A NEW BEGINNING

A curious eye, a little beast,

peeked beyond the gate at least.

Mother warned: “Don’t wander there,

beyond that gate lies false affair.”

Darkness and shadows lay in wait,

now Mother weeps, it was too late.

Ela, Beacon, Upper Prim

“I imagined it all so differently,” Ela sighed, leaning her back against the railing of the observation terrace. The cold wind bit at her face, but she barely noticed. The place that had once offered peace and comfort with its magnificent views now felt empty and detached, as if even the sky itself were signaling that something fundamental had changed.

“I’ve reached what should’ve been the peak,” she said quietly, “but these last few days, it feels like I’m wading through the worst kind of filth with no way out.”

Her gaze drifted to Miren, who was lying on her back, eyes fixed on the slowly drifting clouds above. She had been silently listening to Ela’s complaints for a while. Now, she turned her face toward her, and even in the dim light, Ela could not miss the sorrow reflected in her artificial eyes. That reflection mirrored her own feelings, just as hollow and heavy.

“It’ll be alright,” Miren said. Her voice was flat, as though she were reciting a phrase she no longer believed.

Ela turned away, gripping the railing tighter. She knew she ought to nod, agree, say something. But she couldn’t.

“It won’t, Miren. He won’t be alright. You didn’t see it.” Her voice broke as the memory of his eyes came back to her, wild, empty, filled with hopelessness. “He was completely out of his mind. He wanted to die…”

Her hands clenched into fists, as if that could force out the memories that kept returning, over and over. Like a nightmare she couldn’t shake.

“But he didn’t.”

“Only because he ran out of time.”

Miren slowly sat up, propping her elbows on her knees and looking at Ela with grave seriousness. “You can’t blame yourself. He had no idea what he was getting into. They brought him in more dead than alive. He might not have even known who he was by the time they put him on the table. Waking up after a change like that… trust me, it’s no simple thing. Not even when you choose it willingly. Let alone when you’re thrown into it without warning.”

Ela fell silent. She realized Miren knew far more about it all than she herself ever could. But there was something in Miren’s bitter tone that stuck with her. Something that suggested even Miren still hadn’t come to terms with any of it.

She leaned on the railing again and let her eyes drift down to the depths of Prim below. She didn’t know why, but the thought came to her, what would it be like to step into that emptiness and let the wind take her body? She shook her head. Bad thoughts.

“And what about you? Don’t you regret what you did?” she burst out suddenly. The question hung in the air like an uninvited guest. Ela knew there was no going back, it had been spoken, and the answer, whatever it might be, was bound to come.

A shadow crossed Miren’s face, a flicker of old pain surfacing for a brief moment.

“It’s complicated,” she admitted quietly. Her voice was calm, but a heavy undertone crept in now and then. “On one hand, I’m part of something extraordinary. On the other… I don’t remember anything from what happens out there. All I’m left with are really bad dreams.”

She rose slowly and stepped closer to the railing. The wind whipped her hair around her face, but she seemed unaware of it. Her gaze vanished into the distance, where the sky merged with the horizon.

“Where do they send you, anyway?” Ela asked.

“Mostly south. That’s where most of us go,” Miren replied, her eyes still locked on the horizon. “But lately… lately a few of us are being sent inland. Usually in small groups. Two, sometimes three. They pick the most experienced ones. The ones under Lazzal. And that mediator of his, Nylen.”

Ela froze. Her brow furrowed deeply, and her fingers, resting on the cold railing, tightened again. The agreement with the Council was clear. Mods were only supposed to operate in the South, away from civilian zones. And now…

“Inland?” she repeated in disbelief. There was a trace of anger in her voice.

Miren nodded without lifting her gaze. “Supposedly an anti-terrorist operation. We're helping to neutralize a group that calls itself the Scavengers.”

Ela’s breath caught for a moment. Scavengers, the word hit her like a hammer between the eyes. Her mind was instantly flooded with images from the past.

Karhen Rouz.

Three bodies swinging in the cold morning air, fear for her life, and behind it all, one man. Gramps. Back then, when they tore her home apart, they didn’t have a name yet. But they were the same people. The ones who eventually took her brother.

“You’ve heard of them, haven’t you?” Miren asked, catching the look on her face.

Ela nodded. She knew more about them than she ever wanted to. And now, her thoughts took a darker turn. Ked… Could Ked be fighting for Gramps and his half-baked ideals? Ela couldn’t imagine it, but she couldn’t rule it out either. And if he’d joined them, maybe one day he would come face to face with the modificants. And she didn’t believe he’d survive that meeting.

