Part 4: "Night Beneath the Wall"
The morning after his fevered awakening, Cael is summoned early and marched to the Vault perimeter wall for orientation. There, in the quiet before dawn, he sees the Vault up close for the first time—its immense scale, eerie silence, and the scarred gate that has swallowed thousands. As the others gather, Cael touches the wall and feels something deep respond. Something alive. Watching. Waiting.
---
He hadn't drawn it.
But it had come from him.
---
The siren screamed through the Hollow Wing like a predator's cry.
It pierced the thin sleep Cael had found after his episode, dragging him into the waking world with a jolt. His skin was clammy. His heart already pounding. The dream—if it had been a dream—was still vivid. He could almost feel the phantom weight of it pressed against his chest.
The other boys stirred. Ryle cursed and rolled over. One of the others groaned like a dying animal. The lights flickered on, blue-white and harsh, revealing the grime-streaked walls and rusting bedframes in full clarity.
Then came the boots...
Heavy, deliberate, metallic. A Warden entered—not the old one from yesterday, but a younger soldier, face obscured by a low-slung visor, armor sleeker, newer. He didn't bark.
He just looked at them. As if trying to decide whether they were worth the words.
"Form up. No talking. No questions."
His voice was flat,no emotion at all.
Cael stood, legs heavy. He shrugged into his coat, slid the Hollow cloth into his inner pocket, and filed into line behind the others. The barracks door opened with a screech of rusted hinges, and they stepped into the corridor.
It was still dark outside.
---
They moved through the underbelly of the facility, not the clean paths the bonded took but through maintenance tunnels lined with exposed wires and leaking fluid valves. Every corridor looked worse than the last. The lights were dim and pulsing. A low hum filled the air, like distant machinery straining to keep up.
None of the boys spoke. Even Ryle, who had been half-delirious the night before, kept his head down and his mouth shut. Something about the route—the silence, the direction—made them all more alert. More afraid.
Then the tunnel ended.
And the world beyond swallowed them.
---
Cael stepped into a vast open space surrounded by towering metal walls, and directly ahead, rising like the horizon itself, was the Vault.
Even in the murky half-light before dawn, it was overwhelming.
The wall of the Vault wasn't just tall—it was impossible. It disappeared into the clouds, seamless and black, reflecting no light, no shape, no sound. It drank everything. The facility's perimeter lights fought to illuminate it, but their beams simply faded into it like drops in tar.
Cael felt his throat tighten. The others froze behind him.
The Warden turned and spoke in a stale bland tone.
"This is Gate Nine. Your Trial gate. You'll enter here tomorrow at first bell."
He motioned toward the massive structure at the base of the Vault—a jagged seam in the wall, framed by alloy plating and flanked by mounted turrets and sensor pylons. It looked less like a doorway and more like a scar. Something that wasn't supposed to be there.
A structure forced open.
"Today is orientation," the Warden continued. "You'll observe. Learn the gate. Learn what waits for you."
No one moved.
No one replied.
The silence wasn't out of obedience.
It was instinct.
---
Cael couldn't take his eyes off it.
The wall. The way it seemed to pulse just beneath the surface, the sense of depth behind it. Not just physical mass—not just stone or alloy. Something else.
It felt like standing next to the ocean for the first time. Only this ocean had teeth..sharp deadly teeth.
"Eyes front!"
The Warden's voice snapped Cael back to the present.
They were led to a half-circle of reinforced pylons that faced the gate. There, the Warden pointed to a mural carved into the Vault's base. It spanned over thirty meters wide and depicted a procession of warriors entering the breach—each accompanied by beasts in various forms: winged, crawling, armored, skeletal.
No names.
Just forms.
"This mural is a record. Every Trial team since Vault Nine opened. You won't find yourselves here unless you survive. Which none of you will."
Some of the boys chuckled nervously.
The Warden didn't.
---
As the others began murmuring and shifting, Cael stepped back, away from the group.
Toward the wall.
He didn't know why. Just that it pulled at him.
He moved slowly, step by step, until he stood within arm's reach of the Vault.
His heart pounded in his chest.
He raised a hand.
And touched it.
---
The surface was smooth.
But not cold.
It breathed.
A pulse surged through his palm, through his skin, into his bones. Not a tremor. A signal. A frequency not meant for flesh.
His eyes fluttered.
Then came the voice.
CAEL
Not a sound. A pressure. A name written across the inside of his skull.
YOU ARE NOT HOLLOW
YOU ARE OPEN
Images flooded him.
Not visions. Memories not his own.
A labyrinth of bone and metal. A river of ash. A woman whispering secrets into a burning tree. A beast with no face, cradling a child made of mirrors.
He staggered back.
"HEY!"
The Warden was charging toward him.
"What do you think you're doing? Step away from the wall!"
Cael lowered his hand slowly.
The voice had gone.
The warmth had vanished.
Only silence remained.
The Warden shoved him back toward the others. "You touch that gate again without clearance and I'll feed you to it myself."
Cael said nothing.
Could say nothing.
Something in him was still...open.
---
As the orientation ended and they were marched away, Cael turned one last time to look at the Vault.
The wall didn't move.
But somewhere, deep beneath its surface, something moved for him.