The hum of The Horizon’s Edge was softer now — almost soothing, like a lullaby sung to a restless child. But beneath that calm, Elara felt something shifting, an unease that clung to the air.Days had passed since the encounter at the Rift. The bruises on the ship had begun to fade, but not the ones it left on her crew.Especially not on Tim.He had stopped sleeping, though he insisted he did. His hands trembled when he thought no one was watching, and the faint blue light beneath his skin had grown brighter, threading up his veins like living circuitry.At first, Elara told herself it was just residual energy. Trauma. Something that would fade with rest. But deep down, she knew better. The Rift had not just touched him — it had rewritten him.---She found him in the cargo bay, shirt half undone, sweat glistening along his shoulders as he struggled to lift a containment crate that should’ve weighed half a ton. The crate hovered, then dropped with a metallic thud that echoed through t

Silence.Not the clean, peaceful kind that follows sleep, but a thick, humming stillness that pressed against the skin.Elara blinked, vision blurred by the ghost of the light that had swallowed everything. Her ears rang; her body felt weightless, as if gravity itself were reconsidering its duty.The deck beneath her tilted once, then steadied. The faint red of emergency lights flickered back to life, staining the corridors in crimson haze.“Tim?” Her voice cracked.No answer.She pushed herself upright, pain blooming across her shoulder. Every console around the bridge had gone dark; holographic panels hung frozen mid-display. A curl of smoke drifted from a ruptured conduit.Then she saw him.Tim lay a few meters away, motionless, his skin faintly luminous in the dark. The glow wasn’t like before—no longer confined to his veins but radiating through the air around him, a soft aura that bent the light itself.Elara crawled to him, heart hammering. “Tim! Wake up—come on!”Her fingers b

At first, there was no sound—only a pressure, heavy and endless, like the universe had drawn in a breath and refused to let it go.Tim floated in the glow, the ship fading away beneath him. Threads of data, memories, and alien light twisted through the dark, forming constellations that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat.Then he heard it.A voice—his name—cut through the silence.“Tim Watt.”Korr’s voice. Low, resonant, and cold as steel.Tim turned toward the sound, but there was no body, no figure—only shifting outlines that flickered between human form and digital storm.“You should’ve stayed away from the gate,” the voice continued, echoing inside his skull. “Now you’re mine to unmake.”Tim clenched his fists. The currents of energy responded, bending and tightening around him like armor. “You lost the moment you tried to use the Starborn tech for yourself.”A chuckle rippled through the void. “And yet, here you are, drowning in it. You think you’ve mastered the link—but it’s fee

At first, there was only stillness.No sound. No light. Just the black, endless ocean between stars.Then the void rippled.Something vast stirred beyond the edge of perception — a distortion so faint it could’ve been mistaken for a trick of light. But it wasn’t. Space itself bent around it, warping gravity into spirals that hummed like distant thunder.A fragment of wreckage drifted past: a Syndicate beacon, long dead, its surface cracked and scorched from the Rift. As it floated closer, the beacon flared back to life for a single pulse. A signal—ancient, impossible, alive.And from the center of that pulse, Korr opened his eyes.---He was no longer flesh.No longer bound by bone, blood, or even time.The void clung to him like mist, his outline flickering between human form and a storm of data and energy. The artifact had not consumed him—it had rewritten him.The memory of pain was gone.The memory of defeat was gone.All that remained was the signal, humming through his veins.He

The hologram wavered, caught between flicker and form. Blue light pulsed across the bridge in rhythmic waves, breathing life into the spectral outline of Korr.He didn’t move, not in the human sense. He vibrated — as though reality itself strained to contain him.Elara’s breath came slow.“Tim,” she whispered, “don’t engage.”But Tim was already staring back, eyes wide, lips parting.“He’s not broadcasting… he’s projecting.”Korr’s gaze turned to him — calm, deliberate. “You’ve grown stronger, Tim. The Rift bends for you now.”Tim’s fingers twitched at his side. The artifact, slotted into its containment ring, pulsed once, syncing with his heartbeat. “You’re inside my head,” he said evenly.“I’m beyond it,” Korr replied, voice smooth as water. “I see what you see. I feel what you fight to hide. The fear, the doubt. The guilt that you survived when others didn’t.”Elara’s hand hovered over the emergency override. “We can cut the power feed to the comm relays. It’ll destabilize his form