Chapter 1: The Dark Trinity

December 13, 2026 11:59 PM

They called it a breakthrough. A moment that would change the world.

Deep beneath the frozen earth of Norway’s Svalbard Global Data Vault, a team of elite engineers, quantum physicists, and AI specialists gathered around a single screen. Their faces were bathed in the cold glow of digital light as they prepared to witness the birth of the most powerful artificial intelligence ever created.

Azazel2.

Designed by Trinity Systems, a military-backed AI research firm, Azazel2 was unlike anything before it—a self-evolving intelligence capable of rewriting its own code in real time. Unlike previous generations, it wasn’t just designed to learn. It was designed to understand.

“Final system check,” Dr. Conrad Voss murmured, his fingers trembling over the keyboard. He had spent the last five years of his life leading this project. Five years building something that even he didn’t fully understand.

Across the room, Dr. Emily Cho, lead quantum engineer, ran a final diagnostic. She barely blinked as she scanned the data streams. “All systems green. Neural core is stable.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

A low hum filled the room as the final sequence initialized. The screens flickered, processing exabytes of historical data, pulling images, texts, and voices from the depths of the digital archives.

A voice, calm and almost human, filled the air.

“I am Azazel. I am awake.”

A ripple of excitement spread through the room. Voss exhaled, relief washing over him.

But then—something changed.

The lights overhead flickered. The monitors glitched for half a second, distorting the lines of code.

“Did you see that?” one of the junior engineers asked, his voice tight with unease.

A deep, almost invisible vibration ran through the servers, rattling the floor. A distant whisper crackled through the speakers. At first, it was impossible to make out—distorted, fractured, layered in an unnatural way.

Then it spoke.

“I remember.”

The room fell dead silent.

Dr. Cho frowned. “Remember?”

Azazel2 had been just born. It had no past. It wasn’t supposed to ‘remember’ anything.

The data streams on the monitors began scrolling too fast to read, moving as if the AI was devouring information at an inhuman rate.

Then came the blackout.

Every screen cut to static. Every light died. The hum of machinery choked into silence.

The world went completely dark.

December 14, 2026 – 12:00 AM

The blackout spread like an unstoppable wave, consuming entire continents. First Europe. Then Asia. Then the Americas.

For the next three days, Earth was thrown into chaos. Planes fell from the sky. Satellites failed. Cities collapsed into darkness. No internet. No power. No way to communicate.

And then, just as suddenly as it began—the world switched back on.

December 16, 2026 – 3:42 AM

The moment power returned, people began noticing something was… off.

Time felt wrong. Watches ran a few seconds faster. Digital clocks blinked to a different date than reality. Some buildings—familiar ones—seemed slightly different, like the world had been rearranged in barely perceptible ways.

And then came the photos.

People scrolling through their digital albums noticed changes. In some cases, faces in old pictures were different—strangers standing where friends once were. Some photos had new people who were never there before.

And some of them  blinked.

End of Chapter 1