She glanced again at Miren, who seemed even more fragile now, leaning on the railing beside her. Ela couldn’t picture someone like her coldly killing her brother. But to Miren, he’d just be another target. It wouldn’t be up to her.

Ela shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of the weight of those thoughts. But the taste of fear for her brother lingered.

“This isn’t right…” she began, but left the rest unsaid. The words caught on her tongue, because what could she even say?

It’s not right to kill our own? But they’re fighting us.

I’m scared for my brother?

If he’s fighting for Gramps, he’s one of them.

A legitimate target.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

Miren gave her a quick glance but said nothing. She, too, seemed like someone wrestling with thoughts better left unspoken.

“If the Council finds out, there’ll be trouble,” she said eventually, and without meaning to, recalled Valis. That bastard would have a field day if this ever got to him. And she had no illusions, this couldn’t stay hidden forever.

“You know that idiot you whacked with a pipe? He ended up becoming a councilman.”

Miren looked at her in surprise, then smirked. “Well, shows you don’t need much up top to get a title.”

They both burst into genuine laughter, as if, just for a moment, they’d forgotten the gloomy mood.

“And if he starts causing trouble again, at least now we know what works on him,” Miren added with a grin, then looked thoughtfully back at the sky. “Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t done it back then.”

A chill ran down Ela’s spine. She knew exactly what would’ve happened to her and the thought made her skin crawl. As if she could still feel his grip around her throat. And what would’ve come next?

“We probably wouldn’t be standing here right now. I’d be dead. No one from our lab made it out alive,” Ela said softly, but with a hint of gratitude. Somehow, even the worst moments seemed to have a purpose.

She thought about that every evening, especially when she stood at the glass capsule and watched Tonot slip into synchronization sleep. Her eyes lingered on the display where the error kept flashing, an error that wouldn’t let her rest. She kept wondering.

“How did it even happen?” she said aloud, knowing that Seren, though unseen, was present and listening. She always was.

A flickering figure appeared just a few steps away, thoughtfully twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

“You mean the error?”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Seren admitted. “There was an unexpected accident. Sometimes that happens.”

“An accident?” Ela straightened. “What happened?”

Seren shifted on the spot, hesitant, then finally asked a question that felt more like a test: “How brave are you?”

Ela raised her eyebrows in surprise, shrugging. She had no idea where this was going.

“What if I could take you somewhere no one else here has access to?”

Ela threw her hands up in confusion. “Where?”

“I want you to see it. To understand why it’s so important to me that we find the real Tonot.”

There was urgency in Seren’s voice, urgent enough that Ela simply nodded. Still, a knot tightened in her stomach, as if she’d just swallowed a live whiptail. If there was a place mediators and others weren’t allowed, there had to be a reason. But her curiosity was stronger.

Seren led her into the lower levels of the Beacon. Most of the personnel were already asleep at this hour, so they encountered almost no one along the way. The meco projected gentle waves of red and blue onto the walls, flowing seamlessly into strange violet hues. Ela knew it was a reflection of her own mix of fear and curiosity. And yet, it calmed her in an odd way.

They stopped in front of what appeared to be an ordinary wall, which suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, slid open.

The entrance was perfectly concealed. Likely, only the werren knew it existed. And one unintended remnant of a young mediator, left years ago in the Beacon’s system.

“I’ve had plenty of time to uncover all the secrets down here,” Seren said with a faint smile at Ela’s surprised expression, then motioned for her to enter.

Behind the wall was a lift cabin.

“Where does it go?” Ela asked, feeling her apprehension grow.

“Deep down. To the very heart of the Beacon. Where its true essence lies.”

Ela didn’t like the vagueness of that answer, but she didn’t want to come off as too frightened. So she stepped in. There was nothing she needed to do, the lift closed and began its silent descent. Ela felt how quickly and smoothly it dropped. She ran her hand nervously along the wall. Its chill reminded her of the icy breath of a winter morning. As she exhaled, she watched her breath turn to mist. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, as if that could keep out the cold that was settling into her body and her thoughts.

“You know, the Beacon likes to present itself as a hub of technological advancement,” Seren said into the hum of the lift. “Inhabited by mysterious werren who watch over the workings of the world with benevolence. Guardians, guides… maybe even gods. People call them all sorts of things, see them in many different ways. Like parents who love their children. Sometimes giving us a gentle push, sometimes stepping back, always certain that our time hasn’t yet come.”

