STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview

STARLIGHT UNBOUND

contain whatever was growing inside him.

I’m going to burst out of this skin.

***

Lucien realized he had stopped moving. His breath came hard and fast as he looked up, blinking, and found himself standing in the park —the same place where the Remembrance celebration had been held.

Now, it was empty.

The massive holographic displays were gone, the scripted voices absent. All that remained was the rustle of leaves and the distant bustle of the city. The absence of the crowd left the space feeling larger, emptier... thick.

Lucien stumbled to a bench, lowering himself onto it with a shuddering breath, his body sagging under the weight of exhaustion. But the fire inside him hadn ’t faded. It burned—low, steady, alive.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes scanning the vast emptiness of the park. The silence pressed in, not with its usual comfort, but with something else... a question.

Lucien pulled the black disk from his pocket and turned it over in his hand, flipping it back and forth, as though expecting it to suddenly reveal something more than what he already knew. The golden constellation emblem caught the fading sunlight, pulsing in his vision like a heartbeat.

For the first time, Lucien didn’t try to push the feeling away.

Didn ’t try to rationalize it.

Didn ’t try to bury it under logic.

“It’s all connected. I can feel it.” His voice was barely a whisper, but it felt like the most honest thing he ’d ever said. “But why now? Why me?”

The fire stirred again—burning, insistent. A call. A demand. A beginning.

Lucien sat alone on the bench, surrounded by the empty park, night sinking in around him. But inside, something burned brighter than it ever had before.

His grip on the black disk tightened, his thumb tracing the constellation again and again, as though it was the only thing tethering him to reality.

“I need to find her.”

58