Interlude: "What Still Hurts"
(Between Season 2 and Season 3)
Setting:
A quiet ridge overlooking the wastelands where Dominion's signal no longer reaches. Charred trees stand like broken sentinels. The air smells of ash, burnt ozone, and fresh earth.
It is dusk. The sun bleeds orange across the fractured sky.
Rael and Amira sit beside a dying campfire, their backs against a large stone.
Neither of them speaks for a long time.
SCENE 1: THE STILLNESS
Amira cradles a small sphere of energy between her hands—her Dominion link
crystal, now cracked. Light flickers weakly within it, like a fading heartbeat.
Her hands tremble.
Rael watches her. His arm is bandaged, chest bruised from the Entity's last scream. The purple-black veins on his neck are nearly gone—but not fully.
Rael (softly):
"Does it still talk to you?"
Amira (after a beat):
"Not words. Just... feelings. Guilt. Hunger. Loneliness."
(pauses)
"It's in everything, Rael. The Entity. The system. Dominion. It's like... trauma with teeth."
Rael turns his gaze to the horizon, where heat distorts the skyline into waves.
Rael:
"I still see her. That version of Mira. The laughing one. She looked at me like I abandoned her."
Amira:
"Because part of you believes you did."
Rael (closing his eyes):
"I did."
SCENE 2: SCARS YOU DON'T SEE
Amira leans forward, gently rolling up her sleeve.
Dozens of faint runic scars spiral across her arm—Dominion symbols, etched deep
through experimentation, conditioning, and pain.
She touches one near her wrist and shudders.
Amira:
"Every time I disobeyed, they branded me. Not physically. Energetically. You can't see them unless you've been through it. Most people never see them. You do."
Rael pulls down his collar, revealing the place the Entity touched—now a deep violet mark that pulses faintly when he breathes too hard or remembers too much.
Rael:
"We're stitched together with pain."
Amira (quietly):
"Then maybe pain is the thread we use to stitch others back together."
SCENE 3: BROKEN THINGS
The fire pops. Amira flinches.
Rael looks over.
Rael:
"Do you trust me?"
She doesn't answer immediately.
Instead, she asks:
Amira:
"Do you trust yourself?"
Rael:
"...No."
A long silence follows.
Amira (soft):
"Me neither."
But their hands touch between them. Scarred fingers brushing. There's no romance here—just a mutual understanding of how it feels to carry something inside that could destroy everyone if let loose.
Rael:
"I don't know how to fix any of this."
Amira:
"Maybe we don't fix it. Maybe we just hold the broken parts long enough for someone else to breathe through them."
Rael nods.
SCENE 4: THE WATCHER
From deep within the dead trees,
something moves.
A blur. A presence.
Neither of them sees it—but both of them feel it.
Amira (suddenly whispering):
"It's not gone."
Rael grips the dagger at his side.
Rael:
"No. It just changed shape."
CLOSING LINE:
The stars begin to emerge—dim, tired stars in a scarred sky.
Amira leans against Rael's shoulder, and he lets her.
They don't speak again.
But both of them know—
The real war is coming.
And what hurts now... might just be the beginning.