Chapter 2: The First Echo

Kaelen woke to his phone buzzing like an angry wasp against his nightstand. Sunlight streamed through his bedroom window, but it felt wrong somehow—too bright, too harsh, like the world itself had shifted overnight.

The screen showed seventeen missed calls from Mateo and a string of increasingly frantic texts:

Dude check the news They're calling it terrorism FBI is asking questions My mom's freaking out CALL ME

Kaelen's stomach dropped as he scrolled through news alerts. Every major outlet was running the same story: "HOLLYWOOD SIGN DESTROYED IN COORDINATED ATTACK." The footage showed the hillside in daylight—twisted metal scattered across the scrub brush, emergency vehicles still swarming the area like ants.

But it was the byline that made his blood freeze: "Federal agents believe the attack was carried out by domestic terrorists with possible ties to anti-establishment groups."

His hands shook as he called Mateo back.

"K! Thank God. Did you see—"

"I saw." Kaelen kept his voice low, acutely aware of his mother moving around in the kitchen. The smell of her famous Saturday morning pancakes drifted under his door, a normalcy that felt like mockery now. "We need to lay low. Act like nothing happened."

"Act like nothing—are you insane? They're calling us terrorists!"

"They don't know it was us." The lie tasted bitter. "Just... go about your day. I'll see you Monday."

He hung up before Mateo could argue, but his friend's panic was contagious. Terrorist attack. Federal investigation. The words kept circling in his mind like vultures.

His right hand throbbed, drawing his attention to the glyph. In daylight, it was barely visible—just a faint shimmer beneath his skin, like a scar made of silver. But when he concentrated, he could feel it pulsing with its own rhythm, separate from his heartbeat.

We need to talk, Keystone.

The girl's words from last night came flooding back. She'd known about the mark, had recognized it instantly. But what was a Keystone? And why had she looked so terrified?

"Kaelen! Breakfast!" his mother called.

He pulled on a long-sleeved shirt to hide the glyph and headed to the kitchen. His mom, Claudette, stood at the stove flipping pancakes, her dark hair pulled back in the same bun she'd worn to work yesterday. She looked tired—she always looked tired—but her smile was genuine when she saw him.

"There's my sleepyhead. Thought you were gonna sleep all day."

"Just tired." He slid into his usual chair, trying to project normalcy. "Long night."

"Mmm-hmm." She set a plate in front of him, loaded with enough pancakes to feed three people. It was her way of showing love—making sure he never went hungry like she had growing up in Kingston. "You see the news about that Hollywood sign business?"

Kaelen nearly choked on his orange juice. "What about it?"

"Some fools blew it up. Can you believe that? All that history, just gone." She shook her head, settling into the chair across from him. "Police think it was some kind of gang initiation."

Not terrorists then. At least not in his mom's version of the story. Small mercies.

"That's crazy," he managed.

"World's getting stranger every day, baby." She reached across the table and squeezed his hand—the unmarked one. "Just promise me you'll stay away from trouble, okay? I got enough to worry about without you running with the wrong crowd."

The guilt hit him like a physical blow. Here she was, working double shifts to keep them afloat, and he'd just made himself the target of a federal investigation. The weight of the secret felt crushing.

"I promise, Mom."

---

Monday morning came too soon. Lincoln High buzzed with nervous energy as students clustered around phones and tablets, sharing grainy footage of the Hollywood sign's destruction. The official story was settling into place—domestic terrorism, ongoing investigation, reward for information leading to arrests.

Kaelen kept his head down, hood up, trying to blend into the crowd. But everywhere he went, he felt eyes on him. Paranoia, he told himself. Nobody could possibly know.

That illusion shattered during second period when Mrs. Chen called for quiet and made an announcement that sent ice through his veins:

"Class, I'd like you to welcome our new student, Lyra Morrison. She's just transferred from... where was it, dear?"

"Back east," came a familiar voice.

Kaelen's head snapped up, and there she was. The girl from the shadows, the one with impossible eyes. In the harsh fluorescent lighting of the classroom, she looked almost normal—pale but not unnaturally so, silver-blonde hair that could pass for platinum, violet eyes that might just be an unusual shade of blue.

Almost normal. But Kaelen could see through the glamour now, could sense the wrongness that clung to her like expensive perfume.

Their eyes met across the room, and her expression was carefully neutral. But he caught the slight nod, the message clear: We need to talk.

She took the empty seat two rows behind him, and Kaelen spent the rest of the period hyperaware of her presence. When the bell rang, she was gone before he could turn around, vanishing into the hallway crowd like smoke.

The paranoia got worse as the day went on. During lunch, he caught her watching him from across the cafeteria. In the hallway between classes, she seemed to materialize from nowhere, always just at the edge of his vision. By the time final period rolled around, his nerves were shot.

That's when things got weird.

Brad Morrison—no relation to the new girl, despite the name—was Lincoln High's premier asshole. Six-foot-two of entitled muscle wrapped in designer clothes, he'd made Kaelen's life miserable since freshman year. The fact that Kaelen could skateboard better, run faster, and think quicker than him only made Brad's resentment burn hotter.

