The corridor they stepped into felt suspended in time—older than memory, yet newer than tomorrow.
Stone ribs arched overhead, carved with glyphs that hummed with a vibration felt more in the teeth than the ears, like the sound of distant, swarming bees. Between each arch, panels of a glassy, impossible material pulsed with a slow inner respiration. Filaments of pale energy drifted inside them like trapped auroras, ghosting against the glass. When the boys' shoulders brushed the columns, the tiny veins of light flared brighter, as if the structure was tasting them, recognizing the biological markers the stones had planted in their blood.
Gohan led without haste. His boots struck the polished floor with a dull, heavy thud—no unnecessary noise, just the rhythm of a man who knew exactly where he was going.
Sahil followed, his movements loose and uncoordinated. He felt dazed, as if he were walking through a dream that kept rearranging itself just behind his eyes. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a hollow, scooped-out feeling in his chest.
Harun walked with a different kind of tension. He wasn't stunned; he was wired. He moved like a fist that hadn't decided whether to clench or open, his eyes darting to every shadow, his breathing shallow and sharp.
"Where are we going?" Harun asked. His voice sounded too loud in the stillness.
"The facility," Gohan said, not looking back. "It's the Scantum's interface. Think of it as the skeleton and the mind—one forged by stone, the other by thought. We use it to stabilize bearers." His tone was stripped of showmanship. It was functional, weary—the voice of a commander who had given this speech a thousand times to a thousand terrified recruits, and buried half of them.
They turned a corner, and the narrow corridor suddenly exhaled into a vaulted hall—a cathedral of alien craftsmanship.
At its center floated a tremendous orb, clear as crystal but alive with shifting color. Threads of luminescence coiled into and out of it like slow breaths. Around this central sun, recessed bays cradled sleeping alcoves—beds that made no pretense of comfort, looking more like medical slabs designed for efficiency. In the far wall, a massive window looked out over the ruins below; through it, distant spires lit up in sequence, answering a signal no human ear could hear.
Sahil's chest tightened, a physical squeeze that made him gasp. The orb—he recognized it. Somewhere beyond conscious thought, he knew that energy pattern. It was the same force that had pulled them free. Up close, it wasn't merely light. It was a slow-motion storm trapped in glass: splinters of history, flashes of futures that had not yet learned how to be cruel, and fragments of lifetimes that might never be lived.
"You were brought here because the orb accepted you," Gohan said, noticing Sahil's transfixed stare. "It is the heart of the Scantum's containment array. It heals, it stabilizes, and it records. When a bearer's Life Spark still burns—however faintly—the orb can retrieve and rebind them to this plane."
Sahil swallowed a lump of dry air. "If it records… does it show everything? The city I saw? The people… the ones I couldn't…"
Gohan's gaze hardened, and for a fleeting second, the mask of the stoic leader slipped, revealing a deep, ancient sorrow. "It does not judge certainties, Sahil. It offers echoes. Possibilities. The mind interprets them." He stepped closer to the orb, and the colors inside shifted from blue to violet, as if acknowledging an old friend.
"You mean… our visions might be lies?" Harun's voice cracked. He slammed his fist into his palm reflexively, a nervous tic. The hollow thunk sounded pathetic and small in a room designed to hold thunder.
"Not lies," Gohan corrected gently. "Fragments. Warnings. Mirrors. The Bhramm Test forces a mind to drink from a stream of possible outcomes. It splinters the self. Some come back with nothing but purpose; others return broken."
Sahil thought of the child beneath the stones—the small face gone grey, the way the life had slipped like water through his hands, leaving his palms wet and empty. The green stone had fused into his forearm with the heat of inevitability. He touched the spot now, fingers tracing the faint, alien ridge beneath his skin. It didn't hurt. It pulsed like a second heart, a small, stubborn thing that refused to stop beating.
"Why would the stones choose a boy who failed?" Sahil whispered, the shame hot in his throat. "Why me—if I couldn't even save him?"
Gohan didn't answer immediately. He walked to a nearby console and pressed a glyph. The air shimmered, and a projection sprang to life—images of other Scantums, archives of arrivals, statistics that scrolled by like epitaphs.
"Because the stones do not value perfection," Gohan said finally, turning to face them. "They look for fracture points—places where the world's potential for change is highest. They prefer raw edges: remorse, hunger, unresolved guilt. These are openings—gaps where power can root. A failure can be more useful than a flawless champion, Sahil, because a wounded heart bends easily to purpose. A perfect man has no room to grow."
Harun's jaw tightened, his cynicism rising as a shield. "So we're useful because we hurt. Great."
"You are useful because you can still be remade," Gohan corrected sharply. "Being chosen is not a gift of mercy—it is an assignment. The stones give a burden as much as a weapon."
He swept his hand through the air, and the holographic statistics dissolved into a column of names. Fifteen sigils stood stark in the air, glowing with a harsh red light.
