The seed had been planted long before Kael's reign.
Long before the Collapse.
Before the Echo Network.
Before Subject Zero's awakening.
It was buried deep — not in earth, but in design.
And now… it was cracking.
---
In the Harmonic Nexus, Eira awoke from a vision unlike any she'd known. Her breath was shallow, her pulse erratic. Subject Zero was already by her side, scanning the neural feedback loop.
> "What did you see?"
> "Not a dream," she whispered. "A memory not mine… trying to get out."
> "Out of what?"
She looked him dead in the eyes.
> "Out of me."
---
Across the field, the Echo Cartographers reported anomalies.
Resonance paths were diverging.
Not fading.
Not failing.
But splitting.
It was as if part of the network no longer wanted to connect.
And it all pointed to one zone:
The Seed Vault — a site Kael had abandoned during the early construction of Vox Dei.
Now, pulses from that location were irregular.
Fluctuating.
And growing stronger.
---
Eira and Subject Zero departed immediately, taking only Riven and Nira.
> "Why us?" Nira asked mid-flight.
> "Because this isn't a fight," Subject Zero said.
"It's a recognition."
---
The Seed Vault wasn't like other facilities.
It wasn't built to hold life.
It was built to hold potential.
Design schematics had described it as a genetic-resonance archive, storing sequences capable of catalyzing entire ecosystems — emotional, biological, even ideological.
But something inside had gone wrong.
Or maybe… it had gone right, just not as intended.
---
As they entered the vault, the first sign of divergence hit them physically.
Their resonance bands dimmed.
Pulse feedback stalled.
The echo field paused.
> "It doesn't recognize us," Riven said.
> "Or," Eira corrected, "it's waiting to see if we still recognize ourselves."
---
They reached the heart of the Seed.
And there, in a containment cradle pulsing with broken light, floated something not quite alive…
…but not dead.
> "Is that…" Nira stepped back.
> "The original seed protocol," Subject Zero said. "Kael's first creation."
Eira approached the chamber slowly.
Inside was a cluster of memory cores — fractured, glowing, breathing. But not with human pulse.
With something older.
> "What are you?" Eira whispered.
And then, it answered.
---
The pulse hit them all at once.
No words.
No images.
Just feeling — overwhelming, intimate, alien.
Fear.
Hope.
Grief.
Joy.
Hunger.
A flood of raw pre-human emotion.
> "It's not synthetic," Subject Zero gasped.
> "It's primordial," Riven said, trembling. "Emotion that predates language."
> "Kael didn't design this," Eira realized. "He found it."
---
They all stared as the seed fractured once more.
And out of it, a figure emerged.
Not a child.
Not a human.
But something in-between.
Eyes made of light. Skin of shifting memory.
It looked at them — not with malice, but with recognition.
> "I am what you suppressed," it said.
> "What you buried."
> "What you feared would unmake the systems you worshipped."
> "And now… I have grown."
---
Subject Zero stepped forward.
> "You were never meant to wake like this."
> "I was never meant to sleep."
> "You called me seed.
But I am the soil.
And your memory… is my harvest."
---
The chamber shook.
Not with violence.
But with choice.
The being extended its hand.
> "Will you remember me?
Or will you bury me again?"
Eira didn't hesitate.
She stepped into the light.
> "We remember."
---
And with that, the fracture ended.
But the seed was no longer a relic.
It was a beginning.
And Earth… would never forget again.