Aiden did not remember falling asleep, yet he woke to the sensation of movement, not of his body, but of the world itself breathing around him. The air shimmered, and light pulsed through the ground in slow, rhythmic waves, as if the Dominion's heart beat beneath every grain of dust.
He sat up. The cavern walls around him were gone. In their place was a horizon of shifting glass, endless and fluid, reflecting faces that weren't his. He realized then he was no longer standing in the physical world. This was the Dominion, its interior, its dreaming.
Every heartbeat echoed with a whisper.
You returned. You carry the voice of what we were.
The words weren't spoken aloud; they resonated inside him, vibrating through his bones. Aiden clenched his fists, grounding himself in the only thing he knew, breath.
"Show yourself," he said. His voice carried through the light, rippling it.
The world answered by unfolding, the horizon splitting open to reveal vast shapes suspended in radiance: towers like roots, arches of frozen energy, forms that pulsed with faint, human silhouettes trapped within. The Dominion wasn't a place. It was a memory that refused to die.
Aiden took a step forward. The glass beneath his boots rippled, revealing brief glimpses of the surface far above, a convoy crawling north through the wasteland. He saw the flicker of campfires, the outline of Lira standing guard, her breath turning to mist in the cold.
He felt her fear. Her determination. Her exhaustion.
And then, faintly, her voice, though she hadn't spoken aloud. We'll survive. For him. For all of us.
Aiden froze. He wasn't just seeing her. He was connected. The Dominion had woven him into its network, its perception stretching across earth and sky. Every survivor who had walked its ground now left echoes in its memory.
He could feel them, all of them, like distant stars pulsing at the edge of thought.
And beneath it all, something deeper stirred.
A thousand voices layered together, too vast to separate. They spoke as one, and yet not.
You hear as we do. You are bridge and wound. The first to return unbroken.
"I'm not yours," Aiden said, though the light around him pulsed in reply.
You are what you touch.
The ground beneath him rippled again, and in the reflection he saw flashes, the Dominion devouring the cities that once tried to harness it, the architects merging with their creation, their minds crystallizing into eternal memory. He saw what powered it: the essence of will, the raw imprint of thought turned into energy.
That was its hunger, not blood, not matter, but purpose.
He staggered back, his breath ragged. "You feed on us."
We remember you through the act of taking.
"And now you're taking me?"
The voices softened, almost tender. We do not take. We change. You will not die as they did. You will shape.
Light erupted from the horizon, swallowing him. He felt himself dissolve, not into death, but into thought. His memories bled outward: the first time he entered a gate, the laughter of his squad before the fall, Lira's face when she first called him back from the brink. Each one was touched, studied, absorbed.
He fought to hold onto himself.
The Dominion pulsed harder, its rhythm syncing with his heartbeat. In its reflection, he saw not just himself, but dozens of versions, older, younger, broken, remade. All potential, all waiting.
He screamed, the sound echoing through the endless glass.
When the light dimmed, he stood in silence. The world had changed again, this time into a vast corridor of crystalline pillars. Energy coursed through them like veins. Inside each, he saw flickers of motion, human silhouettes suspended, dreaming.
Some he recognized. Raiders. Scientists. Even civilians who'd vanished when the Dominion's gates first appeared. The Dominion hadn't destroyed them. It had kept them.
He approached one of the pillars, pressing his hand against the cool surface. The figure inside twitched. For an instant, he heard a voice, weak, barely human.
"Aiden…"
He stepped back, his stomach twisting. He knew that voice. Captain Ren, his old commander. The man who'd died in the first collapse.
The Dominion whispered through the air. We preserve all who enter. In time, you will preserve them too.
He shook his head violently. "No. I'm getting them out. All of them."
The light dimmed, a kind of laughter. You cannot separate thought from memory. To free them, you must unmake what you are.
Aiden felt the truth in it. The Dominion wasn't lying. Its structure was built from what it had taken, its prisoners were its foundation. To tear it down would mean tearing apart the very thing that now sustained him.
He sank to his knees, breath trembling. "There has to be another way."
The world quieted. For a moment, he thought the Dominion had gone still, but then he felt it, faint and human, like a hand reaching through the dark. Lira's presence again, warm and fleeting. Her heartbeat echoed faintly against his.
He stood slowly. "If you can reach me," he whispered, "then I can reach you."
The Dominion pulsed once, disapproving.
Aiden smiled, small, defiant. "You gave me the bridge. You shouldn't have done that."
And with that, he began to walk toward the pillars, toward the imprisoned minds, toward the vast, glowing core that called itself the Heart. Every step made the light tremble. Every breath drew the Dominion's gaze.
The whispers rose around him like a storm. You cannot return. You cannot unsee.
"Watch me," he said.
The world flickered. For an instant, he stood between both realms, the shimmering Dominion below and the dark valley above, where Lira kept her lonely vigil. The distance between them felt thinner than air.
Then the light swallowed him again.
And somewhere above, Lira woke with a start, feeling a heartbeat that wasn't hers.