Darkness. But not empty.
It was thick, pressing, alive.
Zian Rahal didn't know whether he had fainted, died, or something worse. His body floated in an ocean of nothing, yet his nerves screamed like fire. Every limb felt stretched, every cell twisted. A thousand whispers clawed at his mind, unintelligible yet deafening.
Then—
a breath.
His eyes opened.
Or... did they?
He saw nothing. Only blackness, moving like smoke behind his vision. It wasn't blindness. It was presence.
Something else was here.
Something watching.
"You are awake... host."
The voice didn't echo — it vibrated through his skull like thunder in water. Zian gasped. He tried to move but found his limbs bound—not by ropes, but by a sensation, as if the air itself had hardened around him.
He tried to speak. His throat moved, but no words came. Instead, his chest burned.
"Don't be afraid. We are one now."
A cold, crawling sensation slithered across his spine. Zian felt it — the symbiote — Draxor. No longer in the tank. No longer separate. It was inside him.
He screamed, but it echoed only within himself.
"Your fear is expected. You are still soft... still human."
The blackness began to recede. Vision returned in patches — flickers of red emergency lights, shattered glass, spilled fluid on the floor. He was lying inside Lab X-17, curled like a newborn in the wreckage of the burst containment chamber.
Zian gasped for breath, chest heaving. Pain shot through his ribs, but something else overlaid it — a cold, alien calm, like ice sliding over raw fire.
His skin pulsed.
He looked at his hands — they twitched unnaturally. Black veins throbbed beneath the surface. His fingertips were shifting—elongating?—but then snapped back.
Zian crawled backward, heart racing.
"No... no... what the hell—!"
"You released me. You invited this."
He clutched his head. "This can't be real. I didn't—"
"You pulled the lever. You accepted the Pact."
The word Pact rang strangely in his mind, like it carried ancient weight.
Suddenly, an overhead light buzzed back to life with a harsh white glare. Zian shielded his eyes — but the light didn't burn. In fact, his pupils adjusted instantly, like a predator in the dark.
He stood up slowly, still trembling. His legs felt heavier, but also stronger.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"I am Draxor. The first. The forgotten. Your salvation... and your sentence."
Zian stumbled toward a nearby wall, where a broken mirror hung. What he saw stopped him cold.
Half of his face looked... normal. Pale, tired, scared.
The other half...
It was shifting — not completely changed, but veined, darkened. His eye glowed faint purple, his cheekbone twitched as if something beneath the skin was breathing.
He staggered back, knocking over a tray of shattered tools.
"Calm yourself. Panic weakens the bond."
"What bond?! I didn't ask for this!"
"Yet here we are."
He grabbed a steel rod from the floor and held it like a weapon. "Get out of my head!"
"This is not possession. It's fusion. You are not Zian anymore. You are more."
Suddenly, a loud clang echoed from the far hallway.
Zian froze.
The emergency lights flickered. A security door hissed open in the distance.
He wasn't alone.
And Draxor—if he had a mouth—was smiling.
"They've come to erase the evidence. You included."
Zian whispered, "NovaCore."
He didn't have time to think. He turned toward the exit, but his body moved too fast—almost unnaturally. One step launched him several feet forward, crashing into a metal cabinet.
He groaned, dazed. "What the—"
"Your body is adapting. Too quickly. I must assist."
"Wait, don't—!"
A violent pulse shot through his spine.
Zian screamed again as black tendrils burst from beneath his skin, swirling over his arms, chest, even neck. His shirt tore at the seams. The symbiote formed armor-like plating across his back. His fingers sharpened. His breathing deepened.
He felt no pain.
Only power.
He stumbled to his feet, shaking. "I... what am I?"
"You are Draxor's Host. First of the Bonded. They will fear you."
Zian stared at his hands — now half-transformed, coated in rippling black matter that moved like smoke.
Then he heard it — footsteps.
Armed guards.
Two soldiers in black NovaCore gear rounded the corner, rifles drawn.
"Stop!" one shouted. "On the ground, now!"
Zian panicked. He held up his hands. "Wait—don't shoot! I—"
The other soldier fired.
Zian flinched — but the bullet never hit.
It struck his chest... and bounced.
A soft clink.
He looked down — his skin had hardened, dark like obsidian. The round hadn't pierced it.
"You are protected. Now... strike."
"No! I don't want—"
"Then die."
Zian's body reacted.
Without thought, his right arm lunged forward — and a black tendril extended like a whip, striking the rifle out of the soldier's hands. The second soldier tried to fire again, but another tendril wrapped around his wrist, twisting it with unnatural strength.
They screamed.
Zian fell back, horrified. "What did I just—?!"
"Survived."
The guards retreated, one limping, the other dragging his partner. They didn't even try to kill him again.
They just ran.
Zian dropped to his knees, gasping.
He looked at his arms — still half-covered in the dark symbiote, now slowly retracting like smoke into his skin. His breath shook.
"What are you turning me into...?"
"Into what you were always meant to be."
HOURS LATER
Zian sat alone in a rooftop shack, hiding above an abandoned apartment near the outer ring of Solvark. His mind raced.
His body had settled, the visible changes receding for now, but something remained inside — watching, whispering.
He tried to sleep. Couldn't.
When he closed his eyes, he felt it—not Draxor exactly, but a hunger. A need.
Food. Energy. Control.
And worst of all...
Curiosity.
"You wonder what else you can do. Don't you?"
Zian didn't answer.
"You felt it. The power. The fear in their eyes. It's who you are now."
He whispered, "I'm still me... I have to be..."
"Then prove it."
Silence returned. But Zian knew better.
This was just the beginning.
Back in NovaCore Headquarters, in a high-security observation room, a man in a gray suit stood before a monitor.
He watched the footage from Lab X-17.
SUBJECT D-RXOR: HOST BONDED. PROJECT STATUS: FAILED CONTAINMENT
The man tapped a finger on the glass.
"We found him," he said quietly. "Time to clean it up."
Behind him, a row of black-helmeted enforcers waited.
"Initiate Protocol CULL."
⚡ To Be Continued...