The ship was wrong.
It wasn't just damaged—it was rewritten.
Rust that hadn't been there minutes ago now flaked from the walls. Consoles that were once pristine were now covered in decades of dust. The air had a stale, heavy weight to it—like it hadn't been touched in years.
Selene exhaled slowly, watching as her own breath fogged in the cold.
This wasn't the same ship.
This wasn't the same time.
Then—
Flashback – Three Years Ago
The lab was silent.
Not the silence of an empty room. The silence of something watching.
Beyond the reinforced glass of The Crying Room, they waited.
Thirty subjects. Once human. Now something... else.
Selene stood at the observation terminal, her gloved fingers hovering over the screen. She wasn't just another scientist collecting data on unknown entities and volatile compounds.
She was the one who had authorized it all.
The head researcher. The director of the project. The one who had given the final order when the experiment had gone too far.
And now—she was the only one left to remember it.
Or at least... she thought she was.
One of the test subjects had survived.
Not in the way the others did—trapped in that agonizing half-existence, screaming long after their bodies had given out.
He had adapted. Changed.
Jerry Lentz.
A volunteer. Tall, wiry, dark-haired. A man who had signed the waiver knowing full well that no one else had survived the experiments.
But he did.
Selene had watched every incision, every injection, every exposure to void radiation. She had seen his skin rupture, regenerate, rupture again.
Burned. Stabbed. Flayed.
Yet every time—he healed.
Not perfectly. Not normally.
His nervous system rewired itself. His pain receptors dulled, then failed completely. His body stopped decaying at the expected rate.
He should have been dead a hundred times over.
Instead—he had become something else.
And now, three years later...
His body had been found as bones.
Like he had aged three decades in minutes.
Selene's stomach twisted. Her scientific mind screamed for answers. This wasn't entropy. This was something else.
And if Jerry was supposed to be the successful experiment...
Then why did it look like the Eidolith had finally collected its debt?
Back to the Present
No.
Selene needed to confirm the data.
Her hands trembled, but her rational mind took control. She needed samples, needed proof, needed to disprove the impossible.
"The bones might not be his. What if they belong to something else? Or someone else?"
She bent down, gloved fingers reaching for a fragment of bone, carefully sealing it into a sterile containment tube.
Then—she ran.
She sprinted to the medical bay, her breath coming in short bursts, her boots slamming against the floor as she forced herself to focus.
Facts. Evidence. That's what mattered.
She crossed the threshold—
And froze.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Selene turned in a slow circle, her pulse hammering against her ribs.
"Wait... this isn't right."
Her breath hitched.
This room shouldn't exist.
The medical bay had been part of the detached section of the ship.
And yet—it was here.
Pristine. Intact. Like nothing had ever happened.
Selene's breath turned shallow. Her fingers twitched at her sides, an unconscious response—her body preparing for fight or flight.
The ship wasn't just shifting.
It was rewriting itself.
Or worse—
As if it had never changed in the first place.
She moved cautiously toward the intercom, every step measured, her head on a swivel.
"Guys... I think you need to see this," she said, her voice low, controlled—but not calm. "I'm in the med bay."
Back in the Command Room
The crew froze.
For a full three seconds, no one spoke.
Then—
"The fuck?!"
It came almost in unison, a tangled mess of disbelief and fear.
Voss shot to his feet first, his hands gripping the edge of the console like he was waiting for the universe to tell him this was a joke.
"The med bay is gone." His voice was flat, almost mechanical. "That entire section of the ship was detached."
No one had an answer.
So they moved.
One by one, the crew cautiously left the command room—
And stopped.
Beyond the Doors...
The ship was pristine.
Every corridor. Every room. Every bulkhead.
The walls gleamed, polished to perfection. The doors looked as if they had been freshly painted.
The emergency lights were gone—replaced by bright, steady illumination.
No dust.
No mess.
No signs of what they had just been through.
The ship wasn't just clean.
It was new.
As if the last several hours had been erased.
As if nothing had ever happened.
"What is going on?" Voss whispered, his voice barely audible over the eerie silence.
Then—
"Voss! I'm in here!" Selene's voice echoed through the pristine halls.
As the crew cautiously approached the entrance of the medical bay, they stepped inside one by one.
Then—
Soren, the last to enter, stopped cold.
Something at the end of the hall.
Someone.
A figure.
Dark. Unmoving. Watching.
"Hey! Hey, you! Who are you?!" Soren's voice cut through the corridor like a blade.
Rita whipped her head around the doorframe, eyes narrowing toward the far end of the hall—
But—
She saw nothing.
Nothing but the polished, too-clean walls of the ship.
Soren's breath hitched. His fists clenched.
