I barely had time to breathe before the pain consumed me.

  The tendrils burst from my back.

  Something ripped free from inside me—tearing, clawing, breaking. My bones stretched, my ribs cracked apart like splintering wood.

  Flesh split.

  There was no stopping it.

  I tried to scream. Nothing came out. My body wasn’t mine anymore.

  The tendrils curled around me, sleek metallic limbs wrapping tight, lifting me into the air. My arms dangled uselessly. My legs kicked, trying to find the ground.

  But there was no ground anymore.

  Something new was taking shape.

  Something that wasn’t me.

  Then came the pulling.

  Not just in my body. In my mind.

  It clawed through my skull, through my thoughts, my memories, dragging them into the dark. Stretching. Warping. Twisting. My ribs felt like they were splitting apart, my spine twisting into something not human anymore.

  I felt my cybernetic arms disconnect. They didn’t fall—they hovered in place, dismantling into pieces, held up by thin black rods that vibrated with an unfamiliar hum.

  I was disassembling.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  And then—

  The whispers came.

  Soft at first. Sweet. Like a lullaby meant to put me to sleep.

  Then louder.

  Stronger.

  Hungrier.

  “Our Host…”

  The mask hovered before me. Waiting. Watching. Wanting.

  The voices slithered through my mind, wrapping around my thoughts, whispering in a voice that felt too close to my own.

  “One with the Host.”

  “Rejoice.”

  I was sinking.

  No—drowning.

  I could feel myself slipping, breaking, becoming.

  The mask was waiting for me to accept it.

  I felt my fingers move on their own.

  Reaching.

  Trembling.

  The whisper sighed in delight.

  They weren’t just speaking to me. They were speaking through me. Their words burrowed into my brain, rewriting something fundamental.

  This is what you are.

  This is what you’ve always been.

  No.

  That’s a lie.

  I tried to resist. I knew this wasn’t me.

  But my body didn’t.

  The tendrils from my back twisted, pulling me taut, testing their control. My skin split apart and fused back together in ways that weren’t natural. My limbs felt too long. Too fluid. Too wrong.

  I reached for the mask, hands shaking.

  It was real—too real.

  Smooth white porcelain, cold against my fingertips. I turned it over, expecting emptiness.

  Instead—

  I saw it.

  The glow.

  It was breathing.

  It was alive.

  The world shattered.

  The streets. The rain. The pain in my body.

  Gone.

  I was somewhere else.

  Somewhere vast.

  Somewhere endless.

  “Our host.”

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  The words were inside me now, vibrating against my bones.

  I wasn’t standing anymore—I was floating. Suspended in a weightless void, my body an echo of itself, stretching and dissolving, like I was being copied and erased at the same time.

  The tendrils sprouting from my back extended endlessly into the dark, vanishing into something I couldn’t see.

  A presence coiled around me. Close. Too close.

  It knew me.

  It had always known me.

  “You resist. You fight. You struggle.”

  The voice purred, dripping with something sickly sweet.

  “But we know you, Mari. We know your heart.”

  The mask pressed against my face. A touch that was almost loving.

  “You think you are afraid of losing yourself.”

  The mask melted into me.

  Pain.

  Detonating through my skull. My spine arched, body convulsing as every nerve burned white-hot.

  I gasped. I saw myself.

  My reflection—if it could even be called that.

  Eight limbs.

  Sleek. Segmented. Like the legs of some impossible creature. My arms, once human, were now jagged, reshaped, mechanical yet alive.

  My eyes—no, the mask’s eyes—glowed an unnatural blue, burning through the dark.

  The Whisper laughed.

  “You were never meant to be small. You were never meant to be weak.”

  I wasn’t.

  I was meant to be something else.

  “No—”

  I gasped, clawing at the mask.

  My new limbs fought against me, trying to keep it on. Trying to seal it into my very being.

  “Let us in, my queen. Let us breathe in you.”

  “Shut up!”

  I ripped at it. My fingers slipped against the sleek, unyielding surface. The Whisper laughed.

  I could feel them inside my mind, curling against the edges of my sanity.

  They weren’t attacking.

  They weren’t forcing.

  They were seducing.

  “You are tired of running, aren’t you? Tired of being a weapon for other people.

  No one controls you here.

  Not Zara. Not the Resistance. Not even yourself.”

  The voice slithered through my thoughts, honeyed and low.

  “You are tired of being prey.”

  “We can make you strong.”

  “We can make you untouchable.”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “We can make sure no one ever hurts you again.”

  The mask tightened. Claw-like appendages dug into my face.

  Don’t listen.

  Don’t listen.

  My vision swam. The city, the Resistance, Zara—they all felt so far away.

  “Just say yes.”

  NO.

  I screamed.

  Forced the tendrils to obey me.

  They trembled, resisting, but this body was mine.

  I wasn’t going to let them steal it.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  With one final wrench, the mask tore free.

  The voices howled.

  The world snapped back into place.

  The rain. The streets. The weight of my own breath.

  I stood there, gasping, the mask dangling from my trembling fingers.

  The cold pressed against me, seeping into my skin. The pavement was slick beneath my feet, the scent of rain and blood thick in the air.

  Everything was too sharp. Too loud. Too real.

  The Whisper was silent.

  But I wasn’t free.

  I felt them.

  Inside me.

  Not resisting.

  Not whispering.

  Waiting.

  I turned. Walked back to camp.

  The warriors were staring. Frozen. Stiff with fear. One of them—one of the brave ones—his hand jerked toward his holster. Not to fire. Not yet.

  But to be ready.

  I didn’t move.

  I didn’t need to.

  He knew, and I knew.

  He wouldn’t make it.

  The warriors, the ones who barked orders, carried weapons, fought without hesitation—

  They looked like children before a nightmare.

  A man near the front—one of the Resistance leaders—took a step forward.

  His voice shook.

  “What… are you?”

  Before I could answer—

  Desire floated toward me.

  His usual, playful energy was gone.

  His gaze locked onto the mask. Unblinking.

  “The Whisper,” he murmured.

  His voice was different.

  Low. Cold.

  The entity inside me stirred.

  “Lustreth.”

  Desire flinched.

  A reaction.

  So slight. But I noticed.

  My breath caught.

  “…Desire?” My voice was hoarse. “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer immediately.

  Then, softly, he whispered—

  “You shouldn’t have let it inhibit you.”

  A siren wailed in the distance.

  I felt it before I saw it.

  Beyond the sirens. Beyond the rain.

  A figure.

  Draped in white.

  Unmoving.

  Watching.

  Not the mask.

  Me.

  The Whisper stirred.

  “You think this is over?”

  The Whisper purred, its voice shifting, curling around my thoughts like silk.

  “You are ours. You always were.”

  “You cannot run from what you already are.”

  “You cannot run from us, my queen.”

  And for the first time…

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.