⸻
The air in the rebel sanctuary had grown colder. Not from the cracked walls or failing power lines—but from something unseen. A presence.
Valen stood near the armory, black eyes scanning the dim corridors carved out from collapsed subway tunnels. The scent of oil and burnt steel hung in the air, and faint echoes of laughter and machinery buzzed from deeper within the base. But beneath it all… something didn't sit right.
He wasn't the only one who felt it.
"Valen," Kira's voice called from behind. She approached, her hair damp with sweat and her sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing a mess of burn scars and calloused arms. "Lira's been watching the entrance node. She swears someone came in without clearance."
Valen's jaw tensed. "You think we've been breached?"
Kira nodded. "Something's off. People acting strange. Eyes twitching. Schedules slipping. And two scouts went missing last night."
Valen turned toward the central hallway, where low lights flickered overhead. "We need to sweep the camp."
"Already sent a team," she said. "But if it's what we think it is…"
Valen finished for her. "A Riftborn. Disguised."
Kira didn't speak. She didn't have to.
⸻
It started with a whisper.
Not in Valen's head—this time it was real.
Two guards chatting near the food stores. One mentioned hearing breathing from a sealed tunnel no one had used in weeks. The kind of detail no Riftborn would've thought to erase.
Valen followed the trail alone, his hand brushing the cold, rusted metal of a forgotten maintenance hatch. His Echo of the End flickered softly in his palm—a faint shimmer of black light, swirling like mist.
Behind the hatch, darkness.
Not the natural kind.
Something old and wrong pressed against the edges of his senses.
He slipped inside.
It didn't attack. Not yet. It watched.
Waiting.
⸻
He saw it huddled in the dark, crouched near an old supply cache. It wore the face of one of the scouts—Isa. Same height, same hair, same voice.
But the eyes… the eyes gave it away.
Too still. Too empty.
Valen stepped forward, shadows curling around his boots.
"You've been feeding on them, haven't you?" he asked.
The thing stood, its smile twitching, unnatural.
"They were soft," it whispered. "Full of memory. Full of pain. So easy to wear."
Valen raised his hand.
His Echo surged outward, forming a crescent blade of pure shadow.
"Drop the mask."
The Riftborn snarled, form cracking open like glass.
Its true shape leaked through—the twisted amalgamation of black sinew, flickering limbs, and a distorted face that screamed but never moved its mouth.
Valen didn't wait.
He lunged forward, blade-first.
⸻
The battle was fast—brutal.
The creature moved like smoke, vanishing and reappearing in sharp bursts, claws raking across concrete walls, tearing gouges in steel. But Valen had fought worse. He moved with instinct, dodging, weaving, letting the Echo dance through his muscles.
A shield flared into existence as the Riftborn pounced, its claws shattering against the barrier in a flash of sparks.
Valen spun, drawing a second construct—a spear of condensed Echo energy—and hurled it through the monster's chest.
The creature screeched, limbs flailing as it staggered.
Then it collapsed, body unraveling into black mist.
Silence.
For now.
⸻
A Leader Among Rebels
By the time he returned to the main chamber, the rebels were gathered. Kira stood on a crate, addressing them, but the moment Valen stepped forward, silence fell.
He tossed the Riftborn's cracked mimic core onto the ground.
"They're inside the walls now," he said. "This was just one."
Gasps. Fear. Murmurs.
But Valen didn't back down.
"I'll teach every one of you how to spot them," he said. "How to fight them. And I'll take charge of the outer perimeter myself."
Someone in the crowd shouted, "Why you?"
Another followed, "How do we know you're not one of them?"
Valen stepped forward, letting the full weight of his Echo shimmer around him.
Black flames licked at his boots. His eyes, deep and endless, seemed to drink in the light around him.
"I bleed," he said. "I burn. I remember every face I couldn't save."
Then he raised the burn-scarred skin of his chest—the mark of the apocalypse's first fire still etched there.
"They took everything from me once. They won't do it again."
Kira stepped forward and nodded. "He's earned it."
One by one, the rebels lowered their heads in agreement.
⸻
In the days that followed, Valen restructured the camp's outer defenses.
Tripwire sensors tuned to Riftborn frequencies. Shadowforged beacons carved from his own Echo energy to repel low-level threats. A rotating scout schedule and training drills that mimicked Riftborn infiltration.
He never rested long.
The camp began to change.
Whispers about the ghost of the future became something more.
Hope.
Kira found him at dusk, sitting by the edge of the sanctuary, looking out at the ruins beyond.
"You've changed," she said.
"I've remembered who I was," he replied.
She sat beside him.
"They listen to you now."
"They have to."
Kira looked down. "You think more are coming?"
"I know they are," Valen said, hand brushing over the cursed sigil on his forearm. "The Mark is pulsing again. They know I killed one of their scouts. They're watching."
"And when they come?"
Valen stood.
His Echo pulsed like a second heartbeat.
"Then we'll show them what it means to fight."
⸻