But he knew what he saw.
"Soren?" Rita's voice softened. "There's nothing there. Come on, let's go see Selene."
He hesitated—his muscles stiff—before shaking his head and stepping inside.
Inside the Med Bay
"Soren, look at this."
Voss's voice carried urgency—almost disbelief. He gestured toward the monitor, where Selene stood, her arms crossed, staring at the data.
Soren shoved his way through the group—then froze.
His breath left him.
"Is this real?!" His voice cracked. He turned to Selene, his face pale.
"Jerry... he's... not dead?"
Selene exhaled, steadying herself before responding.
"No. At least, not in any way we understand death." She tapped the screen, highlighting the biometric results. "His cellular degradation doesn't match natural decay. There's no standard necrotic breakdown—his body didn't decompose. It was..." she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, "rewritten at a molecular level."
She pointed at another data cluster.
"See this? The carbon isotopes in his bones still match the ones from our last recorded vitals on him—meaning chemically, his body still belongs to this exact time period. But—" her fingers flew across the interface, pulling up a spectrographic analysis.
"These markers suggest anomalous temporal exposure. His organic matter presents signs of advanced aging—decades' worth—but no structural breakdown, no natural oxidation of the bone. It's as if... something forced his biological clock forward without accounting for environmental decay."
She swallowed hard.
"This isn't entropy. This is a forced reconstruction of his physical form—down to the atomic level. And worse—" she turned to Voss, her expression grim—
"His DNA is still active."
A beat of silence.
Then—
"You're saying he's still alive?" Soren's voice was barely above a whisper.
Selene nodded.
"Somewhere, somehow—Jerry Lentz is still conscious."
The Gasps Echoed Through the Ship.
Everyone stared at the monitor—at the impossible results staring back at them.
"Is there any way to find him?" Rita's voice wavered.
Selene turned to look at her. Slow. Controlled.
She shook her head.
"No." Her voice was firm, measured—but behind her scientific certainty, there was something else. Doubt.
Rita exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair.
Then—
A grin spread across Soren's face.
Without hesitation—he ran.
Soren Bolts Down the Hallway
"I'll find him!"
His footsteps pounded against the metal floor as he tore down the pristine, too-clean corridor.
The figure—he had seen it.
He knew what he saw.
"Jerry?! Jerry, are you here?!"
At the end of the hall, he took a sharp left—straight toward the cafeteria.
He arrived at the entrance as the doors hissed open.
The room was empty. Silent. Wrong.
Then—
There.
Behind the counter.
Standing. Unmoving. Watching.
A figure.
Not a shadow. Not a hallucination.
Something.
"Jerry?" Soren's voice wasn't steady anymore.
The figure didn't move.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
Then—
He ran.
He was three feet away from the counter when—
His foot caught.
He barely had time to react before he hit the floor, hard.
CRACK.
Pain shot through his forehead as he slammed against the cold metal.
"Fuck!"
His vision blurred.
A thin trickle of blood ran down his temple.
Dizzy. Disoriented.
He groaned, forcing himself upright—wiping the blood from his skin.
Then—
He looked back toward the counter.
Where the figure had been standing.
Gone.
Vanished.
Like it had never been there at all.
Soren's vision blurred.
But he didn't stop.
He stumbled forward, crashing through the swivel bar doors behind the counter.
His breath was ragged. Shaky.
His fingers gripped the metal countertop as he scanned the empty cafeteria, his pulse hammering in his ears.
Nothing.
But he knew. He knew.
He saw something.
Someone.
And now—it was gone.
"I'm not crazy... I'm not crazy." His whisper barely left his lips.
Back in the Med Bay
Rita shifted uneasily, arms crossed. She was the only one who looked remotely concerned about Soren's sudden disappearance.
"Shouldn't we go help him look for Jerry?" she asked, looking between the crew. "I mean, he saw a figure, right? What if he's in trouble?"
Voss didn't answer immediately.
He just stared at her.
Silent. Calculating.
Then—
"Did you see anything?"
Selene's voice was polite. Measured. But there was something beneath it—an analytical edge.
Rita rubbed her wrist. A nervous habit.
"...No." She exhaled. "I didn't see anything. That's why I'm worried. He's so desperate to find Jerry that he's making things up."
Selene's expression shifted.
Her jaw tightened. Then—her fingers flew across the console, scrolling frantically.
"No. No, this doesn't add up."
Her voice was sharper now, more controlled, as if she were trying to rationalize the impossible.
She turned, her gaze locking onto Rita.
"Before he saw that figure, Soren had no idea Jerry was still alive. That's an objective fact."
She inhaled, steadying herself.
