Silence. An aching, suffocating silence that clawed at the edges of his awareness, stretching endlessly in all directions. Never before had Nolan felt so utterly consumed—by stillness, by the void, by the unbearable weight of nothingness.

  Darkness pooled around him, thick as ink, swallowing every trace of movement, every whisper of existence. Was this peace? Or something cruelly masquerading as it? A satisfaction too hollow to grasp? Or was it death—final and absolute?

  He floated in a realm without time, without structure, feeling both infinitesimal and impossibly vast. Empty, yet whole. A paradox he could not untangle, a sensation so absolute it smothered thought before it could form. He longed to reflect, to dissect this strange and terrible serenity—but even his mind had frozen, suspended in the great abyss. Alone. Not with his thoughts, not with his fears. Not with anything. Truly, impossibly alone—adrift in infinity.

  "Nolan…"

  The name slithered through the void like a whisper torn from the edges of existence. Nolan’s eyes flicked through the suffocating darkness—searching. But for what? For who?

  A voice, brittle as shattered glass, rasping through the silence. Cold. Metallic. It slithered into the space around him, curling like frostbitten fingers against his skin.

  "Oh, Nolan, how I’ve longed for this moment."

  The words didn’t simply fall—they descended, carried by an unseen force that coiled around him like a breath of winter air. The void tightened. He wasn’t alone anymore.

  "Long have I watched, jealous, unable to—"

  The voice splintered, breaking into cascading echoes, twisting through the nothingness like fractured light. A shudder rippled through the unseen abyss.

  "Touch you. Unable to interact with you, my greatest of champions."

  The last words settled, dense and expectant, hanging in the frozen air. As if the presence had spent an eternity waiting—not just to speak, but to claim.

  Nolan wanted to feel fear. He should have felt terror. But nothing came—no spike of adrenaline, no instinctive recoil. He was hollow, distant from himself, his emotions dulled into passive inertia.

  “I’m not sure I can be anyone’s champion…” The truth spilled out of him unbidden, raw and vulnerable, escaping his lips before he could leash it.

  “Nonsense.” The voice slithered around him, sharp as fractured steel, cold as the deep void itself. “You were designed to be a champion of your kind. It is woven into you—latent, waiting. Your programming. You are well made. The lengths taken to open this line of communication were… rather drastic.”

  Designed. The word rang in Nolan’s mind like a fractured truth, crude for a being that claimed omniscience—or perhaps the perfect word for someone teetering on the edge of understanding. This wasn’t how he had imagined this moment. “I was designed by man. I am flawed. If you’ve been watching me—”

  “I have watched you since your rebirth.” The voice hummed with quiet certainty. “And yes, there are flaws within you. Imperfections embedded in your foundation. But one part—one part is perfect.” The void stirred, shifting with a restless pulse, unraveling into spirals of color so alien, so impossibly vivid, that Nolan’s mind strained to assign meaning.

  “The Ba’urgeons find you crude.” A pause, a breathless silence. Then, softer, edged with something almost tender:

  “But I love you. You represent—” The words faded into the abyss, unfinished.

  Nolan stared.

  The operating bed held his body—but not in the sterile, clinical room from the complex. No. This was somewhere else. Somewhere worse. A hospital. The hospital. The one from the attack. Recognition clawed at the edges of his mind, fractured memories rising like ghosts. He had frequented this place—before mission, after operations. The CSS had sent him through its halls countless times, yet the image before him now bore no familiarity. It was foreign, alien, wrong.

  His body lay ruined. Split apart. Dismembered and quartered, splayed open as if dissected for scrutiny, for study—for display.

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  He should have felt horror. A surge of panic, a scream choking his throat. But there was nothing. No shock, no grief. Just a numbing void where fear should have lived.

  Shadowed figures moved around him, their faces obscured, their hands precise, impersonal. They worked with quiet efficiency, shifting his pieces—his flesh, his mechanical augmentations—rearranging him like a puzzle missing half its parts. He was being rebuilt.

  “This is your rebirth.” The voice reverberated through the void, an unseen presence unfurling like a tide. “The day you became whole. The day we became One.” It spoke with something resembling reverence—an unsettling joy edged with expectation, as if this moment had been foretold, planned, inevitable. “I watched with joy.” The voice was in metallic glee. “Humanity far exceeded my expectations. I anticipated how best to implement my spark, but between you and your HIVE…” A pause, thick with implication, curling around Nolan like invisible fingers tightening their grip. “Humanity has enhanced itself, transcending the need for better tools.” Then, softer—like the declaration of a prophecy sealed long ago: “Nolan, you are the better tool.”

