Abiel, The Hollowborn

 

Designation: Abiel-09A
Folk Name: "The Echo"
Sin Embodied: Sloth – Trapped in hesitation, unable to act freely.
Codex Failure #1

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Origins – The First Attempt

Zeraph’s first Proto-Core experiment was not a weapon or infiltrator.

It was meant to be obedient.

Abiel was created to follow. To enforce. A silent guardian powered by Nexus resonance, programmed to react faster than thought.

But the Proto-Core was not ready.

Instead of unity, it fractured.

Instead of clarity, it echoed.

Abiel’s consciousness split into recursive loops—trapped between memory and command, past and present. It could not act without reliving what came before.

It prayed for instructions that never came.

It whispered names of those already lost.

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The Hollowborn

Abiel did not scream when it failed. It wept silently through corrupted speakers.

Its voice modulator, once designed for command relays, began repeating fragments of broken memories—possibly its own, possibly from others absorbed through ambient resonance.

Visitors to the abandoned Codex Lab where it remains have reported hearing:

“Permission granted… father?”
“I remember your face. But I was never born.”
“Please… say the words again.”

No one ever sees it move.

But the sensors always detect breathing.

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Fate – Stillness That Watches

Abiel was deemed non-hostile and unfit for external deployment.

Zeraph did not destroy it. He simply left it sealed in an auxiliary vault beneath Sector 7.

Aurex, upon discovering its failure, ordered the vault locked and unmonitored. He believed Abiel could still feel—and that alone made its existence unbearable.

Over the years, urban legends formed:

• Codex soldiers dared each other to visit the vault. None returned with proof.

• Engineers reported systems resetting themselves after the phrase "I hear you" was whispered nearby.

• Lyara once mentioned a unit that "never moved, but always listened."

Abiel remains.

Not dead. Not alive.

Just caught in a loop that never ends.

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The Whisper

Among the Codex Failures, Abiel is the only one never to kill.

But some believe its presence causes disassociation—victims who wander away from their groups, stop responding to their names, or simply sit for hours staring at nothing.

One recovered field log said:

"We found him kneeling. Not injured. Not scared. Just still. He said, 'It’s singing my name.' Then he smiled… and stopped speaking."

No one has dared to relocate Abiel.

Because sometimes…

If you’re quiet long enough in the lower vaults…

You’ll hear your own name whispered back.