They came at midnight.
No broadcast.
No warning.
No mercy.
The Hollow didn't move like soldiers.
They moved like storms.
Silent. Sudden. Precise.
Six strike teams.
Simultaneous attacks.
One on our tech hub.
One on the old supply depot.
Two on Divide patrol cells.
One on a League outpost aligned with us.
And one—
Aimed straight at me.
We felt the shift before we saw it.
The lights in the safehouse flickered.
Air tightened.
Echo burst into the room.
"They're here."
Reese's voice crackled on comms. "They just disabled three of our watchers. They're inside the perimeter."
I grabbed my jacket, pulled my gloves on, and activated the shortwave flare strapped to my wrist.
The Divide didn't have alarms.
We were the alarm.
Delryn sealed the northern tunnel.
Reese rerouted our fallback lines.
Synn lit two beacons across Sector Six—code for scatter and converge.
And Echo?
She stayed with me.
Because the Hollow hadn't come to destroy the Divide.
They came to break the Anchor.
They dropped in through the ceiling.
Not masked this time.
Not hidden.
These weren't scouts.
These were executioners.
Black suits.
Red visors.
Crackling with stolen power tech.
The first landed three feet from me.
"Subject C-17," he said. "You're destabilizing the field."
I stepped forward. "You're the ones lighting the fuse."
"Correction," he replied. "We're pulling the plug."
The room erupted.
Energy surged.
I threw my hand forward—raw plasma cracking across the floor.
Echo flanked left, shadows dancing like blades.
We moved like we'd trained for this our whole lives.
Maybe we had.
I hit one in the chest.
Cratered him into a wall.
Echo blinded two with a smoke snap, then sliced a third before he could blink.
But more kept coming.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
They weren't here to win.
They were here to end it.
Delryn's voice hit comms.
"They've triggered something at Origin. I'm reading seismic shifts across the whole undergrid."
Reese added, "And the League just scrambled all surviving command units. They're on the move. Everyone's heading here."
I looked at Echo.
She nodded once.
"We hold."
Then I felt it.
A pull.
From below.
From Origin.
From the sphere.
It was waking up again.
Rebalancing.
Because the world was out of sync—and I was the weight on the scale.
I closed my eyes.
Heard the voice.
"Too many fractures. Collapse imminent."
"Then give me a choice," I whispered.
"Anchor must absorb."
My body shook.
The light in my chest sparked harder.
Echo grabbed my shoulder. "Talk to me."
"I think I can stop it."
"How?"
I looked at her.
Eyes glowing. Hands trembling.
"By taking it all in."
She didn't flinch.
Didn't argue.
She just said, "Then I'll pull you back."
We moved.
Out of the safehouse.
Into the chaos.
Divide members falling back, regrouping.
Civilians fleeing fires.
League drones clashing with Hollow shadows midair.
The city had turned into one giant battlefield.
And we ran through it.
Toward the center.
Toward Origin.
The ground cracked near the transport hub.
A glowing faultline split the street in half.
From it, a Hollow agent rose—taller than the others.
Glowing.
His voice boomed.
"C-17. You are the final lock. Come forward."
I stepped onto the rubble.
"I'm not your tool."
"You're not ours. You're everyone's. That's the problem."
He raised both arms.
Origin's pulse exploded beneath us.
Reality bent.
We fell through light.
Time slowed.
I saw versions of myself—
One leading the League.
One burning with Hollow fire.
One… gone.
Dust.
Erased.
The voice spoke.
"Anchor has reached capacity. Final input required."
I landed in the chamber.
Origin pulsed ahead.
Echo appeared beside me.
Barely standing.
Bleeding from her arm.
She took my hand.
"I'll hold you up. Just do it."
I stepped forward.
Light wrapped around my chest.
Origin spoke:
"Will you anchor the system permanently? Absorb all unstable charge. Prevent collapse. Delay final fracture."
I looked back.
At her.
At the world behind her.
Then nodded.
"Yes."
Pain hit like fire.
But not burning.
Becoming.
My veins turned to light.
My heartbeat synced with the pulse of a city.
Time shattered—
—and remade itself around me.
I was everywhere.
Every street.
Every zone.
Every power signature.
And I held.
Held the war.
Held the weight.
Held the world.
Then, Origin dimmed.
Settled.
The pulse slowed.
Echo caught me as I fell.
I was still glowing.
But breathing.
Alive.
Outside, the Hollow retreated.
League forces paused.
And the people?
They came forward.
Not to fight.
To stand.
Beside each other.
A new phase didn't start with a bomb.
It started with a breath.
A choice.
Held by the last one willing to stand still while the world spun.
We rebuilt.
Slowly.
Not perfectly.
But honestly.
The League fractured.
Some rejoined the people.
Some disappeared.
The Hollow went silent.
Or underground.
Maybe both.
And the Divide?
We didn't rule.
We held space.
For people to be more than pawns or weapons.
One year later, the plaza had flowers again.
Kids ran over the same ground where we first stood.
Where the light once cracked the sky.
Where the world almost ended.
And chose not to.
Echo joined me there.
We sat on the edge of the old fountain.
She nudged me.
"You still hum."
"I still anchor."
"Still hurting?"
"Every day."
She smiled.
"Still worth it?"
I looked out across the plaza.
At the people.
The colors.
The silence.
The peace.
"Yeah," I said. "Still worth it."