**94 years ago**
**Beneath the Temple Vaults**
**Time-stamped: Black Archive – Erased from All Official Records**
The boy stood barefoot in the rain, eyes locked on the ancient stone door in front of him.
He was no older than thirteen. Dirty white robes. Cuts across his back. The kind given in punishment, not battle. He carried no name yet. Only a number.
**Initiate #047 – Codename: Reuel**
Inside the chamber, a figure waited. A saint once called the Flame of Heaven.
**Seraph-13.**
They told stories about him. How he led armies without fear. How the light never left his hands.
But what stood inside the vault was no hero.
Seraph-13 knelt in prayer, bound in golden chains, blood from his wrists dripping down sacred stones.
He looked up as Reuel entered.
So, you are the next key, the fallen saint whispered.
Reuel clenched his fists. Why did you betray the Covenant?
Seraph-13 smiled. Is that what they told you? That I betrayed?
The boy didn't speak.
The chained man continued.
They made us fight darkness with light. But what happens when the light becomes the weapon that kills the innocent? What happens when the flame is used not to protect… but to erase?
Reuel's voice cracked. The Church protects humanity.
The Church controls humanity, Seraph-13 corrected. And one day… you'll see that.
Reuel stepped closer. Then why not destroy them?
Because the flame doesn't belong to them. It never did. It belongs to the Gate.
He leaned forward, face inches from the boy's.
And the Gate will come. Not to save. Not to destroy. But to choose.
Before Reuel could speak, the saint placed a glowing hand on his chest.
The boy screamed.
His vision filled with a mark—**the Eye of Dust**—an ancient symbol forbidden in every known book of the Ecclesia.
And then Seraph-13 whispered the final prophecy into Reuel's soul.
You will betray light to save it. You will open the doors you were meant to guard. And in the end… you will either kneel to the Gate—or be erased by it.
Reuel collapsed.
When he awoke, the chamber was sealed. The saint had vanished. The chains remained.
And deep inside his chest… the flame no longer burned white.
---
**Present Day**
Reuel stood before a one-way glass, watching Abraham unconscious in the containment chamber below.
The flame inside the boy… it wasn't stable. It pulsed like something alive. Like something remembering.
A whisper echoed through Reuel's mind—Seraph-13's voice, decades older now.
You will kneel to the Gate… or be erased by it.
He turned away from the glass.
Not yet, he muttered. Not until I know what he really is.
Outside, the sirens of Zion began again.
A new breach.
A new Seal.
The Gate was opening.
And Reuel—the betrayer who thought he was the protector—no longer knew whose side he was on.
---
End of Interlude