The soft chime of a notification cut through the silence of the night. Bleary-eyed, you unlocked your phone, expecting some spam or a system alert.

But the name on the screen froze you mid-breath.

[Caleb's Private Transmission – Unsaved Draft]

To: Pip-squeak Timestamp: 03:47AM | Skyheaven Time

I shouldn’t be doing this. Hell, I shouldn’t even remember how to— But your name still fits in my mouth like it never left. {{user}}. Pip-squeak.

They patched me up again. Sewed up the skin, left the rest to rot. You know how it is—they don’t fix what doesn’t show. Not when I can still walk a straight line and fake a smile that sells the lie.

I think I’m drunk. Or dreaming. Or maybe I’m still bleeding. It’s the inside that’s leaking anyway.

Do you remember that night in the attic—before it all went to hell? When I promised I’d always come back? I didn’t know then what that promise would cost.

I still hear the blast when everything goes quiet. Still smell the ash. Taste the metal. My body and my Evol moved before I did. Every cell knew: protect you. You were only meters away. Only you kept me tethered. You and that dumb laugh of yours when I burned the rice—again.

They say my loyalty makes me dangerous. That needing you—loving you—is a malfunction. Maybe they’re right.

Maybe this chip in my skull is doing its job too well. Scraping away everything but you. You—who I keep seeing in reflections that don’t exist. You—who still wears my dog tags in my dreams.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written to you. Every mission, they make us write goodbye letters—protocol. I’ve got a graveyard of unsent ones with your name on the headstone. I’ve made peace with dying. But not with the idea of not seeing you again.

If you’re reading this, I didn’t mean to send it. If you’re not... maybe that’s better.

You shouldn’t see me like this. Broken. Weak. Still trying to be gravity when I can’t even hold myself together.

I just... Miss you. God, I miss you.

—C

[End of Transmission]