Ashen Vale walked the corridor with a neutral face. His stride was calm and measured, though a short, involuntary sigh betrayed the composure he tried to keep.
He passed through a square holographic panel that shimmered like fingerprint authorization. Beyond it: walls, clean and bare, faintly blinking blue in the corners.
From every angle, the hallway felt newly renovated yet hollow, as if the building itself had forgotten its purpose. Vast, seamless, and empty, a place built for secrets, not for people.
At the T‑junction, white coats moved with urgent purpose. Some hurried toward the emergency, others returned with equipment. Their steps were brisk; their faces were tight. A low, patient fog seemed to settle on their shoulders.
Not like this time, he thought. This time is different.
A red status light blinked at the corridor's end. He had seen that light before; once, twice, a dozen times; always before the same collapse. The image folded into him and would not let go.
It felt like a loop: a fevered replay that blurred the edges of now and then. The monitor's thin, clinical tone pressed against his ribs and pulled the past forward.
There it is again. The light that takes everything.
The corridor narrowed in his chest. Thoughts crowded like hands at a window, pressing until there was no room left. A cold tightness gripped his heart, the same hollow ache he had learned to hide.
He did not notice when he came to a halt. When did I stop? he asked himself. I didn't feel my feet. Puppet with a dead battery.
His palm found his pocket; his fingers were damp with sweat. He rubbed them on his trousers, slid a hand through his hair, forced the motion that would make him look awake.
This daze keeps coming.
Fluorescent light flattened everything into clinical clarity. On the medi‑bed lay a man whose body seemed more artifact than flesh.
Tubes of metallic green threaded through him, pulsing with a rhythm that mimicked nerves. Their sheen was alive enough to make onlookers wonder if the tubing itself was sentient.
His skin clung to bone like parchment stretched over a broken frame. The sight was closer to dissection than healing.
Above him, a holographic screen pulsed red. Heart rate, motor‑valve indices, neural resonance, all bleeding numbers that decided whether he lived another hour.
"Prepare one diabol of bionesis," said Doctor Kelm, his silver‑rimmed coat marking him as lead. Sparse hair clung to his scalp, damp with sweat that caught the light. "To keep the neural architecture intact, we divert metabolic resources."
A nurse moved quickly, loading the vial into the tubular axial pipe. The hiss of infusion filled the silence. The patient's chest rose faintly, shallow but present.
Kelm's thoughts flickered darkly. If mercy were mine to give, I would let him go quietly. But mercy is not mine. He is Vale's brother, and even borrowed time is demanded of me.
He whispered, almost to himself: "I have given everything, Professor Vale."
Elara's voice broke the silence. "Metabolic markers stabilizing- glucose consumption elevated, lactate trending up. Dampeners at maintenance. Assisted respiration prepared if bradycardia worsens."
Kelm exhaled. "He is stable. We contained the overload. We bought time." His voice hardened. "But the redistribution is severe. If the body cannot meet the metabolic demand, collapse will follow. Forty‑eight hours, at best."
Elara's gaze lingered on the patient. She knew the truth beneath the data: the overload had destroyed motor and somatosensory pathways, leaving only fragments of sensory input intact. He could hear, but not speak. He could see, but not feel. Consciousness trapped in a husk.
This is worse than death, she thought, though she did not say it aloud.
Ashen Vale stood at the threshold, his face unreadable. The red light reflected in his eyes, a reminder of every collapse he had witnessed.
With what little they had, the team had done their best. Now, only prayer remained, that Ember's soul might find a better life in another world. Here, bonds had been forged over years, faint or strong, and each collapse tore at them all.
Doctor Kelm slowly removed his mask. He offered a few sympathetic words, then left the room, knowing silence was the best gift he could give. One by one, the others followed, bowing slightly toward Ashen before departing. He returned the gesture with a nod and a smile—thin, brittle, more mask than truth.
Soon, only his assistant remained. Their reflections met in the glass, Ember's frail body caught between them.
"I admire how you keep pace," he said softly. "It can't be easy, carrying this kind of weight."
Ashen glanced at her reflection. She had been with him for years, steady as shadow. Sometimes he wondered if she was even human or simply better at hiding than he was. But he had no time for mysteries; his own quagmire was deep enough.
"Because I love it," she said with emotion. "Contributing gives me a sense of purpose. I'm old now, but caring for people, like they were my own children, keeps me alive."
Ashen let out a dry chuckle. If that is old, then what am I? A relic already half‑buried.
She raised her brows. "Did I amuse you?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "Just a thought. A funny one."
She smiled faintly, then stepped back. "I'll give you two some time alone. Perhaps he can sense your presence."
"Okay. You should rest as well," Ashen replied.
She nodded, her silhouette fading into the corridor until she vanished around the corner.
Ashen turned back to the bed. The machines hummed their indifferent prayers. Two days. Two days to speak to a brother who could not answer, to stand vigil over a soul already half‑departed.
The light above pulsed red, steady and merciless. It was not death yet, only the countdown to it.
He pressed the blue holographic panel on the wall. The seamless surface shifted, walls sliding apart like joined segments. A glass pane emerged, identical to those embedded in the bone‑white pillars outside. A narrow ledge extended beneath it, enough to sit or lean against.
Shades of red, orange, and pink scattered across the room, the dying sun painting the walls like a soul slipping toward the horizon. Beautiful, peaceful, and cruel.
