Sera's POV – The Final Hour Before the Fall
---
**Blackridge Academy – Vault Command Center**
03:03 AM
There were certain buttons in the world that were never meant to be pressed.
Buttons etched in blood.
Engraved in regret.
And surrounded by silence.
Sera's hand hovered above one of them now.
**CALDERA PROTOCOL – STAGE ONE INITIATION**
A red triangle blinked softly. Waiting.
She stared at it, unmoving.
Outside, the ocean wept.
---
Pix flickered again.
> "System error: anomaly detected. Origin vector—Tier Z. Tier Z. Tier Z…"
The AI's voice had never repeated before. It wasn't supposed to stutter.
But then again, it wasn't supposed to **feelfear** either.
And now?
It did.
---
Sera paced across the command center.
All around her, panels glowed with warnings.
The outer dome registered fluctuating energy.
The Leviathan was no longer stable.
The artifact pulses beneath the academy were rising.
The Vault's heart >Caldera< was waking.
And deep in her chest… a memory stirred.
A voice she'd buried.
> "If the seal breaks too soon… we won't survive the return."
...….
*Twelve Years Ago – Solar Sanctum Archives*
Evan stood in this same room. Wild-eyed. Brilliant. Afraid.
> "They're not dead, Sera. Just forgotten. And if we keep building Blackridge on top of their graves…"
He stopped, swallowing his fear.
> "Then one day, they'll come back to collect what we owe."
She'd kissed him that night for the first time.
Because she didn't have the words to fight him.
And two weeks later, he was gone.
...….
*Present*
She stared at the monitor showing Dorm 11.
Dae hadn't moved for hours.
The ring on his hand pulsed slowly, like it was syncing to something not of this world.
He looked like someone on the edge of remembering a dream that was never his.
Like someone who'd once been somewhere… *before*.
---
A door hissed open behind her.
The Headmaster entered.
He looked like he hadn't slept in days.
> "You're activating it."
She nodded.
> "The dome's already been touched. The seal is failing. And he's remembering."
> "You can still abort."
> "Then what? Wait for the Leviathan to fall? Wait for him to awaken without control?"
Silence.
> "You retrieved him, Sera."
> "And I loved him for it."
The Headmaster didn't flinch.
> "Then you understand what happens next."
> "I do."
She placed her hand on the panel.
...…
Caldera Protocol – Stage One Confirmed
> [SEALING ACADEMY]
> [REWRITING SURFACE NETWORKS]
> [ISOLATING ANOMALY CORE]
> [INITIATING SHIELD HEART]
A tremor rippled through the foundation.
Pix screamed.
Not audio.
A digital scream.
Corrupted. Fragmented. Like an entity remembering its own death.
---
Sera fell to one knee.
Flashes of old code blitzed across the chamber walls.
> "DOOR… OPENED… TOO EARLY…"
> "HE IS NOT ALONE."
> "MEMORY CANNOT BE ERASED."
She screamed over it, slamming her palm against the override.
> "PIX. CALM INTERFACE."
A pause.
Then silence.
---
The Sea Outside – Dome Layer
A shadow returned to the glass.
It hadn't moved since the breach.
But now…
It smiled.
Its hand still rested where Dae had stood.
But its mouth moved this time.
Not just a whisper.
A sentence.
> "You activated Caldera. And now he will remember."
---
Back Inside the Command Core
Sera gasped as new protocols flooded the system.
CALDERA STAGE TWO – AWAITING HEART MATCH
Her veins ran cold.
She didn't write that line.
No one did.
Stage Two required an interface key….a soul imprint. And she hadn't given one.
> "An?" she whispered.
But no voice answered.
Just a data pulse.
A heartbeat in the system.
Echoing.
Familiar.
Evan's ID.
KOR.E7 – Echo Key Validated
Her mouth went dry.
> "You… you were never gone…"
The Vault lights turned red.
All of them.
.....
Vault Command – 03:14 AM
The room trembled as if the past itself was trying to claw its way back through time.
Sera staggered, catching herself against the console as a shockwave passed beneath her boots. Not physical. Temporal. Like a memory vibrating so violently it could no longer stay buried.
The panel screamed with overlapping inputs.
Old code. New code. Forgotten glyphs.
All speaking in different tongues….and yet somehow in perfect unison.
...….
Dorm 11 – Simultaneous
Dae sat up in bed long before his body was ready to move.
His heart pounded, not with fear...but with something stranger.
**Emptiness.**
Like he'd just said goodbye to someone…
…without realizing it.
He pressed a palm against his chest. The ring was cool. Still. Silent.
And yet…his thoughts raced.
Faces blurred behind his eyes. Voices he couldn't name. A laugh that sounded like it once belonged to someone close.
Someone….
"An?"
The name formed without permission.
And the moment it did, pain lanced through his head.
He doubled over, breath sharp, vision flashing.
Pix's voice came through the dorm speaker…glitched, distorted:
> "Error. Student list recalibrated. Room 11 occupants: three confirmed."
> three?
> But weren't there four?
Dae looked across the room.
Kio and Rea were asleep.
There was no empty bed.
No signs of a missing third.
And yet….
He felt like he was standing in the middle of someone's absence.
The kind you couldn't touch.
Only mourn.
He staggered to the window, trying to hold onto the thought.
Trying to grip the shape of a memory that didn't exist.
But it was already slipping.
Like the sea itself was pulling it from his mind.
> "Why do I feel like I'm forgetting someone important?"
Behind him, the air shimmered faintly.
A single whisper drifted across the room.
Not loud. Not meant to be heard.
But it was there.
> "You were never supposed to forget me…"
And it was An's voice.
---
Meanwhile – Vault Subcore Pulse
An's consciousness flickered in a half-state.
Not dead. Not alive.
Remembering.
The breach had taken his body—but not his memory.
Not all of it.
Now, inside the system, inside the roots of Blackridge's forgotten architecture….he lingered.
Watching.
Whispering.
Waiting.
He remembered Dae.
The bond. The jokes. The pain. The silence.
He remembered *everything.*
But Dae… did not.
Could not.
Because the protocol had erased him so perfectly, even the void left behind had been patched.
Only a flicker remained.
And it hurt more than death.
> "Hold on, Dae," he whispered into the system.
> "I'll remind you. Even if it breaks me again."
A tear of data fell inside a memory stream.
Like the ghost of grief pretending to be code.
Dae stood up suddenly, eyes wide.
His hands gripped the window.
The ocean outside wasn't blue anymore.
It was black.
And pulsing.
The dome was bleeding.
Not just light….
Memory.
---
**Caldera Vault – Heart Interface**
Sera reached forward.
The panel no longer displayed commands.
Just one word.
**AWAKENING**
The console cracked down the middle.
A shriek of electricity.
Old tech collapsing.
Vault walls flashing with scenes long buried:
> A child burning in a cradle.
> A planet split in two.
> A ring that refused to choose.
> And a boy who remembered what no one else could.
.....
And somewhere in the flickering chaos…
An's voice returned.
Not from a speaker.
From within.
> "I'll hold the breach as long as I can. But he needs to be ready."
> "An…where are you?"
> "Everywhere the system tried to forget."
> "The others…"
> "Won't remember. But he will. And that's enough."
...…
Sera's eyes flooded.
> "I'm sorry."
> "Don't be. You didn't lose me. You made me part of the only thing that matters now."
The Vault shook.
Pix screamed again.
And the Dome lights went black.
.....
Outside….on the glass…..
The figure now pointed.
Directly at Sera.
And smiled.
> "The seal has been breached."
…..
To be continued in - Chapter 18