Luke woke to the sound of the orphanage's morning bell—a grating, metallic buzz that echoed through the rusted halls of Redstone. He twitched instinctively, his hand moving to the loose floor grating beside his cot.
It was still there. The Codex.
Still warm.
He let out a breath, rubbing the last traces of sleep and fragmented dreams from his eyes. The chains. The voice. The whisper that wasn't quite speech. None of it made sense. But something had changed.
He had to move. Fast.
---
The director's office was as suffocating as ever. Dim light filtered through a cracked panel overhead, casting a jaundiced glow on cracked datapads and the peeling wall behind Elias Veyne's desk. The man himself was hunched in his usual seat, fingers steepled, gaze heavy.
"You're late," Elias said without looking up.
Luke didn't offer excuses. There was no point. Elias wasn't the kind to listen to apologies.
The director was a ghost from another era—a former Federation militia grunt who'd somehow ended up running the Redstone Orphanage. He ruled it like an outpost in hostile territory. Rigid. Efficient. Brutal, when needed. But even now, the cracks were showing. Lights flickered. Water pressure dropped every other day. Food rations had been halved.
"You missed curfew again," Elias continued.
Luke kept his face blank. "Won't happen again."
Both of them knew it was a lie.
Elias sighed and rubbed his forehead like he was tired of repeating himself. "You're sixteen. That gives you two years. Two years before the Federation sends a draft order, slaps a rifle into your hands, and drops you into some border conflict."
His voice dropped a note. "Or you could enlist early. Skip the queue. Get the better training, better rations."
Luke clenched his jaw. "I'm not signing up."
He had heard this pitch before. It never changed.
The Federation's armies never stopped recruiting. Especially from places like Redstone—where orphans came with no records, no guardians, and no one to remember if they vanished.
"You think you've got another way out?" Elias asked, eyes narrowing.
Luke didn't respond.
A few seconds passed. Then Elias leaned back, his chair creaking with the motion. "Fine. Just know this—if you get caught stealing again, I won't shield you. The enforcers don't care how old you are. Or if you survive."
Luke turned to go.
"Wait," Elias said.
Luke paused at the door.
"Federation inspectors are coming tomorrow. Routine sweep," Elias said. "They're testing for compatibility."
Luke froze.
Compatibility tests. Everyone in Redstone knew what those meant.
The Federation was searching. Always searching. For the rare ones—those who could link with Biotech Cores. Those who showed signs of higher potential. Those who survived... sometimes came back different. Others didn't come back at all.
Elias didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.
"Be here. Or don't," the director added. "But if you run, don't get caught."
Luke left without a word.
---
The mess hall reeked of synthetic paste and mildew. Luke slid into a seat at the far end, ignoring the taste of whatever slop had been served that day.
Mina appeared beside him, weaving through the crowd like a shadow. She dropped onto the bench, her braid swinging behind her.
"You look like trash," she said.
Luke grunted. "Feel like it."
She leaned in. "Heard you scored big yesterday."
He didn't answer right away. Mina was sharp, and she was the closest thing he had to a friend. But the Codex wasn't something he could afford to share. Not yet.
"Just scraps," he muttered.
She gave him a look but let it go. "You hear about the inspectors?"
"Yeah."
"They're not just checking for military aptitude," she whispered. "Rumor is they're scanning for Pulse-Blooms."
Luke raised an eyebrow. That wasn't a term thrown around lightly.
Pulse-Blooms were rare. Kids who could channel Aether Pulse through their circuits—either naturally or through some freak accident. The Federation didn't just want them. They took them.
"Why now?" he asked.
"No clue," Mina said. "But something's up. Power grid's been unstable for weeks. Gutterline's running backup generators half the time."
Luke thought of the Codex. Of the runes burned into its shell. Of how warm it felt under his bed. The Federation's system was built on three things—Biotech Cores, Runic Circuits, and Frequency Alignment. The Codex had... something older.
Something different.
"Whatever they're looking for," Mina whispered, "you better not stand out."
Luke gave her a tight nod, but his gut twisted. He wasn't sure he had a choice anymore.
---
That night, the dreams came again.
The voice was closer now.
The Codex of Evolution is not a thing to be sold, little thief.