The weight of the number sat heavily between them. Harun looked from sigil to sigil, his lips moving silently. "Fifteen," he mouthed. "Is that… us?"
Gohan nodded. "Fifteen bearers across this Scantum cycle. Fifteen stones embedded in hosts. Fifteen vectors of change." He allowed a rare, grim smile. "Some will be allies. Some will be liabilities. A few will be monsters."
Sahil felt the space inside him, already narrow from fear, constrict further. "How many of them are here now?"
"Thirteen," Gohan said. "You make fifteen." He inclined his head toward the massive entryway behind them. "And they are… curious."
As if on cue, the doors at the far end of the hall sighed open like breathing mouths.
Figures moved in the doorway—walking shadows catching on the lamplight. They stepped into the room, each carrying the fragile, terrifying aura of a person never meant to be ordinary.
A girl stepped forward first. She was slender, alert, with braided hair threaded with copper wire that glinted in the dim light. Her eyes were coal-black and unreadable, like a pair of coins tossed into a deep well. She watched Harun and Sahil not with kindness, but with a caution that could be friendly or weaponized depending on how they moved.
A man came next, older than his years, wrapped in a trench coat that smelled faintly of ozone and stale smoke. He leaned on a walking cane that glittered with embedded runes. His smile showed teeth that had ground together through too many bad nights. He bowed—curt, respectful, and entirely private.
Then another—tall, with mechanical limbs that clinked softly as he walked, each click a note of careful engineering. When he panned his head and saw Harun, his face shifted—curiosity trading places with clinical appraisal.
The air in the room grew heavy as more of the thirteen filled the hall. Some looked at Harun and Sahil with awe; others scowled, as if already certifying them as rivals for resources that didn't exist. None of them looked surprised. Their expressions were the mixture of a society that judges quickly and survives by paranoia.
Gohan addressed the room with weightless authority. "These are the bearers who remain. You will each be matched, trained, and observed. The Council will determine the order of tasks. For now, you will rest. The orb will continue stabilization. Tonight, the Bhramm bells will sound. You will hear them—do not be afraid. They are not to be feared; they are to be understood."
A murmur rustled through the assembly like dry leaves. The mechanical man stepped forward. "Chairman," he said, his voice sounding like gears grinding against gravel, "we have a report from the eastern gate. A signal—someone is active outside the perimeter. Signature unknown."
Gohan's eyes narrowed. The light around the orb dimmed for a heartbeat, reacting to his spike in stress.
"Possible scout," someone murmured from the back.
Harun felt his muscles coil. The brass knuckle at his hip felt heavier than it had minutes before. He remembered the Titan's core—how the world had felt alive inside that chest—and he was terrified at how small his own body seemed beside it. Now, the room contained others who carried that same silence in their palms.
Sahil's mind mapped the possible futures he had seen: the ruined city, the older Harun burning with hatred, the empty streets. A cold certainty settled over him—someone, somewhere, was beginning to stir. The Scantum had not chosen complacency. It had opened a door.
Gohan turned to the group, every muscle ready. "We prepare. Each bearer will be evaluated. Trust is a currency sold at a high price here; earn it slowly."
He looked at Harun and Sahil as if measuring how much of them remained theirs to spend. "Rest now," he said finally. "And be ready. Tomorrow, you meet Rohan."
The name landed like a physical blow. The room went dead silent.
Harun let out a short, dry laugh. "Rohan? Who's he—some celebrity?"
Gohan's face did not move. "Rohan is not a celebrity." He said the name as if testing the shape of a blade. "Rohan is the strongest bearer this cycle. He entered alone. He awakened quickly. He destroyed his Guardian without taking a scratch."
Sahil remembered the vision again: a figure in the ash, unrecognizable and terrible, standing amidst a city that burned with a familiarity that tasted like fate. In the corner of that memory, smaller frames weaved in—symbols he could not yet place. One of them bore the same emblem now floating above the holographic list.
Harun swallowed hard. "So he's… what? The hothead bully?"
"No," Gohan said softly. "He is a problem." His eyes held the barest hint of fear. "Be prepared."
The announcement hung in the air, both a warning and a promise. The doors closed softly behind the remaining bearers as they settled into the alcoves. The orb sang a low, conciliatory note—an artificial lullaby—and the hall dimmed, though the runes kept their vigil.
Before sleep could fully claim him, Sahil lay on the cold stone slab, scanning the ceiling. He thought of the child, of the stone pulsing in his arm, of the boy who would one day stand over a ruined city. He thought of Harun's laugh and the terrified weight of the brass knuckle at his hip.
Outside, something alive moved across the ruins. For the first time since the Scantum had dragged him into this nightmare, Sahil understood the breadth of what had been given and taken.
They had been rescued. They had been remade. But they were not yet warriors.
They were only boys with borrowed fires.
And the world was waiting to see how they would burn.