Last Ember:ashes of the World

Nomad's Rest was never truly quiet.

Even at night, the lights from the perimeter walls blinked steadily, scanners hummed softly from distant towers, and automated gun turrets rotated in slow, rhythmic arcs. But tonight, a different energy pulsed in the air — something colder, tighter. Something watching.

Jack sat cross-legged in the subterranean command center beneath the base, the shattered remains of the obelisk core resting on the console in front of him. The others were asleep — or pretending to be — while he stared at the crystalline shard, its surface still faintly warm.

The message was burned into his memory:

> "YOU ARE NOT ALONE, JACK." "—REVENANT"

A name. A warning. A... call?

---

Veyne entered, yawning.

He looked like hell — bags under his eyes, scruffy stubble starting to form, and fingers trembling from too many stimulants and not enough sleep.

> "Still poking the dead thing?"

> "It's not dead," Jack said. "It's listening."

Veyne raised an eyebrow. "You're talking like the shard is... alive."

> "No," Jack replied. "But something inside it still is."

He turned the shard over.

> "There's a transmission code embedded in the echo signature. Not vocal. Not digital. Something else. It keeps... changing, like it's rewriting itself every few minutes. That kind of recursive code isn't just data — it's interactive."

Veyne stepped closer, eyes narrowing. "You think this 'Revenant' is a person?"

> "No. I think it's a construct. Maybe once human. But now... it's something else."

---

In the medical wing, Lena stirred from a dream.

Blood.

Everywhere.

She remembered the facility where she had been trained — not by choice, not with kindness. Children selected for compatibility. Indoctrination. Enhancement. She remembered the way they'd told her to kill without hesitation, to obey the Choir's every order.

And most of all, she remembered the face of the only girl who ever tried to escape.

> "Run," the girl had said, bleeding and broken. "You don't belong here."

But Lena hadn't run.

She had obeyed.

Until Jack.

Until the night she turned her gun on the Choir and vanished into the Mist.

---

Back in the command room, the shard flared.

Lines of alien script appeared on Jack's terminal — not Echo code, not Old World, not anything the system recognized. But Jack understood it anyway.

His head pulsed with the same pain he'd felt at Theta.

> "Jack."

It was a voice again. A different one this time. Masculine. Calm. Precise.

> "Do not trust the Choir. Do not trust your allies. They will all fall."

> "Who are you?" Jack asked aloud.

> "I was the first," said the voice. "The first to bond with the Echo and survive."

Jack's eyes widened.

> "The first Host?"

> "No," came the answer. "The first Revenant."

---

Elsewhere, in the upper levels of the Mist...

A Choir vessel — sleek, silent, black as void — hovered over the ruins of an old dome city.

Inside, a woman knelt before a hollow-faced man draped in neural robes. His eyes were milky, long since devoured by Echo overload, but his voice was as clear as the day he'd been reborn.

> "Jack is diverging," said the Choir Seer.

> "Permission to correct him?" the assassin asked.

The Seer extended a hand — and from it unraveled a dozen threads of Echo-light, each wrapping around her limbs, embedding into her neural net.

> "No," he said. "Do not kill him. Not yet."

> "Then what shall I do?"

> "Break his shield," the Seer whispered. "Break the girl."

---

Back at Nomad's Rest, the silence shattered.

Alarms screamed. Red lights flared. Veyne cursed and sprinted toward the upper control room while Jack snapped the shard into a containment field.

> "What is it?" Jack shouted.

> "Breach!" Veyne yelled. "Northwestern sector — two cloaked signatures just bypassed our perimeter like it was paper. Lena's wing!"

Jack's heart dropped.

Without another word, he ran.

---

The medical corridor was a warzone.

Explosions rocked the walls. Gunfire snapped like whip cracks.

Two figures cloaked in living mist moved like shadows down the hallway, slicing through turrets and soldiers with almost surgical precision. One of them — a woman with short white hair and a cloak that shimmered like fog — raised her hand.

Reality twisted.

Doors melted. Lights shattered.

And Lena stood in the center of the storm, blood seeping from her shoulder, rifle raised.

> "Not this time," she said through gritted teeth.

> "We are not here to kill you," said the white-haired assassin.

> "Then leave."

> "We are here to remind you what you are."

---

Jack arrived as the walls imploded.

Lena was already mid-air, diving toward the assassin as her blade slashed sideways.

Jack raised his arm and caught the blade with his Echo-hardened forearm.

> "Jack," the assassin whispered.

> "You know my name. I want yours."

> "I am Choir Designate: Echo Fang Three."

> "Cute."

He released a burst of energy, sending her flying back into the far wall. The other assassin — silent, massive, covered in spiked armor — lunged forward, grappling Jack to the floor.

> "He's stronger than predicted," it growled.

Jack's eyes lit up.

> "You have no idea."

---

The battle was brutal.

Jack unleashed more Echo than he'd ever used, his body blazing with crimson light. The silent assassin moved like a predator, adapting to each strike, each pulse. Lena fought at his side, bleeding but unyielding.

They weren't just fighting soldiers.

They were fighting reminders.

Of what they could have been.

Of what they were meant to become.

But they fought together.

And that changed everything.

---

Finally, Jack slammed the armored assassin into the reinforced floor hard enough to crack the alloy. Veyne's turrets opened fire. The enemy retreated, phasing into shadow as their forms began to dissolve.

> "We'll see you soon," Fang Three whispered before vanishing.

The corridor went quiet.

Lena collapsed, panting, hand on her wound.

Jack knelt beside her.

> "You okay?"

She nodded once.

> "They were from the Choir," she said.

> "I know."

> "They wanted to take me back."

Jack's voice was low. Steady.

> "They're not taking you anywhere."

---

Later that night…

Back in the command center, the shard pulsed again.

Jack watched the message reconfigure.

The Revenant's voice returned.

> "Now you see. Now you understand. They fear you because they cannot control you."

> "What do you want from me?" Jack asked.

> "To remember," came the voice. "To awaken what was buried. You are not the first, Jack. But you may be the last."