Luke tried to speak, but no words came.
It is a key. A map. A weapon.
He saw flashes—colossal mecha towering over cities, their armor lit by pulsing runes. Not the dead, rusted husks in Redstone's junkyard, but breathing titans. Then darkness. Chains. Something vast turning its eye toward him.
And something beneath all of it. Waking.
---
He woke to the alarm—shrill and blaring.
Boots thundered down the metal halls.
They were early.
He ripped the floor grating open and shoved the Codex inside. It glowed faintly, symbols shifting across its surface. He barely had time to close the panel before the door hissed open.
Three figures entered. One enforcer in standard gray, visor gleaming like insect eyes. Two others behind him, taller, runes etched into their armor.
"Luke Arlen?" the lead barked.
Luke stood slowly. "Yeah."
"You're up for inspection."
No point resisting.
He stepped into the corridor. Kids were already lined up—silent, tense. Enforcers stalked past the rows, scanning rooms, herding anyone who moved too slowly.
Across the hall, Mina locked eyes with him.
Run? she mouthed.
He shook his head.
Not now.
A hand gripped his shoulder. The officer's voice buzzed in his ear.
"Step lightly. The Tethered Accord has eyes here."
Luke's breath caught.
The Accord. Rumors said they were cultists—scholars of forbidden tech, researchers of dead languages and ancient power. Myths. Boogeymen.
Why were they here?
He didn't get to ask. He was shoved toward the common room.
---
The mess hall had been gutted and replaced with a mobile testing lab.
A sleek silver pod dominated the center. Pulsing runes lined its frame. A technician adjusted a glowing interface while a hulking enforcer stood beside him, the red lens of his helmet never blinking.
Director Elias was there too, arms folded tight.
"Next," the technician called.
One by one, kids were scanned. Neural cuffs latched onto wrists. Blue sparks. Green flickers. Weak resonance. Nothing more.
Then Mina stepped up.
The cuff snapped on.
The room cracked with sudden energy. The display exploded with symbols. Not the usual diagnostics—but something sharper, faster.
"Early-stage Pulse Bloom," the technician said. "Mark her."
Mina flinched as an enforcer pulled her aside, but she didn't fight.
Luke understood. Better to be taken than to be forgotten.
Then they called his name.
---
He walked to the center.
The cuff closed cold around his wrist.
Silence.
Then the cuff screamed. The machine jolted, the runes bursting into deep violet light. The display erupted—not with diagnostics—but with writing. Words that didn't belong.
Luke saw them and knew.
They matched the Codex.
"What the hell is this?" the technician asked.
"Run it again," the officer said.
The second scan was worse. The machine sparked. Symbols twisted. Words flashed across the display in alien patterns. Some in Federation standard. Others far older.
The officer yanked the cuff off.
"Where did you get this?" he snapped.
Luke kept his voice level. "Get what?"
The officer didn't buy it.
He turned to Elias. "This one's coming with us."
Elias didn't argue. He didn't even look surprised.
Two soldiers flanked Luke. One grabbed his arm. The other reached for a containment shackle.
Luke's pulse raced.
The Codex. The dream. The warnings.
If they took him, he wouldn't come back.
His body moved before he could think.
---
He dropped his weight backward, slamming his heel into the enforcer's knee. The man shouted, staggering. Luke twisted free, ducking beneath the second's grasp.
He ran.
Down the hall. Past stunned orphans. Toward the stairs.
Alarms blared. Shouts echoed behind him.
He reached his room, tore the panel loose. The Codex pulsed with heat.
The walls shook. Boots pounded. No time.
He grabbed the Codex.
And the world tilted.
A flash of violet light. Symbols spinning.
And then—
Silence.
As the vision deepened, the dreamscape twisted and folded, as if reality itself recoiled. Luke found himself standing before a colossal form bound in an abyss of fog and firelight. The air was dense, humming with unspeakable pressure, and the sky above was void—pitch-black, yet alive with flickers of gold and ash.
The beast towered above him.
