Chapter 6 – Seeds of Doom
Morning came dressed in silver rain.
Drops glittered on the Academy's glass walkways as Liora crossed the courtyard, the sound of water on steel sharp enough to cut through her restless thoughts.
The night's encounter with the Black Spiral still lingered like smoke—
their masks, their words, a tether… a cost.
And beneath her shirt, the mark pulsed in a slow, deliberate rhythm, as if remembering.
She tightened her grip on her satchel and forced her pace steady.
Today's lecture would take place inside the North Sector Research Dome—
the very heart of the government's Rift studies.
The same dome that, in her first life, birthed the virus that ended the world.
Seeds of doom, she thought grimly.
And today, she would walk straight into their soil.
---
The Dome loomed like a crystal sphere against the gray horizon, its translucent walls humming with quantum barriers.
Security drones floated around its perimeter, eyes flashing crimson as students queued for entry.
Their metallic voices scanned names and retinas with cold efficiency.
"Authorization: Kane, Liora. Status: Top Candidate. Access Level Beta granted."
The gate hissed open.
Inside, the air smelled of sterilized ozone and polished steel.
Rows of towering servers pulsed with neon veins, while holographic displays showed simulations of Rift openings—spirals of violet light twisting space like molten glass.
Liora's stomach tightened.
The sight was both breathtaking and nauseating.
Here, beneath these perfect white lights, a single miscalculation would one day spill monsters across the world.
And she had come to plant her own counterseeds.
---
"First time inside the Dome?" a voice asked.
She turned.
A young man with ink-dark hair and clever eyes stood a few feet away, balancing a tablet in one hand.
His uniform jacket was unbuttoned, his smile easy.
"I'm Aron," he said. "Third-year intern. You're the prodigy everyone's whispering about."
"Liora," she replied, careful but polite.
Aron's gaze sharpened with curiosity. "You solved the Rift-vector exam in fifty seconds. Impressive. Most professors can't do it under two minutes."
Liora shrugged. "I got lucky."
He grinned. "If that was luck, I'd like to see what happens when you actually try."
Something in his tone—a mix of admiration and testing—set off a quiet alarm in her mind.
In her last life, she'd heard Aron's name whispered only in fragments:
a hacker, a genius, a ghost who sold classified Rift data to the highest bidder.
A man who disappeared days before the first outbreak.
He was dangerous.
And useful.
---
The lecture began in the central observation chamber, a vast sphere of glass suspended over a swirling Rift core.
Inside the containment field, a miniature anomaly pulsed like a captured star, threads of violet energy licking the air.
"Observe the beauty of controlled chaos," the lead researcher declared.
"This Rift sample is stable, harvested from the first Orion anomaly seven years ago."
Liora's breath caught.
Seven years ago—the same year she had been reborn into.
The Rift inside the chamber flared brighter, as if hearing her thoughts.
The mark beneath her shirt burned in reply.
For a moment the world tilted.
Lines of energy burst across her vision, revealing hidden cracks in the containment field—flaws invisible to the naked eye.
She could see the weakness, the pressure building like a silent storm.
Her chest tightened.
In her first life, those microfractures wouldn't rupture for another thirteen months.
Now they pulsed with premature urgency.
The apocalypse was moving faster.
---
When the lecture ended, Aron fell into step beside her.
"You were staring at the core like you could read its mind," he said casually.
"See something the rest of us missed?"
Liora forced a neutral smile. "Just thinking."
"Thinking, or predicting?" His eyes glinted. "I've been running my own simulations. The Rift instability is accelerating—faster than the official reports admit."
Her pulse skipped.
So he knew.
Aron lowered his voice. "Something big is coming, and the government's hiding it. I'm putting together a private data group. Off the books. Interested?"
A dangerous invitation.
In her past life, she might have hesitated.
Now, knowledge was her sharpest weapon.
"I'll think about it," she said.
Aron smiled faintly, as if he expected that answer. "Do. But don't think too long. Some doors close faster than you expect."
He vanished into the crowd before she could reply.
---
Outside the Dome, the rain had turned to mist.
Kai waited beneath a steel arch, hair damp, eyes warm with the easy concern of someone who didn't yet know the world's ending.
He stepped forward the instant he saw her.
"Liora. I tried calling. You didn't answer."
Her throat tightened.
Kai.
The boy who once held her heart and her death in the same hands.
"I was in the lecture," she said carefully. "Signal's bad inside."
He studied her face, frown deepening. "You look pale. Did something happen?"
The mark pulsed beneath her skin, as if mocking her.
Liora forced a small smile. "Just tired."
It was the second lie she'd told him in as many days.
Kai's gaze softened but didn't relent. "You don't have to carry everything alone, you know."
The words struck deeper than she expected.
Once, she had believed them.
Once, she had leaned on him until the knife came down.
Now she stood on the edge of the same path, armed with memories he couldn't imagine.
The future was accelerating.
The seeds of doom were already sprouting.
And Liora Kane had no choice but to lie, plan, and sharpen every weapon at her disposal—
even if one of those weapons was her own heart.
---
That night, as she returned to her room, a new message flickered across her personal holoscreen.
Black Spiral:
The cracks widen sooner than expected.
The first outbreak begins in nine months.
Choose your allies carefully.
The mark on her chest blazed like a silent star.
Nine months.
The world's clock had begun to race.
And Liora, reborn and armed with forbidden knowledge, would race faster.