Chapter 1: Echoes in the Circuit

The room smelled of ash and rust.

Kael Draven awoke to the hum of failing neon and the slow drip of water echoing through the crumbling warehouse. His breath came ragged, cold against the steel floor beneath him. His fingers twitched, sensing the dust—fine like powdered bone—and the dried blood crusted on his palm. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He sat up sharply, heart pounding. Every muscle screamed, but not with pain—with absence. His mind was a hollow vault, locked and echoing with fragments of things that shouldn't exist.

A whisper tickled the edge of his hearing.

"They’re watching… you let them in."

He spun, reaching instinctively for a sidearm that wasn’t there. Instead, his eyes caught the glint of something on his forearm. A symbol, scorched into the skin like molten wire had been fused with flesh: a spiral intersected with jagged runes, humming faintly with a violet pulse. It didn’t hurt. That was the most terrifying part.

He stumbled to his feet, staggered to a cracked mirror leaning against a pillar. His reflection stared back, barely human. Black veins pulsed under pale skin, and his irises shimmered with shifting static. Not natural. Not tech. Something in-between.

He grabbed the edge of the sink below the mirror, trying to steady himself.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” he whispered.

Static surged in his skull.

[ERROR: PROTOCOL FRACTURE – SUBJECT: KAEL DRAVEN]

[SYNAPTIC SYNC LOST | MEM-CODE CORRUPTED | INTRUSION: LEVEL-THETA ENTITY DETECTED]

The words blinked across his vision like augmented overlays, except Kael had no implants. Not anymore. They’d been stripped from him months ago when he’d fled the Syndicate. Or had it been longer? Time felt... unstable.

Then came the smell—burnt ozone and decay—and the temperature dropped sharply.

He turned slowly.

A figure stood in the far corner, not moving, cloaked in shadows. Its head tilted unnaturally, like a marionette held by broken strings. Light from the failing overhead bulb flickered, revealing long, jointless arms etched with glowing circuitry. Where its face should be was a blur—pixels bleeding, twitching.

Kael didn’t breathe.

The thing existed like a virus leaking from a corrupted dream. It stepped forward.

And the whispers grew louder.

"Protocol cannot be undone... You let the Rift see you..."

Kael's survival instincts kicked in. He bolted, shoulder crashing through a rusted door, sending it clanging off its hinges. He burst into the rain-soaked alley, lit only by guttering signs in a dead language. Thunder rumbled overhead, not from the sky—but from the air itself. Something deeper.

He ran.

Footsteps pounded after him. Not human. Not mechanical. Something that dragged time with it.

He veered into a side corridor, kicked open a security panel. His fingers moved before thought—some residual training taking over. A glyph lit beneath the pad. A door hissed open, and he dove in.

Silence.

A blast door sealed behind him, locking out the storm and the... thing.

Kael leaned back against cold metal, sweat pouring down his face. The room was dim, lined with black servers humming with unmarked energy. Arcane tech—stuff outlawed after the Collapse. He knew this place. Somehow. The sigil on his arm pulsed in sync with a machine at the room’s center—a coffin-sized console wired with both circuits and bone.

He stepped closer.

A terminal flickered to life on the console, displaying text in blood-red letters.

WELCOME BACK, KAEL.

THE ARCANE PROTOCOL LIVES.

And beneath that:

[Initiate memory unlock – Y/N?]

He hesitated.

His reflection stared at him again—in the polished screen this time. Not him. Not just him. Shadows writhed behind his eyes, and the whisper returned, louder, more real.

"Open it, Kael. You’ve already begun."

With shaking fingers, he pressed Y.

And the world split.

Flashes. Screams. A ritual in zero-gravity. A black sun devouring a city. Himself—standing over his own body, weeping ink from his eyes as machines chanted in forgotten tongues.

Then—darkness.

Kael collapsed, and something inside him woke up.

End of Chapter 1