The First Memory

Chapter 6 - The Watcher in the Shadows (Trask)

I moved through the upper city with the careful precision of someone who knew every shadow by name. The Mnemos towers reflected the dying light like shards of broken mirrors, and the streets below were empty, silent but not lifeless. I could feel the residue of the storm, the echoes of memory still vibrating through the air, tugging at the walls, the pavement, the very sky.

Each step I took was deliberate. Boots crunching over fractured glass, avoiding shards that might betray my position. I had been here before too many times and yet, each time, the city seemed to rearrange itself, a labyrinth that knew when I was looking, shifting just out of reach.

The hum started almost immediately. Not loud, but insistent, threading beneath my ribs, brushing against my teeth. Memory. It was the smell and the sound and the weight of the city pressing in at once. The storm hadn't left; it had only moved, spreading, seeping.

I paused on a high balcony overlooking the lower plazas. The ruined city stretched endlessly below me, towers shimmering with flickering light as if trying to recall themselves. Golden cracks ran across the streets like veins, pulsing softly. I could sense it: Kai. His presence, though distant, was a signal. The Vault had awakened, and the boy no, the First Host was moving.

I adjusted my mask and crouched lower, pulling my comm closer. "Echo Unit Delta, status." My voice was low, barely above the wind.

Static at first, then: "Scanning perimeter. Vault core remains dormant... for now. Movement detected near eastern approach. Human signature matches... K-001?"

I cursed under my breath. "Copy. Maintain distance. Observe. Do not engage until I give the signal."

Even through the comm, I could feel the pull of the Vault, the memory-light tugging at my thoughts. A strange, visceral nausea rose in my stomach. I clenched my fists. This wasn't just a mission anymore. It hadn't been for a long time. It was... personal.

And dangerous.

The shadows moved differently today. They didn't merely obscure; they whispered. Faces flickered where there should have been walls, soldiers who never lived, children who cried out in foreign languages. Some seemed to recognize me, their eyes empty but accusing.

I shifted my weight, letting instinct guide me. The Mnemos towers pulsed faintly with golden light, veins of memory stretching like fingers, probing the streets. I followed them silently, a predator in a city of ghosts.

My mind flashed back to the council chamber, Varrin's half-translucent face reflecting the strain of centuries of borrowed memory. "Do not underestimate the Vault," he had said. "It learns. It remembers. And he—Kai—will awaken more than just old echoes. You must watch."

I remembered Trask's instinct too. That same thread of doubt gnawed at the edges of my reasoning. And now, here I was, watching shadows twist, waiting for a boy I barely understood to step into his power.

Movement below. A shimmer along the cracked plaza. I crouched, narrowing my eyes. The hum grew louder, a low vibration threading through the soles of my boots.

"He's there," I whispered to myself.

I slipped down a fire escape, landing silently among the debris. The golden veins snaked along the ground like living rivers. Every pulse in the stone synchronized with the hum inside me. Every nerve screamed at me to back away, but I couldn't. Not now. Not while the Vault was stirring.

A figure emerged from the light. Not fully visible, but unmistakable. Kai.

Even from here, I could see it: the tension coiled in his shoulders, the way his hands trembled against the pulse of the Vault, how every step seemed to fight against a force trying to claim him. And then I saw her—Lira—beside him, the only human anchor in a storm of memory-light and echoes.

I adjusted my scope, trying to calculate distance and time, but it wasn't numbers I needed. I needed understanding. I needed to predict what the Vault, or Kai, or both would do next.

A pulse of golden energy erupted from the fissures in the ground, and the floor beneath him shifted, fracturing into shards that hovered like floating mirrors. My instincts screamed. I pressed my back against the wall, letting the echoes of the city hide me, tracing the rhythm of the Vault's pulse.

The Echo Units appeared first, stepping from the walls as though summoned. Black and gold flickers of skull-like faces, watching, waiting. And for the first time, I realized they weren't just guarding the Vault. They were testing him. Testing Kai.

I swallowed. The hum inside me resonated with theirs, a distorted echo threading between my thoughts and his. And yet, I stayed hidden, letting him take the lead, letting him confront what I couldn't yet touch.

Time stretched, every second pulling out into eternity. I saw him falter, nearly consumed by the pull of the Vault, but Lira's grip kept him tethered. And I understood something crucial: it wasn't the Vault alone he was fighting. It was the weight of every life it had ever held—every memory, every echo of pain and joy, every shadow of a world that had been.

I exhaled slowly. He was readying himself for the core.

And I was readying myself for what would follow.

The Vault was alive. But so were we.