Innate Trigger – Hope Within Fear
The wind at the top of the ruined building carried with it the scent of ash, rust, and distant ozone the breath of a wounded city still trying to exhale after the fire. Mikaela stood near the edge, boots firm on fractured concrete, the rising sun casting long shadows through the skeleton of the high rise. Below, Megacity 1 stretched like a wounded beast still breathing, still dangerous. Her eyes followed the faint gridlines of the transport system that once moved millions. Now they were veins of silence. She had been standing there, unmoving, watching the city. But her thoughts weren’t in the present. The day of the bombing hadn’t left her. Faces. Screams. The crushing silence afterward. The guilt of surviving when so many didn’t. It wasn’t just trauma it was a haunting. And now they wanted to teleport new lives, new souls, new fighters into this broken place. Into the city that had devoured her comrades like dust. What if something goes wrong? What if the coordinates shift? What if we bring them into a death trap again? She clenched her fists. Not out of anger. Out of doubt. Behind her, footsteps. Heavy, mechanical. Familiar. Major Alexey Lobov. He didn’t speak at first. Just stood beside her. Silent. Like the tower. Like the graves beneath them.
Then he said, “They’ve calibrated the transmission anchors. Each node has been tripled in redundancy. The math holds.”
Mikaela smirked bitterly. “The math held before the bombing too.”
Lobov nodded slowly. “True. But this time, we’ll be waiting. Armed.”
Silence again. Then she whispered, “What if the rulers’ army knows about the teleportation? When it starts… what if they turn this into an ambush?”
Lobov turned to her, his voice low and certain. “Then we will fight. As we do each and every day.”
She didn’t answer. But she didn’t look away from the city either. The sky was beginning to glow not with fire this time, but with the morning daylight. The transmission would begin in a few hours. And Mikaela would be ready. Or at least, she would try. And maybe… that was enough.
Innate Trigger : Hope Within Fear
Music by : Innate Trigger
Release date : 2 – 6 – 2025
