The air around them snapped — reality fracturing like ice under too much weight.
Ayra stood at the edge of collapse, her flame rising behind her ribs, flickering up her neck. Silas's presence beside her felt fragile, like a paper soul taped back together. But he was real.
And now, so was the enemy.
[Rewrite Culler: Eraser Beast — Fully Deployed] [Time until Anchor Collapse: 08:41] [Warning: Contact with target will result in irreversible memory deletion]
The Eraser Beast wasn't running.
It was gliding, slipping through the broken air like thought—half-machine, half-absence. It had no legs, just a segmented blur of black metal and screaming white light. Its core throbbed like a heart eating timelines.
Ayra's instincts screamed: Don't fight. Not here. Not now.
"Run," she muttered.
But Silas didn't move.
He tilted his head, eyes dimming. "I remember this thing."
Ayra froze. "You do?"
Silas blinked slowly. "When I was the jailer… it was my leash."
Her throat tightened.
[Vaultbearer One — Stability: 62% and dropping] [System recommends severing connection]
"No," Ayra snapped. "I won't leave him."
She pulled Silas's hand. "We fall back to the anchor gate. Lirien has it open."
He didn't move. "If we run, it'll track us. It's coded to my essence."
Ayra stepped in front of him. "Then I'll burn your essence clean."
Before he could argue, she sliced open her palm and let the Reversal Flame ignite across her skin.
[Trait Activated: Vaeren Burn] [Effect: Scrambles traceable Vault code for 120 seconds]
The system shrieked in her ears.
The Eraser faltered mid-glide.
Silas blinked. "You—You rewrote me. Temporarily."
"Long enough to move," she hissed, grabbing him again.
They sprinted—barely ahead of the unraveling silence.
The rocks beneath their feet twisted and crumbled. Ghost memories rose in the air, whispering half-formed warnings from futures that had already died.
[00:49 – until Flame expires]
"We need extraction now!" Ayra shouted into her comm.
Zayen's voice came instantly. "Portal's open. Thirty meters ahead, over the ridge!"
Silas stumbled. His connection to the physical world was still weak.
Ayra yanked him up. "I didn't pull you out just to lose you again."
He coughed. "If I forget again—"
"I'll remind you."
A shadow passed overhead.
The Eraser Beast dropped into their path, too fast—too sudden.
Ayra felt it coming before she saw it—that silence again. The sound of forgetting. A cancelation of breath.
Silas shoved her sideways just before the beast lunged.
Its claw missed Ayra's shoulder by a hair.
But it brushed Silas.
And that was enough.
He screamed—not from pain, but from being unwritten. Ayra saw it—
His name flickering.
His memories disconnecting.
His file stuttering in real time.
"No!"
Ayra activated a last-ditch sequence:
[Emergency Protocol: Flame Lock] [Cost: Memory Fragment] [Effect: Freeze Erasure for 5 seconds]
The system took a piece of her. She didn't know what.
Maybe a birthday. A laugh. A moment with someone she once loved.
But the Eraser stopped—stunned.
She lunged, grabbed Silas's hand again, and dove through the anchor portal just as the mountain behind them imploded into data ash.
Silence. Cold. Static. Then—
Ayra tumbled onto solid stone inside the safe zone.
Zayen and Lirien were waiting, weapons drawn, eyes wide.
"Where is he?" Zayen asked.
Ayra looked down.
Silas was breathing—but his eyes were empty. The black one flickered with static. The hollow one was now completely dark.
He didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Didn't know her.
Lirien dropped to her knees, scanning him. "Minimal damage to his neural structure. But something's wrong with his identity tether."
Ayra sat beside him, pressed her forehead to his.
"He doesn't remember," she whispered.
Zayen glanced at the system overlay.
[Vaultbearer One: Silas — Status: Dormant] [Reconnection Thread Severed] [Recovery Probability: 11%]
"Do we leave him behind?" he asked quietly.
Ayra's jaw tightened. "We don't leave family behind."
She took Silas's hand.
