Prequel
12:12 AM | Avalon Standard Time
Something flickered.
Not a glitch. Not a flare.
Just a deviation — precise, rhythmic, surgical — inside a system engineered to never falter.
Avalon didn't blink.
It recalibrated.
In Aria Lancaster's suite, the change began with light.
Not brightness. Not visibility.
A whisper in the blackout membrane — subdermal, deliberate, almost imperceptible.
A pulse that shouldn't exist.
The room, engineered for absolute sensory dormancy, was built to remain unchanged.
No flux. No shift.
Just a perfect void where sleep could reign uninterrupted.
Her device pulsed once — a brief flash of crimson before returning to its usual soft white.
The system called it nothing.
But her body said otherwise — as if something hidden had tested the silence.
The temperature shifted, only slightly, but enough for the StyleVault to respond.
Her thermal throw — thread-reactive and vitals-synced — pulled closer around her shoulders, adjusting to the sudden drop.
A hum moved through the wall — quiet, organic, almost like a breath.
In the dark, something deep inside the Vault gave off a shimmer.
Just for a second.
Not a glow. Not movement.
Just presence.
Aria shifted in her sleep, exhaling faintly — caught between rest and resonance.
She didn't wake.
She just... felt it.
Across the island, Aiden Lancaster opened his eyes.
No dream.
No sound.
Just stillness where logic should have been.
Vox didn't speak.
His ONYX was idle — not off, just... watching.
He sat up slowly, breathing through the weight in the air.
Subtle pressure.
He turned toward the alcove of his StyleVault.
A glint. Nothing more.
Something inside had reflected the ambient slate light — just for a heartbeat — then stilled.
It wasn't supposed to do that.
Aiden reached for his Quantum Slate, checking environmental metrics.
No log deviation.
No light fluctuation recorded.
No foreign presence detected.
Exactly the kind of perfection that hid something deeper.
Vox responded — slower than usual.
Just enough of a delay for Aiden to notice.
For a system that prided itself on anticipation, that pause was unnatural.
"System reset occurred at 12:12. No deviations recorded."
That was the first sentence Aiden had ever flagged as incorrect.
He said nothing. He just stared into the stillness — the place where the shimmer had been.
Because whatever had moved...
Wasn't part of his syllabus.
AVNX CORE NOTE [CLASSIFIED]
Zeroth Tier – Partial Activation
Signal Interference Detected: Dual Identifiers in Conflict
Tertiary Signature Present – Source: Unresolved
Outcome: Protocol Execution Halted
Event Redacted from All Accessible Memory Layers
By 12:13, Avalon returned to equilibrium.
The lights adjusted. The temperature normalized.
No one stirred.
Except two.
They hadn't dreamed it.
They hadn't understood it.
But they had felt it.
And so had the system.
Next: The Shape of Overcorrection - You're not supposed to catch what Avalon hides. Unless you're designed to.
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Valmont Series - Inheritance Code
Teen FictionWhat if your perfect life was just a rehearsal? On their twelfth birthday, Aria and Aiden Lancaster wake expecting luxury, freedom, and the future they were promised. Instead, they're given an ultimatum: Leave everything behind - their friends, thei...
