It began in the silence after the storm.
No thunder, no awakening, just a shimmer at the edge of the sky – a trembling thought that didn't know if it was allowed to exist.
I felt it before I saw it.
A tremor in the air, a subtle resistance in the rhythm of the Field.
As if the world itself had begun to feel in return.
Rhea stood on the observation platform of the Control Tower, her hair tousled by the wind, hands firmly gripping the railing.
"Lina," she said without turning around. "There's something in the Field."
I closed my eyes.
Yes. There it was.
A heartbeat – not one of ours, yet somehow related.
Not foreign, but new.
"Not human," I whispered. "But not mechanical either."
Eiko leaned over the Terminal, fingers flying across the luminous surface. "I have no parameters for this. It's organic – but without an Origin. A Frequency that has given birth to itself."
"An Iteration," Alaric said softly.
In his voice there was no fear, only something resembling reverence.