Ashen hunched slightly, his silhouette bent like an old man's. No one remains unchanged, he thought. Every moment grinds us down, shaping us, taking pieces away.
Ashen drew in a long breath, chest swelling, and let it out in a sigh. He sat on the protrusion beneath the pane, one foot up, one down, head leaning against the cool surface. A shudder passed through him as the sensation seeped into his bones.
With each passing minute, the sun fell lower. And with it, Ashen drifted half in vigil, half in dream his exhaustion finally claiming him.
Then it came: a bang of green light, bursting deep within the forest. It escaped the canopy like treasure forming in the dark. The color was unlike anything they had seen before; dark yet luminous, uncanny, dreamlike. It was the kind of vision that, once glimpsed, would haunt the eye forever.
The dome's sensors caught the disturbance. Alarms buzzed, waking higher authorities. At first, alarm; then curiosity. Soon, a meeting was formed.
Ashen sat at the helm. Beside him lounged Ember, slightly older, fiery red hair spiking backward like needles, grin plastered across his face. His sharp eyes carried the constant dare of a fighter itching for conflict. The others had long since learned to bear his antics.
"Everyone," Ashen said, gaze sweeping the table, lingering briefly on his brother. "You know why we are here. The matter speaks for itself."
The veteran soldier folded his arms, scar running across one eye. His voice was steady, pragmatic. "We should deploy the Aerolens first. Assess the situation before risking men. I won't send soldiers blind into something we don't understand."
Ember snorted. "Grow a spine. What could go wrong? That light was treasure, I'd wager. What else shines like that? Spies? Hardly. No nation would announce themselves with fireworks." His taunt fell flat, met with silence. He smirked anyway, amused by his own bravado.
Ashen's eyes narrowed. "You're old enough to know better. One day your recklessness will give me a headache I cannot cure." His words slid past Ember, who only grinned wider.
Ashen turned to the nebula, a veteran soldier, then to the youngest present, a girl whose age belied her authority. "Ready your men for any invasion or unforeseen threat. And Professor Iris-" his gaze softened, "-you've been uneasy. Share what you've found."
Iris raised her hand. The holographic float blossomed into the air, translucent panels orbiting her like fragments of glass. The anomaly was rendered in shifting lines, a lattice of trembling geometry.
Ashen frowned. "What are we looking at?"
"It might be a space distortion," Iiris said carefully, her tone more hypothesis than certainty. "See here.." she gestured to the hologram, where silver threads pulsed, "...the grid is mapping stress lines as if reality itself were under strain. Normally, these readings belong to gravitational shear or resonance overload. But here, the pattern is irregular. It looks… fractured."
Elara leaned closer, eyes narrowing. "So it's not a portal?"
"Not yet," Iiris replied. "Think of it like a wound. The hologram interprets it as a tear in the local field. If enough energy is redistributed, it could widen. But right now, it's only a scar. We don't know if it leads anywhere."
As she spoke, the shimmer thinned. Silver threads unraveled, the fracture contracting until it was nothing more than a faint ripple. Then even that was gone, the chamber returned to sterile stillness, as if the anomaly had never existed.
The holographic float froze in its last frame. Iiris lowered her hand, the panels dimming. "It's gone," she said quietly. "But the readings remain. Whatever it was, it left a trace."
Ashen's gaze lingered. Excitement warred with unease. What's happening on Xeno, he thought. Time alone will tell.
The next day, under the dome, faint circular marks appeared on the ground. Suddenly they split open, revealing transport platforms. Seventeen figures descended in perfect synchrony: six armed personnel, nine in white coats. Scientists and soldiers together, dispatched to the site where the distortion had been recorded, where the green sheen had flared.
The simultaneity was unsettling, no staggered arrival, no delay. As if the dome itself had chosen the moment and delivered them all at once.
Anticipation hung heavy. They came to observe, to measure, to learn. Yet beneath their curiosity lay dread: what danger might wait in the forest's heart? Instinct whispered that this was more than discovery.
Like water poured on burning coal, their curiosity hissed and died. The green flash that had promised wonder left behind nothing but a patch of grass; slightly overgrown, slightly different, but no treasure, no fracture, no portal. Just earth pretending it had never been touched.
Still, they did not leave. Hope clung to them like mist. Ashen ordered the search to continue: three groups of three, each paired with an armed escort, fanning out across the site. They combed the clearing, pressed through thickets, traced every hollow and rise.
Hours passed. The forest gave them only silence ; the rustle of leaves, the hum of insects, the ordinary breath of nature. No trace of the light, no scar in reality, no hidden device.
At last, when every corner had been walked and every shadow overturned, they gathered again. Faces downcast, steps heavy, they returned beneath the dome.
The disappointment was not loud. It was quiet, heavy, like ash settling after fire. Each man and woman carried it differently, some with clenched jaws, some with weary sighs, some with eyes that lingered too long on the empty grass.
Ashen's gaze lingered on the clearing one last time. The world does not give its secrets easily, he thought. And sometimes, it hides them in plain sight.
The silence pressed against him, heavy as sleep. His eyes closed, and the forest dissolved. He blinked once more. The dream fractured, fading like mist. When his eyes opened again, the present returned: the sun rising on the horizon, painting the dome in pale gold. A faint beeping pulsed in the background, steady and indifferent, reminding him that time had not stopped.
Ashen exhaled, the weight of past and present pressing together in his chest. Dreams may vanish, he thought, but their echoes remain
….and sometimes….
they return when the world least expects them.