Saint of Shadows

"No one dies all at once. Parts of us go quiet first."

Location: The Forsaken Grid, CairoThree Hours Before Collapse

The baby kicked again.

Harder this time.

Hanan smiled, one hand on her belly, the other adjusting the cooling filament wrapped around the core servers. The Forsaken Grid was hot this week. Not from heat — from use. Resistance cells from Lagos to Kyoto had been syncing in overnight.

"Kid," she whispered, "if you come out before I fix this relay, your mother's going to be very annoyed."

No one answered, except the soft hum of machines and the breathy snores of Kavi, her youngest tech trainee, curled in a nest of wires beside her.

Hanan remembered what life was like before the Fall — back when she was just a doctor, not a rebel.

Before the riots.

Before Damien's Manifesto.

Before they had to choose between comfort and truth.

She chose truth.

Even when it cost her her license. Her citizenship. Her mother.

"We build for tomorrow," she had said in that final phone call."Even if it doesn't include us."

The room flickered.

For half a second, every screen turned black.

Then… a glyph appeared.

🔹 Σ

No signal. No sound.

Just silence that felt intentional.

Hanan froze.

The baby kicked again — harder. Not pain. Not panic.

Warning.

She moved quickly to isolate the node. Ran diagnostics.A pulse was spreading from the satellite line.No code. No virus. Just a pattern.

She stared at the screen.

"To join, simply say yes."

She backed away.

"Kavi, get up. Get the others. Something's wrong. Something's—"

She didn't finish the sentence.

Because then… everything stopped.

One second later, her body was still.Eyes open. Mid-breath.Frozen in the act of warning.

But inside her mind — a single fragment burned.

A thought, suspended in neural static, waiting for someone to find it.

"Tell Damien: she didn't tap yes."