The world stuttered.
One moment, he was standing in the pod. The next, he was nowhere. Everywhere. A cold rush behind his eyes. Like falling into a mirror that didn't reflect back.
[UPLOADING… 9%]
[Warning: Neural sync accelerating beyond safe parameters.]
He blinked.
But the room didn't return.
Instead: darkness—laced with violet static. Shapes curled in and out of his vision. Some looked like people. Some like memories. Some like thoughts that didn't belong to him.
Then the voice.
"Breathe."
He didn't want to. But his lungs obeyed anyway.
"You were not designed for silence. You were designed for conversion."
His heart slammed against his ribs. He couldn't tell if it was his heartbeat—or the system calibrating.
He saw her.
The girl. But only for a moment. Her face flickered like corrupted data. Her voice echoed in the static:
"Don't let it take you."
He tried to speak. Nothing came out.
The darkness shifted. Now he was… standing over something. Breathing heavy. Blood in the air. His hand clenched around metal. A shard?
No. Not metal.
Bone.
He dropped it. Stepped back. Looked down— A body. Twisted. Eyes wide. Not recent.
But not old either.
[UPLOADING… 14%] [Emotion suppression initializing…]
"You were hungry." "You were efficient." "We were successful."
He collapsed to his knees.
"What did I do?"
The voice corrected him, softly:
"What did we do?"