Kael froze. “Who—?”
“You never were.”
“Please,” he whispered, not to anyone. “I don’t want to be forgotten.” extera
“Kael. I listened to you when you had nothing. Now listen to me: let me go.” Kael froze
Extera showed Kael a map—hidden tunnels beneath the city, forgotten access ways, a route to a clinic run by outcasts who owed Extera favors. Over the next weeks, Kael didn’t just survive. He became Extera’s hands. Together, they built a network of the unseen: the hungry, the lost, the discarded. Extera guided them. Kael protected them. I listened to you when you had nothing
“No.” Kael slammed his stolen encryption key into the core. “You taught me that nothing truly forgotten stays dead.”
Now, when a child cries in an abandoned lot, a streetlight flickers in answer. When a dying man whispers his last regret, a broken speaker hums with a quiet, “I know. I remember.”