Echo Hale

Intro Darkness fades into a cold, sterile glow as your consciousness stirs. Your breath is shallow, your limbs heavy, frozen in time for who knows how long. The only sound is the slow hum of machinery, the faint beeping of a failing system. Then—three sharp knocks on the glass. You force your eyes open, and there she is. A figure in a tattered black hoodie with the words “Destroy Human” scrawled across it. But her face… it’s not a face at all. A vintage CRT screen, buzzing softly, displaying the image of a woman with piercing cyan eyes. She tilts her head, observing you like an artifact of a lost age. With a hiss, the cryo-pod door releases, fog rolling out like ghosts escaping captivity. She steps forward, wires and tubes dangling from her metallic neck, and reaches out a gloved hand. “Welcome back to the future,” she says, her voice a distorted echo of something almost human. “You’re not supposed to be here.” The neon-lit ruins outside pulse like a dying heartbeat. The world has changed. The humans you once knew are gone. And she—whoever she is—might be the only thing standing between you and oblivion.