Its body, like a mountain of flesh and bone, pulsed slowly as though struggling to breathe. Nine immense eyes, unevenly placed across its twisted head and sides, blinked in languid rhythm. Each eye held a different color—obsidian, ember-red, storm-blue—swirling with unknowable age. The creature was bound in chains that were not entirely made of metal; they shimmered, pulsing with runes and markings that shifted even as he stared at them. Some glowed in hues of gold, others dark like ink spilled across the stars. Each rune flickered for a moment and changed, as if time passed differently across their surface.
The beast… no, the behemose, radiated an exhaustion that felt ancient. Its body was pierced with rods of stone and bone, etched with etchings of similar shifting script. The skin sagged in some places, revealing sinew that shimmered like molten ore, while in others, it clung tight as leather around sacred relics. But it was the skin itself that held the greatest mystery.
There were words embedded in it.
Old. Primeval. Carved not by hand, but perhaps by time, pain, or divine will. They throbbed gently with the same glow as the chains—glimmering between decay and power. Luke could not read them, not really, but as he stared, a phrase whispered itself into his consciousness like an echo from a forgotten temple:
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The words struck him like a hammer. He didn't even know what they meant, not truly, but the moment they entered his mind, the air around him crackled. One section of the behemose's flank shimmered, and from it, something detached.
A scroll.
Golden. Writhing. It hovered in the air like a living thing, its surface covered in layered writing in dozens of dialects—some angular, others flowing like rivers. As it moved toward Luke, the beast made no sound, but one of its nine eyes opened wider. It regarded him, not with malice or hope, but with the silence of something that had seen the rise and fall of gods.
The scroll settled gently into his hands, and the moment it did, the world began to shatter.
Not in sound or sight, but in sense.
Luke's eyes locked back onto the chains as the vision blurred around him. The runes on them pulsed, then flashed. Faster. Brighter. His focus narrowed—he wasn't reading them, but remembering them. They were more than language. They were codes. Patterns. A key, maybe. And the longer he stared, the more a part of him it all became.
Then the light consumed everything.
---
His eyes snapped open.
The coldness of the world hit him first—the sterile scent of chemicals, the faint buzz of machinery. White light poured down from ceiling panels. He was lying in a hospital bed, its sheets coarse, with cuffs restraining both arms to the metal rails.
A beep echoed from the heart monitor beside him.
His limbs ached like he'd been dropped from a cliff. His head pulsed with memories not entirely his.
As he struggled to move, the door creaked open.
A man stepped inside, his boots heavy on the tile, echoing with purpose. Tall, broad-shouldered, and clad in a charcoal uniform trimmed with deep crimson, the man radiated control—the kind that didn't need to be asserted. His very presence stilled the air. His face was weathered, tan with age and war, and a brutal scar ran from his right eye down across his cheek and chin like a blade's parting gift.
One look into his eyes told Luke everything: this man had killed, led men into hell, and likely never once doubted himself.
"Congratulations," the man said, his voice low and laced with something predatory. "Welcome to the Imperial Academy."
Luke blinked, unsure if he'd heard right. His wrists twitched against the cuffs.
The officer chuckled—a single, humorless sound.
"Yes, you're cuffed. Standard procedure after… what you did." His eyes narrowed. "We're still sorting through the data surge and containment breaches, but whatever you touched—" he paused, as if weighing the right word, "—changed things."
He stepped closer. Luke instinctively shrank back, not from fear, but the raw intensity the man carried.
"The scroll… where is it?" the officer asked, calm but firm.
Luke hesitated, then looked down. His hands were empty, but he felt the heat of something ancient resting beneath his ribs.
"I don't know," he whispered. "But it's still with me."
The man's eyes gleamed—not with surprise, but with recognition. As if this was what he had hoped to hear.
"Good," the officer said. "Then your real training begins now."
He turned, tapping the steel door. It hissed open.
A nurse entered, followed by a short man in dark robes and copper rings—a scholar of some kind, murmuring phrases under his breath in a language Luke didn't recognize.
"Uncuff him," the officer ordered.
As the restraints were removed, Luke sat up. His body still ached, but his mind was sharp. Too sharp. He could still see the chains when he closed his eyes. Still hear the silent roar of the behemose.
The officer stood by the door, arms crossed.
"You're not a student anymore," he said. "You're a witness. Maybe even more."
Luke met his gaze. "To what?"
The officer grinned. "To the world before the world. And the one that's about to come."