The silence after the breach sealed itself was almost worse than the chaos before it.
Orion's breath came in slow, uneven pulls. The Core inside him pulsed with an aftershock, a lingering resonance from whatever had just spoken to him. He could still hear the last echoes of that voice.
"You will return to us."
Lyra hadn't let go of his arm. Her grip was tight, steady. He met her eyes—searching, demanding. "You're not okay."
She wasn't asking.
Orion forced himself upright, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off the weight of something invisible. "I'm fine."
"Liar."
He exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know what just happened."
That part was the truth.
And yet, he felt something shifting within him. Like the words of that being had stirred an understanding he wasn't meant to grasp yet.
The ship groaned as another tremor ran through it. Not from an outside force—something within. The damage from their fight with the Voidbound Stalker had weakened its core structure.
"We can't stay here," Lyra said, already moving. "The hull's unstable."
Orion forced his thoughts into order and followed.
They wove through the ruined corridors, the emergency lights flickering dimly above them. The ship had once been an exploration vessel—a bridge between civilizations lost to the abyss. Now, it was nothing more than a tomb.
But Orion couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching them still.
Not just the remnants of the void's presence.
Something else.
His footsteps slowed.
Lyra noticed. "Orion?"
He turned sharply—expecting nothing.
But there—just at the edge of his vision—
A figure.
Faint. Translucent. Not entirely here.
It was human-shaped, but wrong. The limbs stretched too long, the edges blurred between reality and something else.
And its eyes—
No, not eyes.
Endless reflections.
Orion's blood ran cold.
The figure tilted its head. A distortion in space, as if it were mimicking his movement.
Then, with a flicker, it was gone.
Just like that.
"Orion." Lyra's voice was low. Urgent. "What did you just see?"
He swallowed hard, pulse racing. "…Nothing."
Another lie.
But whatever that thing was—he wasn't ready to give it a name.
Not yet.
---
They reached the docking bay, where their escape vessel remained miraculously intact. Lyra wasted no time running pre-flight checks.
Orion, however, hesitated before boarding. His gaze swept the darkened expanse of the ship one last time.
And there—far off, beyond the shattered viewport—
The stars were wrong.
A subtle distortion, a ripple in the fabric of the cosmos itself.
As if the universe had just shifted.
He clenched his fists.
Whatever had happened to him today—whatever he was becoming—this was only the beginning.
And something out there was waiting.
Watching.
Calling him back.
Orion exhaled and stepped onto the ship.
It was time to leave.
For now.