Chapter 88 – The Photo and the Flame
The hallway outside the Grand Assembly Dome hummed with soft blue light and manufactured calm — a calculated contrast to the frenzy inside. Echoes of celebration still vibrated through the metal-reinforced walls, distant whoops and cheers mixing with the high-pitched drone of reporters’ questions.
Out here, the crowd’s energy became ghostlike. Filtered. Distant.
Hernan walked alone.
The sliding doors hissed shut behind him, and a wave of sterile, simulated cool air kissed his skin. Screens lined the corridor like ceremonial banners — each one replaying the same looped footage: Captain Virex extending his hand, Rook Vale stepping forward, the handshake, the lift, the smile.
The moment the world now believed meant everything.
Hernan’s own face stared back at him from every angle — heroic, calm, perfectly framed. The spotlight gleamed off his shoulders. His expression, polished over years of practiced anonymity, looked utterly authentic.
He touched me like I was his, Hernan thought.
A passing tech offered him a thumbs-up. "Hey, congrats, Cadet Vale! You’re, like, famous now!"
Hernan nodded. "Thank you, sir."
Another staffer saluted briefly. Down the hall, a group of first-years burst into applause. One girl teared up. They looked at him like he’d stepped out of a myth and onto the tiles.
He walked through it like mist. The screens, the sound, the eyes — they weren’t for him. Not really. They were for Rook Vale. And Rook Vale wasn’t real.