The man in the chair leaned forward slightly, his voice low but clear, like he wasn't speaking to the room—but to the world.
"Let's stir the bones," he said. "And rattle the skin."
A map came alive across the projection floating in front of him. Red dots flickered into view, scattered across continents, oceans, and mountains.
One by one, they began to dim—not from failure, but from something else—something waking up.
Old commands. Ancient codes. Signals meant for people who had once lived normal lives—if you could call what they had normal.
Somewhere far underground, beneath a ruined city nobody remembered building, a woman jolted upright in the dark.
Her breathing hitched as her back arched and a glowing symbol burned its way to the surface of her skin.
She whispered something. A phrase. A prayer, maybe. But it wasn't in any language she consciously knew.
The man in the chair didn't smile.
His voice didn't rise but hardened like steel cooling in the air.