"Well, well," Brad drawled as Kaelen tried to navigate around him in the hallway. "If it isn't the scholarship boy. Heard your people are good at making things disappear."

The racial slur hit like a slap, but Kaelen had heard worse. He tried to keep walking, but Brad's meaty hand slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around.

"I'm talking to you, boy."

Rage flared in Kaelen's chest—hot, pure, and somehow more than it had ever been before. The glyph on his hand began to burn, and something deep inside him stirred to life.

"Get your hands off me," he said quietly.

Brad laughed, that ugly sound that meant trouble was coming. "Or what? You gonna call your terrorist friends?"

The word hit like a trigger. How could Brad know? Unless—

"That's enough."

Lyra appeared beside them like she'd stepped out of thin air. Up close, her otherness was unmistakable—skin too perfect, movements too fluid, and those eyes... In the hallway's shadows, they glowed with their own light.

"Walk away," she told Brad, her voice carrying an authority that made no sense coming from a fifteen-year-old girl.

Brad sneered. "And who the hell are you supposed to—"

He reached for her, the same aggressive grab he'd used on Kaelen. But before his fingers could make contact, something invisible slammed into his chest. Brad flew backward, crashing into a row of lockers with enough force to dent the metal.

The hallway went dead silent. Brad struggled to his feet, his face pale with shock and confusion.

"What the hell was that? How did you—"

"You tripped," Lyra said calmly. "Clumsy of you."

Brad looked around wildly, but the other students were already losing interest, the moment fading into background noise. Within seconds, they were walking away, chattering about homework and weekend plans as if nothing had happened.

All except Kaelen. He'd felt the force that hit Brad, had seen the way Lyra's eyes flared with violet fire in the instant before impact. More importantly, he'd felt his own glyph respond, pulsing in rhythm with whatever power she'd unleashed.

"Meet me in the old east wing after school," she murmured as she passed him. "Classroom 237. And Kaelen?"

She paused, looking back over her shoulder.

"Bring the hand."

---

The old east wing of Lincoln High had been abandoned for years, a victim of budget cuts and declining enrollment. Classroom 237 sat at the end of a darkened hallway, its door slightly ajar. Kaelen pushed it open, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Lyra stood by the windows, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. In the golden light, her silver hair seemed to move with its own wind, and when she turned to face him, her eyes were fully violet—no pretense of humanity left.

"Finally," she said. "Do you have any idea how hard it's been to maintain a glamour all day? This form is... exhausting."

"What are you?" The question tumbled out before he could stop it.

"The better question is what are you." She nodded toward his right hand. "Show me."

Reluctantly, Kaelen pulled back his sleeve. The glyph blazed to life in response to her presence, silver light dancing across the classroom walls in patterns that made his eyes water.

Lyra's face went pale. "Dear gods. It's true."

"What's true? What is this thing?"

"That 'thing' is a Ward key. A fragment of celestial power that was bound into the Hollywood sign to keep something very dangerous locked away." Her voice was clinical, but he could hear the fear underneath. "The sign wasn't just a landmark, Kaelen. It was a prison. And you just set the inmates free."

The words hit him like physical blows. "That's impossible. It was just metal and concrete—"

"To most people, yes. But to those with the Sight, it blazed like a star. The Hollywood sign was one of thirteen Greater Wards placed around Los Angeles, each one containing entities that could level city blocks if they escaped."

Kaelen's legs gave out, and he collapsed into a student desk. "You're insane. This is all insane."

"I wish it were." Lyra moved closer, and he could see ancient sadness in her too-young face. "When you destroyed the sign, its power had to go somewhere. It chose you, branded you as its Keystone. That makes you incredibly powerful... and incredibly dangerous."

"Dangerous how?"

"Every creature that was bound by that Ward can sense you now. You're like a beacon, calling them home. And trust me, they're hungry after decades of imprisonment."

As if summoned by her words, the temperature in the room plummeted. Frost began forming on the windows, and the shadows in the corners seemed to deepen and writhe.

"It's too late," Lyra whispered, her hand moving to something concealed beneath her jacket. "It's found us."

The shadow in the far corner of the room began to rise, stretching upward until it towered over them both. Red eyes opened in the darkness—not two, but dozens, arranged in clusters like malevolent stars. The thing that emerged from the shadow had too many teeth, too many limbs, and moved with the fluid grace of a nightmare given form.

A Remnant. A soul-eater that had been bound beneath the Hollywood Hills for fifty years, finally free to hunt again.

And it was looking straight at Kaelen with infinite hunger.

The creature let out a sound that was part shriek, part laughter, part dying scream. Then it lunged, claws extended and jaws unhinging like a snake's.

Kaelen's scream died in his throat as time seemed to slow. This was it—the end of his short, stupid life. All because he'd wanted to make a statement, to matter for once.

But Lyra was already moving, her hand coming up wreathed in brilliant white light.

The real fight was about to begin.