The first rule of the Gray World was simple:
Don't look past the wall.
Owen Cross—now just Owen again, without status, age, or armor—stood on the edge of the eastern barracks rooftop and squinted toward the distant shimmer of obsidian. The Wall was jagged and unnaturally tall, like the bones of something ancient rammed vertically into the ground. No doors. No seams. Just black. And the hum.
He could hear it now. A sound just outside normal hearing—like a whisper in static.
Dr. Evan Thorne stepped beside him, hands in the pockets of his long coat. He sipped something from a heat flask that probably wasn't regulation. His glasses fogged slightly in the cold.
"You're staring," Evan said. "That's how it starts."
"How what starts?"
"Curiosity. Then you start asking questions. Then you get stupid. And stupid gets you killed."
Owen didn't look away. "What's on the other side?"
Evan didn't answer.
Instead, he handed Owen a square protein ration. Warm. Chewy. Tasted like sugar-dirt and stale corn.
"Eat."
Owen took a bite. "So what's the second rule?"
"There is no second rule. Most people break the first one and don't live long enough to care."
They stood in silence, the Wall looming in the distance like a sleeping god. Owen had never seen anything like it. Not in the books. Not in the stolen videos. Not even in the nightmares that woke him gasping with heat under his ribs.
He didn't know what was worse—that the Wall was real.
Or that something on the other side might be waiting.
They descended through the facility's internal scaffolding—crossing grated walkways and luminous corridors that twisted like veins through the outpost. Soldiers and technicians moved with silent purpose, some in armor, some in robes, a few carrying long staffs that pulsed blue at the tips.
Owen stared.
"Those are Marked," Evan said. "Divine channelers. Soulbonded without partners. They hear Kaelira's call directly. Supposedly."
"Supposedly?"
"They also said she made the Wall to keep us safe. And then forgot to tell us what's out there."
Evan led him to a door marked LAB 4C – SERUM ANALYTICS. Inside, the lights were warm and amber-toned, softer than the harsh fluorescence elsewhere. There was a low hum from beneath the floor, and the scent of metal and citrus in the air.
The room was lined with tanks.
Dozens of them.
Glass chambers filled with iridescent liquid in every shade of flame—purple, orange, crimson, even a flickering white that made Owen's skin itch just looking at it. Floating inside some of them were outlines—human silhouettes, half-submerged, eyes closed, skin dotted with neural nodes and spellbind tape.
"The Serums," Evan said. "This is where they're born. Or... grown. Alchemical substrates infused with divine code, engineered to trigger transformation during the Link."
Owen stepped closer to one glowing with deep gold.
Inside floated a girl—maybe fifteen. Tall. Pale. Her arms were crossed like a sleeper. Her chest rose once every few seconds.
"She's alive?"
"In stasis. Mid-bond. She rejected her first pairing. Lost too much biofeedback and went dormant."
Owen looked sharply at him. "She rejected her Link?"
"Sometimes it doesn't take. The body can lie. The soul can't."
Owen turned back to the girl in the tank.
"What happens if she doesn't wake up?"
Evan's mouth was tight. "Then she never becomes anything at all."
Later that day, Owen sat through orientation protocols with the other "non-eligibles"—kids under thirteen, or those who hadn't yet shown a Soul Bond reaction. There were fifty in total. Forty-nine quiet, wary, blank-eyed kids.
And one Owen.
A tech officer explained survival zones, rations, task rotations, and what not to touch if you wanted to keep all your fingers. Half the kids weren't listening. The other half were crying quietly behind their hands.
Owen wasn't either of those.
He was memorizing exits.
That night, the air dropped ten degrees. Snow—not the soft, fluffy kind, but a dry ash-snow—began to fall. It clung to metal like rust and stung when it touched skin. The barracks groaned under the cold.
Owen couldn't sleep.
He stared at the cracked ceiling above his cot, watching shadows crawl like insects. Around him, the other kids whispered and turned in their sleep, murmuring names, fears, prayers to gods they didn't understand.
He pulled on his gloves.
And left.
The halls were quieter at night. Dim lights guided his steps toward the outer sectors—places civilians weren't supposed to go. But Owen wasn't anyone yet.
No rules applied to nothing.
He moved like smoke through the research wing, passing tanks and consoles and locked glass vaults. And then he saw it.
Chamber Nine.
Old. Dusty. Barely lit. Its keypanel flickered on and off like it was trying to decide whether it still worked.
The original Soul Link prototype.
The pod was empty now. Dry. Scorch marks ringed the base.
Owen touched the glass.
It felt warm.
Behind him, a voice:
"You're not supposed to be here."
He turned, already knowing who it was.
Dr. Thorne stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes unreadable.
Owen shrugged. "Just walking."
"Toward classified bio-links?"
"Walking with style."
Evan smiled faintly. "You're terrible at lying."
"I'm great at lying. You're just good at reading people."
Evan walked forward, his boots soft against the steel floor. "You were looking for the serum vault."
Owen didn't answer.
Instead, he walked to the side shelf and ran his fingers over a crate of vials.
"What happens if you use the wrong serum?" he asked quietly.
Evan hesitated.
"It doesn't kill you. Not always. But it... changes you. In ways you don't come back from."
"Sounds like an upgrade."
Evan walked to the console and sat on the edge of the desk.
"You're not scared of dying."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not alive here."
Owen turned to him. "You know what I mean. I'm just watching. Waiting. Like I'm backstage at my own life."
There was silence.
Then Evan said: "You remind me of me. Before."
"Before what?"
Evan's face changed. Just a flicker.
"Before I lost her."
Owen's voice dropped. "Your Link?"
Evan nodded once. "We were matched young. Trial cohort. Orange variant. I was seventeen. She was... brave."
"What happened?"
"A Skuldrith flare breached the Wall. We were defending the gate. She held the line. I got pulled out by medics. They tried to sever the bond before she bled out."
"Did it work?"
"Half."
Owen flinched. "What's that feel like?"
"Like every time you close your eyes, you expect someone to say your name. And they never do."
Owen sat beside him.
"I don't want to wait for the world to tell me who I am," he whispered. "I want to become someone."
Evan didn't speak.
He just stood, walked to the storage locker, and entered a code.
The door hissed open.
Inside: a purple vial.
He held it out.
"Off the grid," Evan said. "No rescue. No backups. No second chance."
Owen reached for it.
Paused.
And smiled. "Sounds perfect."