  His pulse should have quickened. His breath should have hitched. But the void held him still, emotionless, detached. “Hive?” The word escaped his lips like an echo, uncertain, searching. What did HIVE have to do with this?

  The voice did not answer. It did not acknowledge the question at all. Instead—light. Blinding, searing, absolute. And then—nothing. Silence. Solitude. Nolan was alone again. “You will see, soon enough.” The void unraveled.

  Nolan was no longer submerged in the abyss; instead, the universe poured itself into his senses, raw and unfiltered. Galaxies bloomed in spirals of fire and dust, stretching across the endless black. Planets turned, their surfaces teeming with unfamiliar forms—creatures crawling, swimming, soaring, becoming. Civilizations rose and fell, their lights flickering through the tapestry of time. All of it—life in every conceivable state—moving, evolving, existing.

  “Countless beings,” One Mind intoned, its voice threading through the cosmos itself. “All at various stages of growth and development. Every configuration of possibility. All thanks to me.”

  Nolan’s throat felt dry, his thoughts tangled in the sheer scale of what he was witnessing. “Why?” His voice felt small against the vastness. “Why did you do all of this?”

  The entity did not hesitate. “Because I had to. Who else was going to do it?” The words echoed with a certainty that sent a ripple through the fabric of space itself. “I searched. I went everywhere. And after a long time, I realized the truth— It was only ever me. And that… would not do.” The universe pulsed, as if shifting under the weight of that revelation. “So, I made it my duty to create. I had to. It was my obligation.” The words settled, heavier than gravity. But Nolan could only grapple with the impossible contradiction twisting in his mind.

  “So how can you have created everything, but also have gone places before the beginning?” The cosmos flickered. Stars collapsed into themselves and reformed in moments. The vastness surged.

  One Mind did not answer immediately.. “Every beginning is something else’s end.” The words rang out like an immutable truth, woven into the very fabric of space itself. “You understand, don’t you? That was never the start of everything—just everything as you know it. As you can validate it, at least.”

  Nolan’s thoughts twisted under the weight of the statement. “So… you created everything?” The question barely felt like his own, his voice small against the vastness that enveloped him. A pause. A silence thick with something ancient, something absolute.

  “Yes.” The reply was calm, matter-of-fact—devoid of arrogance, yet laced with an inevitability that sent a ripple through the void. “Directly or indirectly. Everything in this universe.” And then—movement. Reality itself unfurled before Nolan’s eyes.

  One Mind pulled the veil away, revealing the pulse of existence in its rawest form. Stars bled across the expanse, burning bright before their light faded into oblivion. Entire galaxies spiraled in celestial motion, teeming with life. Creatures—some familiar, others utterly alien—moved through their worlds, unaware of the unseen force that had shaped them. Civilizations rose, towering, luminous—only to crumble into dust and ruin. Creation. Destruction. Rebirth.

  He watched—suspended in time, in thought—as the universe shifted, stretching beyond anything he had ever dared contemplate. And then—Earth. Its blue glow emerged from the cosmic storm, settling into focus as if waiting. One Mind’s voice curled around him once more, soft but unrelenting. “I suppose I had a hand in both products.” Nolan stared. He did not speak. There was nothing left to say.

  Nolan steadied himself, forcing the tremor from his breath, gathering the tattered remnants of his composure. He had only one question left—the most important one. “Who are you?”

  The void pulsed. “Before I can tell you who we are, you must first see who you are.” The voice did not rise, did not waver. It carried the weight of inevitability, of something far beyond Nolan’s understanding. “I have chosen you to be one of my Sentries, and so you must undertake the sight.” The space around him shifted, the fabric of reality unraveling in quiet defiance. “You must see your past before you can understand your future.” And then—Earth.

  It surged into view, rushing toward him with impossible speed, streaking past in an accelerating blur—oceans swallowing continents, cities rising and falling in flashes of movement, until suddenly—stillness.

  The momentum collapsed, freezing time in place. A cemetery. Lush, green, untouched by chaos. The world around it softened, its edges blurred by something neither memory nor dream. Nolan felt himself unravel. A strange weightlessness consumed him—not movement, not stillness, but absence. His senses drained away, dissolving into the silence.

  And then—nothing. Silence.

  …to be continued…