Kael stumbled through the ruins, every breath sharp, every movement heavy. The city around him seemed to pulse faintly, as though the very ground remembered the billions of lives it had once held. But it wasn't just the city.
It was him.
Something inside Kael had changed. He could feel it with every step, a creeping resonance in his skull that pulsed in rhythm with the faint light of the spires. Thoughts that weren't his whispered in the corners of his mind, fragments of memories, emotions, and sensations that didn't belong to him—but which he knew.
Ryn caught up to him, panting, her face pale under the helmet lights. "Kael! Are you okay? You're—"
Kael grabbed her arm and froze mid-sentence.
A memory slammed into him unbidden: a child's laughter. A cityscape in flames. Someone—no, multiple someones—screaming in anguish. The sensation was electric and unbearable. His knees buckled, and he fell forward.
"Kael!" Ryn cried, reaching for him.
He shook his head violently, trying to push the intrusion away, but it was relentless. The Continuum wasn't just alive—it was inside him. A faint spark of panic flared in his chest: this wasn't just exposure. He was infected.
His vision blurred, and the ruins around him warped into something impossible. Shadows of people long gone flickered along the walls. Some walked past him silently, others screamed without sound.
"Kael, listen to me!" Ryn shouted. She grabbed his shoulders. "You're not losing it—you're connected! But it's trying to take over your mind. You have to focus!"
Kael's voice cracked. "It's—too much… it's them! I can hear—feel—everyone!"
The whispers intensified, overlapping into a cacophony of voices: fear, love, anger, hope, despair—all colliding inside his head. He felt memories of people he had never met, spanning decades, centuries, trapped inside the Continuum. And with each memory came a pull, a tug at his consciousness, threatening to overwrite him.
Then something else happened.
A voice, calm and familiar, pierced through the chaos:
"…Kael… you are my son…"
His father's echo.
It wasn't just a memory. It was guidance. Strength. A tether anchoring him to himself.
Kael forced himself to kneel, closing his eyes and clenching his fists. Slowly, he began to separate his thoughts from the intrusions. Not fully—but enough to breathe, enough to think. Enough to know that if he failed, the predator could use him as a bridge to the colonies.
Ryn knelt beside him. "We need to sever your link before the ship's purge sequence reaches full charge. If the predator wakes inside the Vigilant while you're infected…" Her voice faltered. "…it'll be unstoppable."
Kael nodded, teeth gritted. "I know."
But then he realized something terrifying: it wasn't only the predator he feared. It was himself.
The Continuum had left something inside him—an imprint. A thread of billions of minds, overwhelming in its intensity. And now it was changing him.
His thoughts no longer felt private. His emotions no longer fully his own. When he tried to focus, he caught glimpses of memories that weren't his: arguments, laughter, betrayals, sacrifices. Some comforting, some horrifying.
A surge of panic rose in him—but buried within it, something else surfaced: a strange clarity. Amid the chaos, Kael glimpsed patterns. He could see how the Continuum's architecture pulsed, how the predator might move, even how the lattice of consciousness might be manipulated.
A horrifying thought struck him: the very thing threatening to consume him might also be his weapon.
Kael stood slowly, unsteady but resolute. "Ryn… I think… I can fight it from the inside. Not just defend myself… maybe I can control it."
Ryn's eyes widened. "Control it? Kael, you barely survived just being touched by it!"
"I don't have a choice," Kael said. His hands trembled. "If we don't stop the predator now, every colony, every ship, every mind—everyone—will die."
The ruins around them pulsed faintly again, almost in approval—or in warning.
Kael took a deep breath. The whispers were still there, clawing at the edges of his consciousness, but he forced them back. He had a plan, tenuous and dangerous as it was: enter the Vigilant, interface directly with the ship's quantum core, and try to wrest control of the purge sequence from the inside.
Ryn shook her head, but there was determination in her eyes. "We're going in together. But Kael… if you fail…"
"I won't," Kael interrupted, voice shaking but resolute. "Because if I do, it's not just me that dies. It's everything."
As they ran toward the Vigilant, the whispers followed him—closer now, like breath in his ear. Some were screams. Some were laughter. Some were impossibly calm, offering guidance.
Kael gritted his teeth. He could feel them inside, shaping him, teaching him, warning him. It hurt. It terrified him. But for the first time, he understood: the infection wasn't just a curse.
It was power.
And he would have to wield it—or be consumed.