Tomas thinned into a thread of song and was drawn inward. Narrowed and refined, until there was nothing left but the memory the Veins would keep.

  The Gate hiccuped.

  Then it stilled.

  The ascending column burst free of stone and into air.

  Nebula couldn’t breathe.

  Her lungs worked, but the air felt heavier than gravity, crushing instead of filling. The coil before her flared once it was brilliant and defiant which then went dark, its song swallowed whole.

  “Move!” Farworth shouted. “The field’s collapsing!”

  Lyra screamed raw, tearing through the static as Arata grabbed Nebula’s arm and pulled. She didn’t remember running. She remembered only leaving—the sensation of being torn loose from a heartbeat that was not hers, echoing deep in her bones.

  They fell upward.

  When they landed, everything was wrong.

  The air had colour again, there was almost too much of it. The sun struck like a weapon.

  Nebula’s eyes burned. Her muscles remembered weight after too long without it. She dropped to one knee, fingers digging into dirt.

  Dirt. Real Dirt, Unthinking and Mercifully indifferent.

  Somewhere nearby, Lyra was sobbing. Farworth muttered into his recorder, voice breaking rhythm for the first time. Arata stood a few steps away, bent forward, breathing too hard—as if he’d outrun himself, or something chasing him.

  Nebula turned.

  For one terrible moment, she expected to see Tomas climbing up after them.

  The Gate shimmered once more into a thin vertical line of light, human in outline.

  She blinked and it was gone.

  The silence that followed was unbearable.

  She drew in a breath that scraped her ribs raw and whispered, to no one in particular,

  “He didn’t leave, did he?”

  Arata’s voice came quietly, It was steady.

  “No.”

  Lyra looked up, eyes swollen and red.

  “He became the song.”

  Nebula closed her eyes.

  For a moment, she thought she could still hear him—that low hum, buried somewhere between heartbeat and breath. And in it was something that wasn’t quite grief.

  Something quieter. Sharper.

  A soldier’s knowledge.

  That some times you keep living, because someone else couldn’t.

  By dusk, the retrieval drones found them.

  Soldiers arrived in uniforms there were stretchers and medics. The familiar grammar of survival after a mission.

  Nebula didn’t speak as they were loaded into the transport.

  Only when the hatch sealed shut and the engines’ hum settled into a steady rhythm did she finally let her head rest against the cold wall and whisper to herself,

  “You heard it all the way through, didn’t you, Tomas.”

  She waited for silence.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But the vibration in the metal answered her—soft, steady, perfectly in tune.

  It almost sounded like a reply.

  ...

  Morning came late.

  Or maybe it had always been morning here. The light above the medical bay was too white to measure time by. It didn’t rise or fall — it simply was, humming faintly, sterile and unmoving.

  Arata woke to that hum.

  For a moment, he thought it was the Veins — the same distant song that had threaded through his dreams since their return. But when his eyes opened, he saw metal panels, bundled wires, and the faint shimmer of medical runes etched into the ceiling.

  He was alive.

  And the hum was only a ventilator.

  He pushed himself upright. Pain did not arrive immediately — only exhaustion, deep and all-encompassing. The kind that began somewhere behind the eyes and spread outward, settling into bone. His right hand still bore faint traces of blue beneath the skin, but the glow was dull now, almost grey, as if the world had rinsed it clean.

  Across the room, Lyra slept in a chair, folded awkwardly over a table cluttered with notes, diagnostic slates, and half-powered sensors. One hand still clutched her datapad, fingers curled protectively around it even in sleep.

  Farworth sat beside the observation glass, pen moving steadily across his field log. His handwriting was neat, precise — tighter than usual. The posture of a man keeping himself intact through ritual.

  Near the far window stood Nebula.

  Her back was to them, arms crossed, shoulders locked into stillness. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the glass — rigid stance, hair still disheveled from the ascent, eyes fixed on a horizon that refused to move.

  “Tomas?” Arata asked.

  He hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

  Farworth didn’t look up. “His signature dissolved at 0600 hours,” he said evenly. “The Gate registered a stable closure. The field absorbed him.”

  He paused, then added, quieter, “In technical terms, he’s now part of the system.”

  Lyra stirred at the sound of his voice, blinking blearily as she lifted her head.

  “In human terms,” she said hoarsely, “he’s gone.”

  The hum filled the space between them again.

  Nebula’s reflection didn’t move, but her shoulders sank, just slightly, as if gravity had remembered her at last.

  Arata lowered his gaze to his hand.

  For the first time since the Veins had answered him, the silence felt real.

  And heavier than any song.

  After a while, Wanuy came to see him.

  “Heard you were back,” he said, settling into the chair beside the bed. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Arata replied, still caught in the last moments of Tomas.

  “You don’t sound like it. Something happen?”

  “Nah,” Arata said, forcing a smile. “Just the usual experience of going to the underworld.”

  Wanuy snorted. “Want to hear something actually funny?”

  “Hm?” Arata asked.

  “Flint got his eyebrows roasted.”

  Arata blinked. “How?”

  Wanuy leaned forward. “You know Holly? He was flirting with her. Forgot Sierra was in the same room.”

  Arata laughed. Even Nebula turned from the window.

  “Wait,” Nebula said from the adjoining bed. “They’re a couple?”

  “That’s the problem,” Wanuy said. “They say they’re not. The whole batch disagrees.”

  For a while, they talked about small things.

  Normal things.

  Then a soldier appeared at the door.

  “Squadron Leader Arata. Cadet Nebula. You are requested by Magister Kohler for debrief. Ten minutes. Top floor.”

  The soldier left.

  Nebula and Arata exchanged a look.

  “What happened down there?” Wanuy asked quietly.

  “I’ll tell you some other day,” Arata said. “Meet you in the dorm tonight.”

  Wanuy nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

  The briefing chamber was too clean.

  Silver and glass dominated the space, its walls veined with faint lines of gold circuitry that pulsed softly, like a restrained nervous system. Rows of military brass filled the seats, uniforms immaculate, expressions professionally detached. They looked like witnesses who had already decided what they would forget.

  Magister Kohler stood at the front.

  He did not raise his voice. He never needed to.

  “So,” he said, eyes scanning the report on his desk, “you ascended successfully. The Gate stabilized. The Veins retained memory.”

  He paused.

  Then he looked directly at Arata.

  “And you lost one cadet.”

  “One soldier,” Nebula said.

  Kohler inclined his head a fraction. “Soldier, then. His loss will be honored.”

  The word honored landed wrong—ceremonial, polished, empty. Like a clean stone placed over something that still bled.

  Kohler continued, unbothered. “Your findings suggest the Veins are not a passive network, but a sentient archive.” His golden eyes flickered, pupils narrowing to slits for the briefest instant. “That… changes things.”

  He looked at them all now. Not as people. As variables.

  “You’ve done something remarkable,” he said. “Though I cannot yet determine whether it was wise.”

  A slow nod.

  “Rest. Recuperate. The Academy will hold a memorial tomorrow.”

  Dismissal, wrapped in ritual.

  As they filed out, Arata felt his hand throb. Beneath the bandages, faint blue light bled through the fabric. He glanced down just in time to see the mark pulse once, then fade.

  You listened this time, young Soldier.

  He heard the voice again , Flora's voice mixed with something older.

  I shouldn't have. Look what it cost.

  You took the data and the Song of Sacrifice from us. We just took something in return.

  So the principal of equal exchange works here. What did you give when you took Flora.

  At this point Arata was clenching his fists hard enough to break skin on his palms. Streaks of blood dripped.

  You will have to ask her someday...For now just know we stand with you... My Dear Soldier.