The Riftcore pulsed like a living thing.
Its dark shell rippled with colors that didn't exist on any spectrum—shades that made Caleb's eyes ache and heart race. He couldn't look away. It was like staring into a storm wrapped in silence, like hearing a scream with no sound.
"…You are Riftborn…"
The voice echoed again. But this time, it wasn't just a whisper in his ear. It was inside him. Crawling through his bloodstream like liquid fire. Every vein in his body lit up in cold heat, and his knees buckled.
"Elara," Mira said, aiming her gun at Caleb. "What the hell is happening?"
Elara didn't answer. She was staring at Caleb like she had seen a ghost. "The Core's... syncing with him."
"That's impossible."
"No," Elara murmured. "It's unprecedented."
Caleb clutched his chest. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt full of smoke. His heart beat once—twice—then stuttered, like it was hesitating. His vision blurred. The chamber faded.
And then the Rift opened again.
---
He wasn't in the Bunker anymore.
He stood in an endless black space. The ground beneath him shimmered like obsidian, cracked by veins of glowing silver. Above him floated fragments of shattered sky, and between them—eyes. So many eyes, all blinking slowly, watching.
A figure stepped from the dark.
It was tall. Towering. Robed in swirling smoke. Its face was a void, its voice the sound of gravity tearing. When it spoke, it didn't use words.
It used meaning.
> "You are the spark that was never meant to exist."
Caleb stumbled backward. "What are you?"
> "I am the Rift. The first voice. The gate between what is and what should never have been."
> "And you… are my Echo."
The space shook. Memories not his own flooded his mind—visions of ancient cities burning, of stars devouring themselves, of Heroes kneeling before a throne made of light and bone. He saw the past. The future. And something worse.
He saw himself, standing in a city of fire, his eyes glowing, a crown of Riftmetal curling from his skull.
"No," Caleb whispered. "That's not me."
> "It is."
> "You were born without power not by accident… but to contain it. You are the Riftborn Key. The last vessel. The hidden weapon."
> "They will fear you, Caleb Mark. Because they must."
The vision shattered like glass.
---
He awoke gasping.
Back in the Bunker. The Riftcore had stopped glowing.
But his skin hadn't.
Silver lines now crawled faintly across his arms like circuitry—subdermal veins of pure Riftlight. Mira had backed away, gun shaking. Elara stood frozen.
"You've been Chosen," she whispered.
"No," Caleb said, still breathless. "I wasn't given anything."
He looked at them. At the Core. At the world waiting outside.
"I think something's trying to take me back."