Chapter 3 The World Below

The clouds thinned.

Then, for the first time in my life, I saw it-the surface.

It wasn't the dead wasteland I'd been taught to fear. No acid rivers. No burnt soil. No radioactive haze.

Instead, I saw green. Wild, unfiltered green. Forests bursting through ruined cities. Cracked towers swallowed by ivy. Waterfalls pouring from the skeletons of old bridges. The sky was open and endless, stained gold and crimson by the setting sun.

I leaned my face up against the glass as one might a child do. I could barely breathe.

"They told us it was uninhabitable, " I whispered.

Kael didn't look surprised. "Of course they did. That's how control works. Fear first, then dependency."

We descended fast now, slipping beneath the canopy toward a hidden ridge. A clearing opened like a wound in the trees, revealing a disguised hangar-old-world tech cloaked in vines and metal teeth. My hands trembled within the harness as the Raven's Nest landed.

I was over a line I could not turn back.

When the ramp hissed open, a gush of warm, earthy air filled the cabin. My senses simply consumed it-moist earth, actual oxygen, the smell of something wild, free.

Kael turned to me. "Stay close. Some of them don't like you."

"Because I'm Damon Voss's daughter?"

"Because some of them watched their families die by his drones."

My stomach twisted.

I followed Kael down the ramp, boots crunching softly on the moss-covered floor. The trees here were massive-thick, ancient, breathing. Resistance soldiers stepped out from the shadows, rifles slung over their shoulders, faces half-covered with tech gear and suspicion.

And they were young. My age, maybe younger. Not the rebels I'd imagined.

Kael gave a sharp nod to a woman waiting near the hangar door.

She was tall, with flame hair and a sort of fierce look; she had a glowing cybernetic eye and rocker tattoos swirling around her throat. It was like she belonged to a warrior queen of another world.

"This is her?" she asked, voice edged with steel.

Kael nodded. "Calla Voss. Confirmed."

The woman snorted. "Cute. She doesn't look like the end of the world."

I bristled. "I never asked to be-"

"No one does," she cut in. "But we all play our roles. Come on. Let's see what the ghosts have to say."

She turned and strode into the base. Kael gave me a small look-half warning, half encouragement-before following.

I didn't have a choice but to keep up.

Inside, the base was a fusion of past and future. Concrete tunnels lined with glowing roots. Holoscreens patched into rusted tech. It felt like a body kept alive by borrowed parts. There was a hum here-like the place itself was watching.

Kael led me to a room deep underground, its walls flickering with projections-maps, schematics, data streams. In the center stood a platform shaped like a circle, its core pulsing faintly with pale blue light.

"The Memory Chamber," he said. "This is where it starts."

"What starts?"

"Unlocking what your father tried to erase."

Kael stepped closer, gaze intense. "The crystal your mother left-use it here. It's coded to your DNA. No one else can open it."

My heart pounded. Every instinct screamed Run.

But something stronger whispered Stay.

With shaking hands, I slid the crystal into the platform's core.

For a breathless second-nothing.

Then the world exploded in light.

A woman's voice filled the room.

"My name is Elara Voss," she said. "And if you're hearing this, it means the lie has gone on long enough."

I collapsed to my knees as my mother's face bloomed above us, made of light and memory.

Alive again.

Watching me.

And with her, the truth was finally waking up.

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Her Voice, My Blood

I never knew the sound of her voice could undo me.

"My name is Elara Voss," the projection repeated. "And if you're hearing this, it means I failed. "

I stood frozen and stared as the light of the hologram warmed my skin, as sunlight through stained glass could. My mother-dead and gone-stood right in front of me, preserved in crystalline clarity. She looked like me. Or rather, I looked like her.

Same high cheekbones. Same amber eyes. Same defiant tilt to the chin.

But there was something more. A sharpness in her voice. Urgency. Desperation.

"I built something," Elara continued, voice cracking. "A sequence. A genetic interface. A weapon-though not in the way they think. Your father wanted it. He tried to take it from me. But it's you, Calla. It's always been you."

I stepped back.

"What is this?" I whispered. "What is she talking about?"

Kael's face was pale, jaw tight. "She's talking about the Skyborn Sequence."

"The what?"

He didn't answer. Not right away.

My mother did.

"It's not just technology. It's a bond-between memory, light, and the fabric of consciousness. The human soul, encoded. You were the first to carry it, Calla. I hid it inside you when you were born."

I felt sick. "You're saying I'm... a weapon?"

"No," Kael said, stepping closer. "She's saying you're the key."

The hologram shimmered. "If you've activated this message, then your body is remembering. The suppression protocols will start to dissolve. You'll begin to see things others can't-hear echoes. Feel the connection. It will hurt. But it's necessary."

My knees gave out. Kael caught me before I hit the floor.

"I wasn't signed up for this," I exclaimed. "I didn't request any of it.

"I know," he said gently. "But none of us did."

The projection began to stutter, light flickering. "Damon will come for you. He'll use everything he has. He won't care that you're his daughter. You're his last chance to finish what he started."

"No." I shook my head. "He's my father. He's cold, sure, but-he loves me."

Kael looked me dead in the eyes. "Then why did he erase you?"

I didn't have an answer. Only questions that were multiplying like stars in a collapsing galaxy.

The hologram dimmed.

"Trust Kael," my mother said softly, her voice the last thread of warmth. "He was there when you were born. He loved you first."

The projection vanished.

Silence collapsed around us like ash.

"She loved you," I said, finally.

He nodded. "And I loved her."

My chest twisted. "What does that say about me?

Kael had examined me with a tenderness I hadn't seen before; I was both something sacred and something broken.

"Everything," he said. "You're everything."

We didn't move for a long moment. The quiet hummed like static between us.

Then the door burst open.

The red-haired commander-Lira-strode in, face grim.

"Three Eirion scouts just breached the outer zone," she said. "They're tracking her signal."

Kael turned to me. "They embedded a trace in your spine. It must've reactivated when the crystal unlocked your sequence."

I staggered back. "So now I'm not just a key-I'm a target."

Kael reached for my hand. "Then it's time we start fighting back."

Outside, the surface world stirred with tension. Resistance soldiers ran to stations. Lights flashed. Alarms rang. But in that chamber, with the ghost of my mother still lingering in the air, I realized something.

This was never just about running.

This was a war.

And I'd already chosen my side.