Ashen slid a hand behind his back and stretched until the knot loosened for a single breath. The relief was thin; press a thumb into the spot and the ache returned, rolling through him like tidewater against a reef. He had slept against the glass the night before, propped on the cold ledge until dawn. The pane had been a poor pillow for an aging body, and now his spine complained, every tendon remembering the night's stiffness.
I wish I could go back, he thought. Back to the days when the weight was lighter.
He stood before the glass as the sun climbed the horizon. Pale gold spilled across the ward. Ember lay beneath the machines, small and still. Ashen's silhouette stretched long and thin across the bed, a dark echo folded over his step‑brother's frail shape. In the pane Ember's face doubled; one in the bed, one in the glass, and both reflections tightened something in Ashen's chest.
He remembered being seven when Ember arrived. His father was already gone, brain death having taken him swiftly, leaving silence in the house and a scar in his mother's eyes. She feared Ashen's quiet nature would turn into solitude too deep to climb out of. He was not broken, only inward: a boy who listened more than he spoke, who preferred corners to crowds, who could hold a conversation if pressed but wished the world would let him be.
So she made a choice. She adopted another child, one only months apart in age, but opposite in spirit. Ember was fire where Ashen was stone; outgoing, restless, quick to laugh, quick to fight, quick to drag his brother into the noise of living. He was meant to force Ashen into the light, to keep him livable.
At first, Ashen resisted. He wanted silence, Ember wanted sound. Yet slowly, the friction became bond. They were not brothers by blood, but by circumstance and years stitched together. Ember's grin became the counterweight to Ashen's restraint, daring the foil to Ashen's caution.
Now, standing before the glass, Ashen saw both faces at once-the frail body beneath the machines and the boy who once pulled him into games he never wanted but always remembered. The seam between them was complicated: loyalty braided with resentment, affection threaded through obligation. But it held.
Ashen pressed his palm against the pane, feeling the cold seep into his skin. We were children once, he thought. And even then, you carried me into the world I tried to avoid. Perhaps that was your purpose all along.
But that purpose had been rewritten. Ember was not only his brother now-he was the bearer of Project 101. Ashen's mind traced the lattice of memory, recalling the device that had bound them both to this fate.
It was a synthesis of science and myth: a nano‑hexagonal construct fused with Lunavisio, the stone born of the moon. The stone was no human invention. It radiated an interference field that bent perception, a phenomenon so profound it bordered on magic. Yet magic alone was chaos. The construct was their attempt to harness it, to give shape to the storm.
The implant bridged vision, memory, and judgment- occipital lobe, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex- rerouting raw scenery into symbolic overlays. It was not the kind of system one might imagine from stories or games, projecting windows into the world. No….
This system revealed itself only when the eyes closed. Where ordinary darkness should have been, the void bloomed with luminous status: numbers, attributes, truths shimmering in the black. Cognition itself became visible.
Ashen remembered the first time Ember described it, laughing with reckless wonder. "Haha, now every nerd out there would have portraits of us." That laughter haunted him now.
That was what was supposed to happen… In the end…
The memory pressed too deep, dragging him inward, until the ward dissolved into silence. His thoughts spiraled, heavy and unmoored, as if the glass itself had swallowed him whole.
Then a voice broke through.
"…Vale."
Soft at first, almost a whisper.
"Ashen Vale."
Clearer now, insistent.
"Ashen Vale."
The sound echoed, pulling him upward.
"Professor Ashen Vale!"
Elara's voice rang against the walls, each repetition louder than the last, until the haze fractured and reality returned. The machines hummed their indifferent rhythm, the sunlight painted the ward in pale gold, and Ember lay beneath it all; frail, silent, waiting.
Ashen blinked, breath catching in his chest. He turned toward Elara, her eyes steady, her presence anchoring him back to the moment.
"Oh, Elara… good morning. Did you get any rest? I'd like to think none of this weighs on you, but I know that's just wishful thinking."
"I appreciate the thought. It isn't something I can run from. Either I accept it, or let it crush me. Keeping myself fit, staying sharp—that's the only way I can give everything I have, every time."
A faint smile touched his lips, weary but sincere. His gaze flicked toward his brother. "I wasn't wrong choosing you as my assistant. Tell me… how much time does he have left?"
Her eyes dropped to the monitor, hesitation in the silence before she spoke. "Not long. Our estimate was too high. His vitals are collapsing faster than expected. Five hours, maybe less. His nerves are shutting down. You should have your time with him now."
Ashen's jaw tightened, the words heavy in his throat. "Alright. Thank you. And… let the cremation technician know to prepare." Saying it felt like swallowing a stone, his heart aching with the weight of it.
The chamber was rectangular, its walls of brushed steel, the furnace embedded like a silent engine waiting to be called. Ember's body lay within a metal cradle, stark and unadorned, designed for function rather than ceremony. The hum of the dome's systems merged with the low thrum of the cremation unit, a sound that carried inevitability.
Five stood in attendance, each bearing their own silence. Ashen's eyes glistened, though no tears fell. His breath caught, his chest tight, but he held himself steady, as if restraint was the last gift he could offer his brother.
Iris, the youngest among them, broke the quiet with a voice heavy in melancholy. "He was such a pain in the ass," she said, lips trembling into a half‑smile. "But I already miss his shenanigans."
A scar‑faced veteran gave a dry chuckle, his tone edged with equal sarcasm. "The boy had a knack for fighting. His mouth was vile, sure, but his fists were worse, and stronger for it. I was planning to make him my successor one day. Alas… his thoughts were always chasing something else."
One by one, each offered their words, not condolences, but jabs, fragments of memory sharpened into humor. It was their way of grieving, to keep Ember alive in the sting of his antics rather than the silence of loss.
The furnace ignited, light spilling across the chamber. Ember's form began to dissolve, the body turning slowly into ash. The air carried a faint metallic tang, sterile yet final. With each flicker of flame, their hearts seemed to hollow, memories burning alongside him.
Doctor Kelm's voice was softer than usual, stripped of clinical detachment. "I believe he's at peace. All his life he wanted to belong, to stand within something greater than himself. In the end, he did. It was what he wished for… and he left this world as part of it."
Ashen closed his eyes, the ache in his chest pressing harder. The chamber's hum steadied, the fire consuming what remained. When he opened them again, only ash lay in the cradle, sealed within the dome's silence.
The chamber fell quiet once the furnace dimmed, leaving only the faint hum of the systems. Ember was gone, reduced to ash, yet the weight of his presence lingered in every breath.
Breaking the silence, Ashen spoke, his voice steady but low. "Elara, send me whatever tribal script the team has managed to recover from outside. Have it placed in my office. And Doctor Kelm… I want a word with you. Just the two of us."
Kelm gave a knowing nod, excusing himself without question. He understood the intention behind Ashen's words. The anomaly they had uncovered was no ordinary disturbance, and though he had accepted everything through the lens of science, a subtle shiver of anticipation ran through him.
As he walked away, his thoughts drifted not to the dome, but to the forest beyond its walls. He remembered the green flash; sudden, violent, then gone, a scar in reality that had vanished.