They Erased My Name from History — Now I Burn Their World
Chapter Four: The Man Who Signed My Death
The Dominion's Citadel was never designed to succumb to flames.
Once a proud architectural feat, it floated high above the tumult of the world beneath, a colossal testament to the Dominion's unyielding grip on power. Its walls were crafted from pristine white marble that gleamed under the artificial sunlight, juxtaposed with dark, polished obsidian that absorbed the shadows. The fortress, devoid of conventional access points, defied intrusion; it sported no doors, relying instead on biometric scans that allowed only the most trusted individuals to cross its thresholds. There were no windows, only vast screens that displayed a curated reality to the inhabitants, showcasing the Dominion's manufactured order amidst the chaos it imposed upon the outside world. This was a bastion built on silence, meticulously maintained illusions pulsating with the notion of security and invulnerability.
Yet, the most compelling illusions bleed when fire manages to encroach upon them.
And tonight, flames have surreptitiously infiltrated the Citadel's defenses.
Mavros stands resolute in the Heart Chamber — a solitary figure amid the grandeur and emptiness — gazing upward at the formidable Dominion Seal meticulously etched into the smooth obsidian dome that looms above him. Twelve hundred feet below, Sector V flickers erratically, engulfed in a cacophony of digital disorder. The cracks in his vast empire reveal themselves, and the weight of his legacy hangs in delicate balance, eerily close to unraveling.
But still, he remains motionless.
He is an observer, inscrutable and calculating. The brief flashes of rebellion illuminated on his holographic screens are merely statistics to him — rapid spikes in activity, sectors painted red by alarms, and various AI systems failing in their calculated mandates. This is a contagion to be triaged and contained, a sickness demanding swift and surgical intervention.
Only one screen captures his full attention.
It depicts a still frame harvested from one of the surveillance hubs — a lone woman cloaked entirely in black fabric, her face concealed by the shadows, standing defiantly before a flaming terminal. A haunting sentence trails behind her, like vapor in the night:
"You tried to erase me. Now I erase you."
Mavros studies her image, his expression betraying a flicker of recognition akin to a man seeing a ghost returning from the depths of his past.
Because, in truth, he has seen this apparition before.
A crackling voice bursts through the silence of his earpiece. "Sir, the Ghosthunter team has failed to intercept her. There was… an override. She accessed root command and manipulated legacy syntax."
Mavros's head turns slowly, each movement deliberate as his piercing gaze narrows. "Whose legacy did she exploit?"
There is a pregnant pause before the answer comes, heavy and fraught with implications. "Xedrin."
In that instant, the room envelops itself in a heavy silence.
Not born from fear.
But rather, recognition.
"She's alive," Mavros says at long last, his voice tinged with something resembling reverence. "I warned them we did not finish what we started."
"But... her neural signature was corrupted. Records were purged. She shouldn't even be here," comes the hesitant reply.
"She doesn't exist in the way you think," he replies, his voice low and chilling. "And that's precisely what makes her so incredibly dangerous."
With a decisive wave of his hand, he commands the AI to begin tracing data pulses from the epicenter of the viral outbreak. "We need to locate her signal. I want her tracked across every node. Every breath she takes must be monitored. I want her brought before me alive."
"Alive?" comes the incredulous response from one of his aides, eyes wide with disbelief. "After everything she just did?"
Mavros allows the corners of his lips to curl into a faint semblance of a smile — a twisted gesture, the closest he dares to come to expressing delight.
"She's not merely an end to our story. She represents the inception of an entirely new narrative. And I am immensely curious to see where it leads."
Outside the Citadel's flawless confines, the sky grows dark and oppressive.
Lightning fractures the clouds overhead, sending splinters of electric blue cascading through the brooding expanse, mimicking cracks forming in delicate porcelain. The Dominion's weather control grid is faltering — minor aberrations for now, yet the signs of breakdown are spreading. Another system falls victim to her digital assault.
And somewhere below, I run.
I'm not seeking concealment.
I'm striving to conclude what I set into motion.
I do not need to incinerate the entire world.
Just the remnants that failed to remember me.
Later — Beneath the Surface Districts
The resistance once referred to this cursed expanse as The Spine.
Now, it stands as nothing more than debris and silence, a graveyard for dreams long extinguished.
I navigate through the desolate landscape alone, my hood drawn low to obscure my identity, a ghost in a graveyard of rusted dreams. Old train cars lie dormant, their metallic bodies rigid and corroded, resting like the remains of once-thriving beasts amidst the crumbling bones of dilapidated tunnels. The air filters overhead labor under the weight of time, wheezing weakly and more than a little neglected. At last, I find the marker — a broken terminal, barely holding its shape, with a jagged "X" crudely scratched into its side.
This mark points the way to a door.
And that door leads to him.
As I step into the dimly lit interior, the flickering of lights around me trembles to life in response to my presence, the aged biometric locks reluctantly yielding as I pass. A soft tendril of steam rises from the floor, warm yet suffocating, reminiscent of memories I've fought to forget.
"You're late."
The statement echoes through the muted air.
I freeze for a moment, my heart stumbling over the familiar timbre. A voice that mingles with the shadows of my past. Low, bittersweet. A fragment of memory buried deep within my soul.
I pivot slowly.
And there he stands.
Kade.
My brother.
Dead.
Or at least, that was what I had been led to believe.
He steps forward slowly, as if coming into the light of dawn after a long night cloaked in darkness — older, harder, his features etched with the harsh lines of survival. His eyes glow faintly, augmented with neural upgrades that shouldn't exist in any reality outside the cold walls of the Dominion's laboratories.
"They told me you were gone," I manage to whisper, barely drawing breath.
With a dismissive shrug, he replies, "They tell a lot of things."
My fists clench tightly, the tremors of old wounds surfacing. "Why didn't you come for me?"
"I tried, Viraen. But you weren't on the map, remember? They erased you from existence."
I keep my eyes fixed on him, the weight of disbelief heavy in the air. My voice drops, barely above a whisper. "You're working for them."
"No," he counters, his resolve unwavering. "I'm inside them."
A heavy tension settles between us like an unshakeable curse, laden with the ghosts of betrayal and lost kinship.
"Then help me," I implore, desperation threading through my voice. "Let's burn them down together."
His gaze searches mine for what feels like an eternity, his expression inscrutable, an unreadable mask masking a thousand unspoken emotions.
Finally, he offers a singular nod — a promise wrapped in uncertainty.
But his words send chills rippling through my core.
"You lit the match, Viraen. I hope you're ready for the inferno that comes next."
To be continued...