“That’s exactly how my mother spoke about them,” Ela confirmed, her eyes lingering on the flickering light within the cabin. For a moment, she truly felt that Seren was her authentic, unfiltered imprint.

“And she believed it,” Seren nodded, “even though I only truly understood the Beacon’s nature after I uploaded myself into their system. Only then could I fully immerse myself in its essence and discover its primary function. And find them.”

“Find who?” Ela’s nervousness deepened.

The lift stopped. The doors opened and a wave of terror swept over her. In front of them stretched thick, sticky darkness. Instinctively, she stepped back.

But it turned out the darkness was the least of it. The stench of decaying flesh and rot surged into the cabin like an invisible tide, choking her throat and twisting her stomach. She clamped both hands over her nose and mouth, struggling not to retch. It took a while before she could even slightly adjust and then, finally, with her stomach still clenched, she stepped out of the lift.

Overhead, a single light flickered on, dim and lonely. Others followed, gradually revealing a narrow walkway stretching into the unknown, and a vast space yawning below.

It was so massive that Ela couldn’t see the end of it. She stepped cautiously onto the walkway and held her breath. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.

“These are… these are regeneration tanks!” she whispered in disbelief. They were nearly identical to the ones used for the Modificants. “How many are there? Hundreds? Or…”

“Thousands, just in this section,” Seren corrected her softly. Her voice carried a melancholy weight, as if the number itself held a sorrowful story.

Ela moved closer to the edge of the walkway and looked down. The tanks were filled with thick liquid she knew well. And within that fluid, bodies floated. Even from this distance, she could tell, they were definitely not human.

“Are those…?”

“Werren,” Seren answered calmly. “Sleeping. Forever dreaming, trapped inside the Unconscious.”

“Do they know about us?” Fear gripped Ela, but Seren shook her head.

“They know nothing anymore. They’re lost. In their pursuit of knowledge, they unknowingly committed genocide on themselves. They’re still alive… but sometimes, accidents happen that kill them.”

Seren pointed to one of the tanks. Ela leaned over the railing and saw what she meant. One of the tubes had clearly been drained. At the bottom lay a collapsed body, likely one of the sources of the pervasive stench of decay. She looked around and realized there were many other tanks in similar condition.

“Accidents,” Seren said flatly. “They happen. The system keeps a record. Since the last awakening of the werren, 383 years ago, 212 have been lost. It might sound like a small number, but the troubling part is that 150 of those cases happened in just the last fifty years. It’s accelerating. The Beacons are aging.”

“So they’re dying?” An indescribable anxiety washed over Ela.

She realized she was standing above a mass grave. Only the ones lying in it didn’t yet know they were dead. And their time was running out.

“Exactly. Tank failure usually means death. But sometimes… sometimes the werren inside survives. Just like during incident number 195.”

“What happened?”

“The werren woke up. It didn’t kill him. He even got out of the tank.”

“They saved him?”

Seren nodded, a sorrowful expression on her face. “They did. He even had a name... Nonon. Before they managed to contain the madness that took hold of him upon awakening, he had already breached the Beacon and disrupted the connection between dozens of shells and the Unconscious. Half of them were irreparably damaged. And to make things worse, three mediators went insane and two scientists took their own lives under his influence. That’s the kind of power a werren has when you violently tear him from the Unconscious.”

Ela gasped. Suddenly, she felt flushed with heat, even though her hands were still frozen stiff. It was as if staying here any longer would cause frost to form in her hair.

“Tonot and I were lucky,” Seren continued. “He came away with just a minor glitch in his synchronization process. And I realized then that my purpose lay somewhere completely different.”

Seren glanced around, her expression distant, as if caught in old memories. Meanwhile, Ela turned back toward the lift. It was still there, its open doors like a portal to the world she knew. All she had to do was step in and forget everything she’d seen here. Nothing more.

She looked over her shoulder one last time, and her eyes landed on one of the tanks. The figure inside stirred slightly. A twitch of the arm, like someone caught in a vivid dream. And then it hit her: she was looking at thousands of living beings, sleeping, trapped in dreams over which they had no control. The Unconscious had tamed them, turned them into nothing more than instruments of the system. And somewhere in one of those tanks lay the one she had been searching for.

Her stomach turned.

She couldn’t stay any longer.

