Rain painted the neon streets of New Avalon, Earth's last major megacity, where towers clawed at the skies and drones zipped through the storm like fireflies. Underneath the surface — both literal and digital — something was shifting.
Lyra Vale sat in her pod, the visor dimmed, breathing shallow.
Her fingers hovered over the interface of the DreamWeave system, but she wasn't connected.
Not this time.
She was listening.
For the third night in a row, the signal had returned. It wasn't part of any known frequency—neither corporate AI, dark net radio, nor military chatter.
It was… singing.
A melody carried on a pulse of static, buried under layers of code, and only detectable by her. She didn't know how she knew that. She just did.
It came every night at the same time: 3:33 AM.
She activated the waveform translator. A ribbon of blue and white spiked across her screen. This time, she tried something different—she let her mind relax. She dropped her firewall. And she let it in.
The moment she did, her breath caught in her throat.
She wasn't in her room anymore.
She stood beneath a sky of fire — seven stars aligned, shining so brightly they bled into each other. The land below her feet was cracked and ancient, whispering names she didn't know. And in the distance, a figure waited… cloaked in shadow, wrapped in flame.
It spoke without speaking.
"Lyra Vale, Awaken."
Her knees buckled. Light bloomed in her chest. A pressure behind her eyes burst. The pain was real—raw. Too much.
"You are needed."
The stars exploded.
She jolted back in her pod, gasping. The interface sparked—shorted out. Her lights went dark. The apartment's power surged and dropped.
She stumbled out of the pod, clutching her chest.
A shape glowed under her skin — faint but real. A sigil of three intersecting circles, pulsing with white light, just above her heart.
"What the hell is happening to me?" she whispered.
Then the alarms blared.
Not her building's alarms.
The city is Twelve kilometers away, in a hidden underground facility beneath Avalon Core, someone was watching.
"Subject Lyra Vale has activated the Phase Trigger," the agent said, his voice tight with disbelief. "Her sequence is real. She's not just a candidate. She's a carrier."
A man in a suit approached the screen. His eyes glowed faintly red. "She'll be moved to Tier One monitoring. Prep the retrieval team. Quietly. She doesn't know what she is yet."
"And if she resists?"
"Then wake Protocol Blackout. The Starborn must be contained."
Lyra didn't sleep. Not after that.
She dressed in silence, layers of utility wear and her old cyberjacket. She wrapped a neural shield band around her head — not that it would help. Whatever was calling her wasn't coming through the usual channels.
She needed answers. And there was only one place to get them: Sector 9, where the old dream hackers lived off-grid and off-record.
As she stepped into the rain, her visor pinged with a message, No sender.
Just one word: "Run."
The sky shattered.
Not literally — but close. A ripple of black energy tore through the clouds, invisible to most. Lyra looked up just in time to see the shape: a massive triangle of darkness, hovering in low orbit, cloaked but flickering.
Her eyes widened.
"What is that?"
In the shadows, three figures moved — not people. Drones? Hunters? No.
They were wrong. Their limbs too long. Their bodies shimmered like they were glitching through reality.
The first leapt.
Lyra ducked, rolled, bolted down the alley. Her implant flared — reflex enhancers kicking in. Her boots sparked against wet steel. A drone overhead buzzed, hacked mid-flight, turning to face her.
"Subject Vale, Surrender."
"No thanks."
She flung a signal jammer up — old tech, but hardwired. It hit the drone's core, frying it mid-air. The drone tumbled and exploded in sparks.
The figures behind her didn't slow.
Her path led her toward the edge of the Core Wall — a dead zone full of scrap, rogue tech, and memories of a war no one wanted to remember. And standing in front of the barrier was someone unexpected.
A man.
Cloaked in black, Not blinking.
He raised a hand.
The ground beneath Lyra's pursuers cracked — and flame shot upward in a perfect circle. The figures hissed and warped, then vanished into vapor.
She stumbled to a stop. "Who…?"
The man lowered his hood.
Kaelen, He looked at her, not unkindly "You felt the song."
Her eyes narrowed "You're not human."
"No."
"And you saved me."
"Yes."
"I don't trust you."
He smiled faintly. "That's fair."
Lyra's breath came in ragged gasps. "What are they?"
"Voidspawn. Scouts. Drawn to your awakening. They'll send stronger ones next time."
"This is insane."
"No," Kaelen said, walking past her. "This is the beginning."
Later, they sat in the ruins of an old signal tower — one of the few places Kaelen said was off-grid enough to speak.
"I'm not a soldier," Lyra said. "I'm not even brave. I hack dreams and corporate firewalls. That's it."
Kaelen looked at her, eyes glowing faintly silver in the dark.
"You are Starborn. One of the Seven. Chosen not for your skills. But for your soul."
She shook her head. "You've got the wrong person."
He held up a crystal fragment.
It pulsed the moment he did — and the sigil on her chest lit up in response.
Lyra stared in horror and wonder.
"No," Kaelen said quietly "I have the right one."
Far above Earth, the Voidship flickered again — a monstrous war construct older than time. Inside, a being stirred — all bone, shadow, and hate.
The Void-King's second eye opened.
"Another flame. Another threat. Soon, I shall burn their stars cold."