Senior Riftwalker. Sector Commander. The prodigy with a 31% sync rate. She knew his face from the academy boards. But nothing had prepared her for him up close—calm, unreadable, cold.
His eyes flicked from her to the glowing Soulmark.
"You're not cleared to be here alone," he said.
"I wasn't trying to bond," she replied, voice raspier than she expected. "Something found me."
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "And gave you that?" He pointed toward her chest. "Soulmarks don't just happen."
"I didn't choose it," she said. "I didn't know it was real."
He stared at her. "Everyone knows it's real. They just think it'll never happen to them."
She swallowed. "The Codex... it spoke to me."
That made him pause.
"Spoke?" he repeated. "Not through the HUD?"
"No. Directly. In my mind. Like it was... alive."
Cassian turned slightly, scanning the Rift with a tension she hadn't noticed before.
"Then it's not a standard interface," he muttered. "This wasn't a Corp-issued fragment."
He activated the gate beacon with a flick of his wrist. The light shimmered in front of them.
"Come on. The Rift's destabilizing."
They walked in silence. Each step fed the Codex more data. Her overlay expanded—terrain readouts, ambient echo levels, even Cassian's stress indicators.
"Is this normal?" she asked. "All the data?"
He didn't look at her. "Depends on your sync rate. But you shouldn't have that much control yet."
"I didn't do anything. It's doing it on its own."
He glanced her way now. "Then you've got a problem."
They stepped through the gate.
---
Aegis Corp – Post-Walk Evaluation Chamber 03
Fluorescent lights hummed above. Arin sat on a sterilized bench, jacket folded on her lap. A small projection screen blinked quietly beside her. Elowen entered briskly, holding a datapad covered in scan overlays.
"Do you know what you've done?" Elowen said, tapping a symbol midair. "This isn't a regular Codex pattern."
"I didn't exactly have a choice," Arin snapped. "Something bonded with me."
Elowen frowned. "The Codex doesn't 'just bond.' You either force compatibility, or it recognizes something in you."
Arin hesitated. "It felt like... it saw me."
Elowen froze, her tone shifting. "It saw you?"
"Not with eyes. I don't know. It was like it knew I wasn't lying when I said I didn't want to die."
Elowen looked unsettled. "A self-selecting fragment... We've seen experimental variants in deep Rifts, but none this advanced."
She flicked her fingers, changing the projection to display a fragmented readout.
"This Codex isn't from Aegis. It's alien, maybe pre-collapse tech. It's adapting faster than we've ever documented."
"So what happens to me?" Arin asked.
"You're unstable," Elowen said. "That makes you dangerous. But also valuable."
---
Later – Riftwalker Dormitory Block 4C
Her dorm room felt smaller than before. Familiar. But now, wrong.
The mirror reflected someone new. The faint glow of the Soulmark pulsed under her shirt, reacting to her emotions.
She whispered, "You're still there, aren't you?"
The Codex responded—not in words, but in presence. A hum. A thought not her own.
[Bond Confirmed] [Sync Rate: 12.8%]
A new notification pulsed in her HUD.
MISSION UNLOCKED: "First Echo – The Hollow Memory"
TYPE: Solo
RISK: Moderate
REWARD: Codex Expansion, New Function Unlock
"I don't even know what I am now," she said.
[Host Status: Evolving.]
She stared at the mission prompt.
She didn't want to be anyone's weapon.
But she'd never be weak again either.
She accepted.