She broke into a run, dashed into the lift, and frantically searched for a button to take her back up.

“I want to leave,” she whispered helplessly. “Please, get me out of here.”

The doors slid shut, and the lift lurched as it began to move. Ela leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. She tried to steady her breathing, slow the frantic pulse pounding in her throat. Her hands trembled, as did her legs, barely able to hold her weight.

The lift jolted again, slowed, and stopped. The doors opened with a quiet hiss. Ela froze.

“I hope you have a damn good explanation for this.”

She stared at Vin in shock. He stood in the doorway, his expression hard and hostile.

“I… I…” she stammered, her mind racing for something, anything, to say.

“So you don’t,” he snapped and turned to leave. It was clear he wouldn’t just let this slide.

“Vin, wait!” Ela stepped forward quickly and grabbed his arm to stop him.

Surprisingly, he let her, but the fury in his eyes didn’t fade.

“Why should I? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I do.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“How did you do it? The system doesn’t let anyone in there. No one. No exceptions. How the hell did you manage it? Who let you in?”

“Vin! I… I don’t know. The doors just opened for me.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

“On their own? I doubt that. And how did you even know the entrance existed?”

“Just… luck?” she offered weakly, and from the look on Vin’s face, she knew instantly it was the wrong answer.

“You’re lying,” he said, voice sharp as steel.

Everything inside her tightened. She felt the ground slipping away beneath her feet. Then she made a decision.

“It’s the meco.”

“The meco?” Vin repeated, and his scowl deepened even further, which Ela hadn’t thought possible.

“Yes,” she nodded. “When you gave me that shock… something changed. I feel like… sometimes it lets me do more than it should. Like there’s some kind of program that’s willing to cooperate with me.”

Vin narrowed his eyes, evaluating her. What she’d just said had clearly piqued his interest.

“Program?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call it. But sometimes it feeds me information or options that shouldn’t exist.”

She looked him straight in the eyes, hoping her explanation sounded convincing. There was no way she’d admit she was seeing her dead mother. He’d think she was insane.

“That… that’s strange,” he admitted at last.

“It is,” Ela agreed quickly. “But it’s the truth, Vin. I don’t know where that lift even went. I was stupid to get in, but believe me, there was no bad intent. And you can believe me twice when I say: I never, ever want to go back into that awful darkness again.”

“Darkness?”

“Yeah. Darkness and horrible, suffocating air. I came right back up. Honestly? I got scared out of my mind.”

“So you don’t know what’s down there?”

She shook her head. Then, curious, tilted it slightly. “Do you? Do you know where it leads?”

Vin snorted. “It’s restricted access, remember? So no, I know nothing, just like everyone else here. Come with me. I’ll try running a diagnostic on your meco. Maybe I’ll find whatever’s causing those anomalies.”

Ela breathed a quiet sigh of relief. It looked like the worst had passed, barely. Vin’s expression had softened again, but Ela knew he was still part of the Beacon. If he ever truly believed she posed a threat, he wouldn’t hesitate to act.

“What exactly are we looking for?” she asked as she handed him the meco, which Vin plugged into the diagnostic terminal.

“What you told me. Some kind of anomaly. You know, it’s not the first time I’ve had the feeling that there’s a ghost in the system.”

“A ghost?” Her stomach clenched.

“That’s what we call orphaned programs. They were built for a purpose, but after completing it, their creator forgot to shut them down. This one seems harmless, but sometimes I feel like it’s watching us. Some days it’s more active, some less.”

“Did you tell anyone?” she asked casually, trying to sound bored, as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Why would I? It’s harmless. Unless it’s interfering with a meco. That would be… concerning. The Beacon has strict rules, and none of us are allowed to break them. Not even mediators, no matter how high up you are on our pyramid.”

Ela nodded to show she understood. The diagnostic device beeped and the results appeared on the screen.

“Nothing,” Vin said, handing the meco back. He looked slightly disappointed. As she took it, he caught her hand.

“Ela, however you pulled it off, be smarter next time. If anyone else had caught that breach signal, you’d have lost more than just your position.”

She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze. Vin let go, and she quickly rushed out of his workshop. She didn’t stop until she reached her quarters, where she collapsed onto her bed. She felt awful. She had risked everything and nearly lost it all.

Furiously, she tore the meco from her ear. She wanted to hurl it at the wall. How much simpler would her life be if she’d never been able to connect with the Beacon?

But how many incredible, unimaginable things would she have missed…