They came without sound.
Not a roar. Not even a pulse of wind. Just movement—like shadows unsticking from the earth and crawling toward the light.
Selene stood at the edge of the broken ridge, eyes locked on the advancing forms. Not human. Not machine. Something between. Their armor shimmered with an oily black sheen, edges blurred as if reality refused to hold them still.
Arin cursed under her breath. "Voidbound elites. Not scouts. Executioners."
Kai loaded his rifle with sharp, metallic clicks. "Told you bringing her here was suicide."
"Funny," Selene said coolly, "I was thinking the same."
She didn't wait for a plan. Her feet were already moving, fast and sure, closing the gap between her and the first hunter like a blade slicing through fog.
The enemy raised its arm, a cannon sprouting from the flesh of its forearm, sleek and pulsing with pale red light. Selene darted left just as it fired—the beam grazed her shoulder, heat searing through armor and skin. But she was already behind it.
One step. One breath.
And her blade sank into the base of its skull.
The hunter spasmed—jerking like a marionette whose strings had snapped—then dropped.
But there were six more.
No—seven.
From behind cover, Kai opened fire. Blue plasma bolts lit the air, puncturing one hunter's chest, but it didn't fall. It staggered once, then turned with eerie precision.
"They're adapting!" Kai shouted.
"Then adapt faster!" Arin snapped, diving behind rusted plating as another hunter leapt toward them, claws extended.
Selene felt it again. That electric pressure—rising through her chest like a wave ready to break. It wasn't adrenaline. It was something else. Something older.
The air bent around her fingers.
Her breath caught, and then—
Everything slowed.
The hunters moved like they were wading through water. Arin's shout dropped to a low rumble. Even the wind grew thick, syrupy.
In that stillness, Selene saw the battlefield—every angle, every weakness. Instinct didn't guide her. Something deeper did. Something buried in her blood.
She moved.
Effortless.
A blade through a throat. A wrist snapped mid-strike. A knee driven so hard into a torso it crumpled inward. It wasn't fighting—it was dismantling. Calculated, brutal, surgical.
Time snapped back like a whip.
All three hunters fell in unison.
Selene stumbled, suddenly dizzy. A sharp hum vibrated in her bones—like a voice behind glass. Too distant to hear. Too loud to ignore.
> "System reboot: Partial protocol memory… active."
Her knees buckled. She hit the dirt hard.
"Selene!" Arin rushed to her side, brushing away ash and blood. "What just happened?"
Kai stared down at her, mouth slightly open. "She killed four elites in ten seconds. Without breaking a sweat."
Selene couldn't speak. Her hands were trembling—not from fear, but from familiarity. Her body had remembered something her mind still couldn't.
> "Neural latency stabilized. Core directive access: locked."
Her vision flickered. Symbols danced in the corners of her eyes—runes, numbers, images of planets she didn't recognize but felt tied to. A face flashed past, pale and smiling. And then it was gone.
Arin gripped her wrist. "Sel. Focus. Stay with me."
Selene's eyes cleared slowly.
"They're coming again," Kai warned, reloading with shaking hands. "I see another cluster, southeast ridge. Ten or more."
Arin stood, rage hardening her face. "They're not stopping. Not until she's dead or captured."
"Then they'll get neither," Selene rasped, pulling herself to her feet. Her shoulder still burned, but it was fading—fast.
Healing.
No medkit. No stim. The flesh was repairing itself.
"What the hell are you?" Kai asked quietly, not with fear this time—but awe.
Selene looked down at her hands, watching the last of the burn vanish like smoke. "I think I was made for something I don't want to remember."
Arin nodded once. "Then we remember it for you. Let's move."
They fell into formation, slipping through a cracked ravine leading westward. The terrain grew darker, less open. Echoes of their footfalls bounced between the walls like ghosts whispering secrets. The light above dimmed, swallowed by clouds—or maybe by something else entirely.
As they moved, Selene caught snatches of a tune. A hum. Low and mournful. It wasn't real, she knew that.
But still, it called to her.
> "Echoes… Echoes of what we left behind…"
Her head snapped up. "Did you hear that?"
Kai and Arin looked back at her.
"Hear what?" Kai asked.
Selene's pulse stuttered. "Nothing. Forget it."
But something had changed.
She felt watched.
Not by the hunters. Not by Arin or Kai.
Something else. Something deeper. Like the Void itself had opened its eyes and remembered her name.