Even if she had to re-teach him everything—who he was, who they were—she would.
Because he came when she called.
And that meant something.
[Mission Update: Vaultbearer One Secured] [Next Target Identified: Vaultbearer Two — Codename: Bloom]
Bloom in the Blood City
Silas hadn't spoken since the Eraser touched him.
He walked quietly beside Ayra, his eyes dull but flickering now and then—like a storm just barely contained behind a cracked window. Zayen didn't trust it. Lirien didn't understand it. But Ayra refused to let him go.
They reached the edge of the Forgotten City at dusk.
If you could call it dusk.
The sky was the color of dried blood, and buildings leaned at impossible angles. Lights blinked in windows that no longer had glass. Streets rearranged themselves when no one looked. The air carried the smell of metal, soil, and something wrong.
"This is where Vaultbearer Two was last sensed," Lirien whispered.
Ayra didn't answer. She wasn't listening to the system anymore.
She was listening to the wind.
It carried something.
Laughter.
Screams.
Music.
"Someone's playing a piano," Zayen muttered.
Ayra nodded slowly. "And crying between notes."
They entered the city, stepping over old cables and forgotten dolls.
Silas paused near a wall. His fingers touched the stone.
It whispered back.
"Memories," he said.
Zayen turned to Ayra. "Why would someone hide a Vaultbearer here?"
"Because this city doesn't just rewrite itself," Ayra said. "It rewrites you."
Lirien's hand tightened on her scanner, but the screen blinked nonsense. Numbers reversed. Names scattered. Every attempt to read the environment failed.
"Dead zone," she said. "No scan, no map, no backup."
"Then we walk blind," Ayra replied.
They followed the piano.
It played and wept.
Through alleyways that changed. Over roads that turned to paper, then back to stone. Statues moved when not watched. Rain fell upward for a moment, then turned to ash.
Silas was the first to see her.
A girl—no older than twelve—sitting at a piano in the center of a broken plaza, surrounded by floating rose petals that never touched the ground.
Her eyes were closed.
But the moment they stepped closer, she stopped playing.
"I knew you would come," she said.
Ayra stepped forward slowly. "You're the Bloom."
The girl opened her eyes.
They were pure white.
No iris. No pupil. Just light.
"I was once called Rema. Before this city ate my name."
Zayen drew his blade. "She's a child—"
"No," Lirien said quietly. "She's a container."
Ayra knelt.
"You remember me?" she asked.
"I remember your pain. I've heard it in every song I've played since the towers fell."
The rose petals around them began to spin faster.
Faster.
Cutting the air.
"Don't step closer," Rema said, voice hollow. "I'm dangerous."
Ayra didn't move.
"I don't care."
"I'll bloom," the girl whispered. "And everything around me will forget what it is."
Ayra's throat tightened.
"I've already lost people," she said. "I'm not letting another one go."
Rema looked down.
"Then sing with me."
"What?"
"Sing something true."
Ayra blinked. "I don't know how to sing."
"You do," Rema whispered. "Your soul remembers."
Ayra reached for her memories—and one rose to the surface.
A song her mother used to hum, back when Ayra had no powers, no Vault, no flame—only a small hand holding a bigger one.
She sang.
And the petals slowed.
Rema's hands shook.
"I remember that," she whispered. "My mother sang it too."
Then the piano cracked down the middle.
And so did the plaza.
Silas grabbed Ayra as the ground split.
Zayen pulled Lirien back.
The petals rose, spiraling like a storm—until they collapsed into a single, blood-red rose in Rema's hand.
She stood.
Whole.
A little older now. Her voice steadier.
"My Vault is Bloom," she said. "It takes the truth buried in suffering and forces it to grow."
She stepped down.
Ayra caught her before she fell.
"I want to come with you," Rema whispered. "Before this place eats me again."
Ayra nodded.
"You're already one of us."
As they left the city, it began to shift.
Behind them, the piano rebuilt itself.
Waiting for the next forgotten song.
But they didn't look back.
Because ahead of them was war.
And now they had two Vaultbearers.