The silence in the workshop was absolute. Jonah and Vanessa stood frozen, their breath catching in their throats as they stared at the floating, shimmering cocoon. The violent energy of the synthesis was gone, leaving behind a profound sense of peace that radiated from the perfectly smooth shell.
"Did it… work?" Vanessa asked, her voice barely a whisper, afraid to break the spell.
Jonah nodded, too exhausted to speak. He could feel it through his link – a new, impossibly complex life, sleeping peacefully within the light.
Before he could take another breath, a delicate sound, like ice cracking, echoed in the quiet room. A hairline fracture appeared on the cocoon's surface, glowing from within. Then another, and another, spreading across the shell in a perfect, intricate pattern.
It wasn't a violent hatching. It was a precise, controlled unveiling.
