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“Zara,” I said, trying again. “My name is Zara.” Basic, but a place to start.

A warmth unfurled in my chest as I said it, like I was offering him more than a name—offering trust. For a heartbeat, the space between us felt charged, the silence humming with the possibility of something... more.

He watched me for a long moment, then, to my surprise, responded. His voice was deeper than I expected, melodic despite its roughness.

He tapped his own chest, wincing as the movement aggravated his injuries. “Ravik,” he said, the word rich with harmonics no human voice could produce.

It resonated through me, low and melodic, and I felt the sound settle somewhere beneath my skin. His name wasn’t just a label—it was a tether, drawing me toward something ancient, something alive.

I nodded, offering a small smile. “Ravik,” I repeated, doing my best to match the tonal qualities of his pronunciation. “Good. That’s good.”

I gestured to the door, then made a walking motion with my fingers. His eyes narrowed, considering. After a moment, he shook his head slightly, then gestured to his damaged lifelines.

Too weak. Not yet. I nodded my understanding.

Another tremor went through the structure, stronger than the previous ones. Dust and small fragments of stone rained down from the ceiling.

The emergency lighting flickered wildly, then failed completely. For a moment, the cell was plunged into total darkness, save for the silver glow of my markings and the fainter gold of Ravik’s lifelines.

Then a new light appeared—a deep, pulsing blue emanating from the glyphs carved into the stone wall. They brightened gradually, their pattern matching the tremors.

Three short pulses, one long. Repeated. A code of some kind, activated by the power fluctuations.

Ravik’s reaction was immediate and alarming. He pushed himself further back against the wall, his expression a mixture of recognition and dread.

He knew what this was. What it meant. And it frightened him.

My markings responded to the glowing glyphs, the silver patterns shifting, realigning themselves to match the blue light’s pulsations.

The sensation was intense, a deep resonance that seemed to bypass physical sensation entirely, connecting directly with something more fundamental.

“What is it?” I asked, knowing he couldn’t answer in words I’d understand. “What’s happening?”

Ravik’s gaze shifted between my markings and the glowing glyphs. He made a series of gestures—hands spreading wide, then collapsing inward, followed by a slashing motion across his throat.

Whatever this phenomenon represented, he considered it dangerous. Potentially lethal.

The blue light intensified, the glyphs seeming to float off the stone surface. Information flooded my awareness—not in words or images, but in pure data streams, complex patterns I could somehow interpret.

The ruins were awakening. Systems dormant for centuries beginning to activate. And Hammond’s experiments were accelerating the process, creating dangerous instabilities in the power grid.

The resonance between my markings and Ravik’s lifelines had triggered something within the cell itself—a recognition protocol perhaps, or a diagnostic sequence.

The knowledge came with a price. Pain lanced through my head, sharp and insistent. Too much information, too quickly, with no contextual framework to process it.

I pressed my palms against my temples, trying to block out the overwhelming input.

Ravik moved suddenly, surprisingly fast for his condition. His hand closed around my wrist, pulling it away from the glowing glyphs. His grip was a lifeline—steady, deliberate, andstrangely intimate. The moment our skin met, my markings flared, not in pain... but in recognition."

The contact sent another jolt of resonance between us, but this time it felt stabilizing, grounding. The chaotic data stream became more ordered, more comprehensible.

Connection. That was the key. The markings and lifelines were meant to work in tandem, to balance each other.

Silver and gold, complementary frequencies creating harmony instead of discord. But Hammond’s crude experiments had disrupted the natural patterns, created dangerous distortions in the energy flow.

Ravik pulled me further from the wall, his golden eyes locked with mine. Communication without language, intent conveyed through necessity.

Danger. Keep away. Not ready.