The alarms at Echoes HQ did not ring. There was no time for that.
Instead, the walls buckled inward with a low, sickening hum, as if the sound had been strangled before it could scream. People didn't run at first—they froze. That was the first cruelty of the Harmony Eater Core: it didn't destroy with flame or shrapnel. It consumed frequency, erased sound, and made panic silent.
Namjoon was the first to understand what was happening. He staggered forward as the room's resonance disappeared. No more footfalls. No more breath. Only a haunting vacuum pressing against the chest. "Get out!" he mouthed, voice swallowed by the void.
Jungkook grabbed two rebel scouts and pointed toward the exit, shoving them down the hallway. Behind them, Tae tried to hold up a section of the collapsing corridor, his gritted teeth visible, but no grunt of strain heard.
Outside, a section of sky folded in on itself. Then came the blinding ripple—the Harmony Eater detonating midair like a tuning fork turned inside out. It hit the rebel base like a ghost quake, disrupting all structures bonded by frequency or code. Lights shorted. Screens glitched. People vanished into the silence, screaming silently as their bodies turned to glass and then mist.
Lyra stood at the core's edge, eyes burning silver. She had felt it coming. She always knew the Council would find them. She had warned them, hadn't she? But no one had expected it this soon. She turned to Yoongi, who was trying to regain the comms online, fingers trembling.
"You need time to escape," she mouthed.
He frowned, understanding even before she said more. "No. We don't leave you."
"You must," she signed with fierce clarity. "The relics, the Song of Origin—it's bigger than me."
Behind them, Hoseok kicked through debris to reach a fallen Echo agent, lifting him as gently as possible. "We need evac. Now."
"No time!" Jimin cried, barely audible as Namjoon threw a protective barrier of sound energy around the remaining members. It shimmered weakly, more of a bubble of memory than power.
Lyra stepped beyond it.
"Don't do this," Taehyung said. He didn't shout. The words came quietly, sincerely, broken.
She smiled, wind catching her braid, eyes wet but fierce. "This was always my verse to finish."
Then she turned, sprinting toward the growing hum at the Vault's core, fingers outstretched.
Jin watched her silhouette vanish into the collapse. He wanted to run after her. He didn't.
A second pulse of silence cracked through the base. The entrance imploded.
Namjoon dropped to his knees as static filled the space where her presence had been.
Minutes later, the survivors gathered on a rebel freighter limping through hyperspace. The vessel hummed, off-key and glitching. Everyone sat in broken silence.
"She saved us," Jungkook said finally, voice hoarse. "And we left her."
"She chose to save us," Yoongi corrected, low and guttural. "There's a difference."
Outside the window, space drifted in a deep blue fog. Stars looked colder now.
Jin ran a hand through his hair, smearing soot. "We weren't ready. We thought we were. But we still underestimated them."
Namjoon looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He clenched them into fists. "They used the Harmony Eater," he said. "That was supposed to be impossible."
"Nothing's impossible for them anymore," said Jimin, barely above a whisper. "They've stopped hiding."
The freighter lurched slightly as it aligned to a new course. Taehyung stared at the coordinates blinking on the nav-screen. One phrase scrolled slowly across:
Destination: The Moon of Mirrors – Solith.
"What is that place?" asked Hoseok.
"A graveyard," Yoongi replied. "For echoes and reflections. And maybe for us."
Silence lingered again. Not the brutal kind the Harmony Eater brought. This one was human. Heavy. Holy.
Then Namjoon stood.
He looked over his brothers, their bruised faces, cracked armour, and grief still wet behind the eyes.
He did not raise his voice. He said, "We're not idols anymore."
Everyone looked up.
"We're instruments of change. This is no longer just our story."
The ship groaned forward. The hum of its engine wavered like an unfinished chorus, waiting for someone to finish the line.