"So whatever he saw..." her voice wavered just slightly, "...it reacted before we even had time to look for Jerry."
A tense silence.
Then—
"Go. Now."
Selene's voice was firm.
"Find him."
Voss clenched his fists, his jaw tightening.
His expression betrayed him. He was worried.
But there was something else in his eyes, something he didn't say.
"Alright," he exhaled. "I'll take the right corridor."
He turned to Rita.
"You go left."
Then—to Selene.
"You stay here. If he comes back this way, don't let him out of your sight."
Then—without another word—
They ran.
As the others sprinted out of the med bay, Selene stayed behind, her fingers flying across the console, searching.
"Where is it? Where the hell is the log?!"
The screen flickered as she tore through the data archives, scrolling past layers of system entries.
She muttered under her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs.
There had to be something. There had to be proof.
She inhaled sharply. Then—
"AI, access security logs. Hallway outside the med bay. Approximate timestamp: seven minutes ago."
The ship's AI responded instantly.
"Absolutely!"
A slight pause.
Then—its voice returned. Bright. Too bright.
"Here you go, Doctor Kael! Logs retrieved."
Selene froze.
That tone. The AI never sounded... cheerful.
But she didn't question it. Not now.
Instead, she focused on the video.
The security footage loaded onto the screen, file by file.
Her pulse spiked as she scanned the angles, clicking through timestamps until—
"Yes! This is the one!"
She watched the moment Soren saw the figure.
Paused. Rewound. Changed angles.
Then—
Her breath hitched.
"What the fuck is that?!" Her voice cracked.
The shape at the end of the hall wasn't human.
Not anymore.
Her fingers twitched over the controls. She zoomed in.
The screen flickered.
She squinted, her breath shallow.
The figure was tall, skeletal, skin warped in unnatural contortions. Blackened veins stretched beneath its translucent skin.
Its face was—
Her stomach lurched.
"No. No, no, no..." she whispered.
Because she recognized it.
Not just who it was.
What it was.
Jerry.
Not the volunteer. Not the survivor.
Jerry—the experiment.
The screen glitched violently.
The lights flickered.
Her breath caught.
Then—
The monitor shut off.
Selene didn't hesitate.
She shoved herself away from the console and rushed to hide.
A cold, scientific truth settled into her gut.
Jerry wasn't missing.
Jerry wasn't dead.
Jerry had come back.
And this time—
he wasn't alone.
A scream.
Raw. Distorted. Echoing through the corridor.
Then—footsteps.
Heavy. Unsteady. Too human. Not human enough.
Selene held her breath.
Every scream—it wasn't just pain.
It was a war.
A battle inside Jerry's own body.
"Sele... ahhh... Sel...." His voice fractured, strangled between agony and something deeper.
Something else.
Selene pressed a trembling hand over her mouth.
"I'm so sorry, Jerry." Her voice was barely a whisper. A confession.
A single tear slid down her cheek.
And still—she hid.
Still—she was terrified.
The screams got closer.
Selene's mind raced, cycling through every possible exit, every possible explanation.
Would she have to fight? Would she have to kill him?
Then—
CRASH.
The entire desk lurched into the air.
Jerry lifted it effortlessly.
Selene barely had time to react before it was hurled across the room, slamming into the far wall.
She was exposed.
"Shit—"
She staggered backward, her heartbeat a violent rhythm in her throat.
"I don't want to hurt you!" She forced her voice steady. "You can take control, Jerry! You're still in there!"
He didn't move.
Didn't advance.
Didn't react.
His jaw... unhinged.
His body twitched— convulsing, yet still.
His stare—locked onto her.
Then—
A sound.
A voice.
Not Jerry's.
But from Jerry's mouth.
Low. Resonant. Unnatural.
The Eidolith.
"Selene."
The ship shuddered.
The lights dimmed.
Selene's breath hitched—not from fear.
From the undeniable, scientific certainty.
The Eidolith wasn't hunting them anymore.
It had already won.
Then—
Selene's vision fractured. The med bay wasn't the med bay.
For a half-second— she wasn't here.
She saw herself.
Older.
Her hair streaked with white. Her face worn, eyes hollowed by years. Standing in a different ship—one just like this. But the walls were darker, the consoles inactive. And behind her—shadows. Shifting, stretching, crawling toward her.
And then—
They saw Selene, too.
Not the older version of her. Her. Right now.
The shadows turned.
And then—it all snapped back.
The med bay returned. Jerry still stood in front of her. The ship still hummed beneath her feet. But—
Her breath came sharp and uneven.
Her hands were shaking.
That wasn't a vision. That was real.
A whisper crawled through the intercom.
"Welcome home, Selene."
The lights cut out.