The signal came as a whisper—barely a pulse in the static of old comm channels.
An encrypted transmission, bouncing between dead satellites and rogue repeaters. Most wouldn't have noticed it. But Kirion had kept his ears open, scanning waves while Sera slept.
It was a symbol. One he hadn't seen in years.
A phoenix with a broken wing.
A forgotten insignia from an underground movement once thought eradicated.
He decoded it slowly, methodically, like peeling layers off a memory he had buried.
Coordinates.
A time.
A phrase: "Only those who burn survive."
Kirion didn't react at first. He let the screen dim, sat back in silence, the forest night humming just outside their makeshift cabin.
He stared at his hands—scarred, calloused, still trembling with the weight of restraint. He had built something sacred in their seclusion: safety, routine, discipline.
But this signal—it meant someone out there still believed. Still fought.
And maybe, just maybe, they were asking for him.
He didn't tell Sera right away.
Instead, he took her on longer hikes, sharpened their drills, pushed the encryption training further. He watched how quickly she adapted, how steady her focus had become. She was more than ready for the outside world—at least, parts of it.
But he wasn't sure he was.
"I don't want to stay here forever," she told him one evening, unprompted. She was kneeling by the fire, carving a signal post from an old comms antenna.
"I know," he replied.
"Then why do we?"
Kirion exhaled. "Because sometimes, before you change the world… you have to disappear from it."
She nodded.
But she didn't smile.
The next night, he showed her the signal.
Sera's eyes widened. "This isn't from the resistance."
"No," Kirion said. "This is from something older. A network that went dark before you were born. People who didn't choose a side—they built one."
Her pulse quickened. "We're going?"
He paused.
The father in him wanted to stay hidden a little longer.
But the fighter knew: opportunity doesn't knock twice in war. It detonates.
"We'll go," he said at last. "But carefully. Quietly. If it's a trap, we vanish. If it's real—"
"Then we stop hiding," she finished, her eyes gleaming.
He nodded.
And for the first time in years, Kirion felt the thrill of motion—not escape, but purpose.
They packed what mattered, burned the rest.
At dawn, two shadows left the forest.
One old, one new.
Both ready to set the world alight.