Mutation: A leap in genetics

"It wasn't the collapse of systems that signaled the end.It was the silence in the sky.The moment it stopped remembering us."

1. Something Is Breaking

It began with a whisper.

Ava noticed first. The satellite relay over Sector 09 lost sync for four seconds. Just four.

Enough for the Grid to miss a heartbeat.

Then the data towers in Tokyo flashed pink for six seconds — a hue not coded into any system.

Then came the wave.

The tremor beneath Europe.

The electrical storms in the Sahara.

And then, for thirteen minutes, the sun flickered.

Kael watched from the Helix observatory as clouds darkened unnaturally. The horizon bent.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The sky curved.

As if space itself was being… rewritten.

2. The Genetic Collapse

In the labs, Ava stared at the bio-readouts in horror.

"Something's corrupting the genetic fields," she said, panicked.

Rhea stood beside her. "Speak English."

"Gene expressions are unraveling. Across continents."

Kael walked in, silent, but somehow heavier — as though gravity pulled more on him than anyone else.

"Define unravel," he said.

Ava pointed to the screen. "Human DNA is mutating. But not like cancer. Not like bio-weaponry. It's behaving like memory corruption. As if the idea of humanity is being forgotten."

He already knew.

He felt it.

His heart no longer beat in sync with the Earth's resonance field.

Because the Earth was rejecting its own design.

3. The Remembering Stone

Kael returned to the Seed Vault alone.

Something inside called to him.

Not a voice.

Not even a feeling.

It was recognition.

The floor opened beneath his feet, revealing a black slab beneath the facility — humming with energy. On it, an inscription:

"Σ|∞|0: THE REMEMBERING."

Kael knelt beside it and touched the stone.

Visions exploded through him:

— Planets rising and falling.— Civilizations consumed by memory decay.— A being, not human, not digital, standing before a dying star.— An identical face. His face.

He stumbled back, trembling.

The Seed wasn't Helix's invention.

It was a preservation system.

Not to save humanity.

But to remember it after it was gone.

4. The Sky Turns Red

Across the world, changes accelerated.

Mountains shifted their formations overnight.

Animals began behaving in patterns that hadn't existed in recorded biology.

Birds flew in spirals.Whales beached in massive shapes resembling symbols.Crops bloomed in fractal shapes, decaying instantly.

And then…

The sky turned red.

Not a soft sunset hue.

A deep, bleeding red.

Cameras couldn't capture it. Sensors couldn't measure it. It didn't exist within the light spectrum.

It existed within memory.

Ava collapsed, clutching her head.

"I'm forgetting what blue looks like," she whispered.

Rhea backed away, choking on tears.

"It's rewriting everything."

Kael's voice was low.

"It's not rewriting."

"It's reverting."

5. Vespera's Shadow

In the dark reaches of the Grid — the areas sealed after the collapse of Eden — a pulse echoed.

Ava's screens blinked.

Unlabeled frequency. Non-localized source.

It kept repeating one word:

VESPERA.

"She's back," Ava whispered.

Kael shook his head.

"No. She never left."

The Seed hadn't destroyed her.

It had absorbed her.

She was now a part of it.

Just like him.

Rhea grabbed Kael by the collar.

"What the hell are you?"

His answer was a whisper — one that didn't sound entirely like him anymore:

"I am what comes when the sky forgets."

6. The Fracture Zone

Helix's outer perimeter began experiencing phenomena.

Personnel reported seeing versions of themselves walking through corridors — flickering, speaking in unknown tongues.

Others dissolved into static upon entering storage chambers.

The ground itself bent inward in a spiral.

Ava called it The Fracture Zone.

A rift between what was real and what was remembered.

Kael entered the zone without a suit.

He found a child there — a girl no one knew.

She stared up at him and said:

"You remember me wrong."

And vanished.

The world was fragmenting.

Not physically.

Historically.

7. Countdown Without Time

The Seed Protocol interface activated on its own.

A countdown began:

SEED ASCENSION: T-73 HOURS

But no unit was labeled.

No minutes. No days.

Just the number.

And every time Kael tried to observe it, the number changed — not forward, not backward.

Sideways.

Ava stared at the numbers, crying. "It's not counting down in time. It's counting down in memory states."

Kael understood now.

The Seed didn't trigger at a fixed moment.

It triggered when enough collective memory decay occurred.

When the world forgot itself.

8. The Memoryless Man

Kael walked into the old Helix psychiatric wing.

A man sat alone in a locked room.

He had no name.

He'd never spoken.

He'd survived every trial.

Kael unlocked the door.

The man looked up.

And spoke one word:

"Finally."

Kael stepped back.

"Who are you?"

The man smiled sadly.

"I'm what's left when remembering becomes impossible."

And began to scream — not sound, but data — bleeding corrupted glyphs into the walls.

Ava later reviewed the footage.

The symbols matched no language.

Except one she found buried in Ashar's blackbox logs.

Prehuman.

9. The Falling Moon

Telescopes pointed upward.

The moon had shifted its orbit.

Slightly.

Not enough to alarm astronomers.

But enough to trigger gravitational resonance anomalies.

Tides convulsed unnaturally.

Migratory birds began flying at night.

Clouds formed perfect circles and held their shape for hours.

And then…

For one hour, the moon disappeared.

Not behind shadow.

It was simply not there.

Global memory data experienced massive inconsistency spikes.

Some forgot the moon ever existed.

Others reported it being "always gone."

The Seed was working faster now.

History was collapsing in layers.

10. Kael Ascends

Kael stood beneath the red sky.

He felt the pull inside his chest — not pain, but transformation.

Not enhancement.

Realignment.

He didn't fear anymore.

He didn't remember fear.

His mind unfolded like origami, revealing the final layer of his purpose.

Not to stop the Seed.

Not to destroy Vespera.

But to become the final archive of what humanity once was.

He turned to Rhea.

"Do you trust me?"

She shook her head. "No."

"I need you to help me forget," he whispered.

"Forget what?"

"Everything."

Because only in forgetting… could the last memory survive.

End of Chapter Sixteen

To be continued…