The wind howled across the cliffs of Vandock as Morgan stood at the edge of the city, staring at the distant silhouette of the Core Spire a jagged tower of obsidian and glass rising from the ruins of Old Earth.
It pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. Kara stood beside him, her cybernetic arm twitching. Kara looked at Morgan with a peculiar look on her face then she asked
"You sure you want to go in there? That place eats memory like fire eats oxygen."
Morgan calmly spoke "I need to know what I built. What I left behind."
They boarded a hovercraft—silent, sleek, and fast. As they flew, Morgan felt the Orb inside him pulse stronger. The closer they got, the louder the echoes became.
The Core Spire wasn't abandoned. It was alive.
Walls shimmered with data. Floors shifted beneath their feet. The air buzzed with static. Morgan touched a panel his hand fit perfectly. The system responded.
SYSTEM:
["Welcome, Dr. Knoway. Echo Protocol integrity: 42%. Memory vaults: unstable."]
A door opened. Inside: a lab. His lab. Preserved in crystal and dust.
FLASHBACK:
Morgan stood besides Elara, watching the Orb prototype spin in its containment field.Then Elara spoke out
"If this works, we'll never lose anyone again. Not even ourselves."
"Or we'll lose everything trying."Morgan replied at Elara's words.
BACK TO PRESENT
Morgan staggered. Kara caught him.
"Are you okay?"
Morgan replied at Kara's words saying
"I remember. I built this to preserve consciousness. But Vexar twisted it."
Suddenly, alarms blared. The walls flickered. Riftborn phased through the lab—ghostlike, silent, deadly. Kara drew her blade. Morgan activated his Orb sync. Time slowed.
He moved between seconds, striking with precision. Kara fought like lightning. But the Riftborn weren't here to kill—they were here to steal.
One of them reached the Orb Core.
the he made a loud laugh and said "The past belongs to us now."
Morgan lunged. Too late. The agent vanished taking a shard of the Echo Protocol with him.
Juno arrived via drone, bringing a device called the Echo Shard Extractor—a tool that could recover corrupted memory fragments. Morgan scanned the lab.
He found a hidden file—encrypted, ancient, and personal.he read the words on the cover "Project Elara – Final Sequence"
He opened it. A hologram appeared. Elara's face. Her voice.
"Morgan… if you're seeing this, it means you survived. But the world didn't. You have to finish what we started. The Echo Protocol wasn't just about memory. It was about time itself."
Morgan fell on his knees.A cold expression on his face is eyes were filled with regret then his voice rangout "She knew. She tried to warn me."
As they leave the Spire, the sky cracks. A Rift opens above Vandock. Vexar's voice echoes across the city.
VEXAR (broadcast):
"You woke too late, Morgan. The future is mine. And soon… the past will be too."
Morgan looked at Kara, Juno, and the Echoborn then he said"Then we rewrite it. Together".