SUBJECT 47: AWAKENING

Echoes Across the Void

The chamber hums with pressure before I even enter, like the walls are holding their breath.

At its center, suspended midair, floats the construct.

Concentric rings of energy crackle around it, anchored by emitters embedded in the floor, the walls, the ceiling. They pulse like a heartbeat. I feel it in my ribs.

The object is manta-shaped and massive, its black surface folding over itself like liquid armor.

Purple light breathes from beneath the skin, casting shifting shadows that move like they’re alive.

“This is what we recovered from the crash,” Dr. Aveline says quietly.

“A warning, and a weapon. We just never figured out how to use it without dying.”

Devon steps toward the holographic interface. His fingers hover, twitching. The streams of alien code shimmer like tangled music, impossible to follow. His face shifts from fascination to unease.

“It’s not… logic,” he murmurs. “It’s thought.”

I frown. “Thought?”

“Yeah. It’s thinking in real time. Every symbol, every pattern, reacts to me. It’s not running code. It’s feeling me, thinking and adjusting.”

“It’s learned,” Dr. Aveline confirms, sweeping her hand through the display. The interface blooms into fractal patterns that shift with impossible complexity.

“Every time we engaged, it adapted. Reacted. Evolved.”

Kira studies the pulses with narrowed eyes. “These aren’t just responses. These are synaptic. This thing’s building a mind.”

“More than that,” Aveline says. “It’s building purpose. It’s immune to everything we’ve thrown at it, bullets, firewalls, even nanite intrusion protocols.”

“So fighting it… makes it stronger,” I say.

“Yes.”

The construct ripples, phasing through forms like it’s not bound to this dimension. Something in it sees me. I feel it. My nervous system resonates with its signal, and suddenly, it orients.

Limbs that were dormant unfold in midair, slow and precise.

It recognizes me.

Three rings of blue light pulse outward from its core, steady, symmetrical, rhythmic. Like sonar. Like invitation.

Kira steps back, her scanner whining. “It’s reacting to Ezren. All enhanced subjects in the facility just lit up like flares.”

Dr. Aveline turns to me. “Your integration is deeper than we thought. It sees you as kin.”

“Kin how?” I ask.

“Step forward. Find out.”

Kira’s hand shoots out. “Are you insane? You saw what happened last time…”

“We don’t have time for safe,” Aveline says.

“This may be our only chance to understand it.”

Every part of me screams to stay away, but something older in my bones leans forward.

“Ezren, wait—” Devon starts.

I ignore him.

One step. Two.

The containment field sizzles with static, but it doesn’t burn. It recognizes me. My silver-veined arms begin to glow in sync with the construct’s purple light. Our frequencies match.

Three feet. Two. One.

The barrier ripples like warm water and lets me through.

“He’s not breaching,” Kira whispers. “He’s being invited in.”

I touch the construct.

And the universe explodes.

***

It’s not a connection. It’s a conversion.

My consciousness tears across stars in a blur of radiant data, slamming into a vast neural net that spans galaxies. I see the Devourer fleet not from orbit, but from inside its thoughts. I am a node in their collective intelligence.

Worlds pass beneath me, stripped bare of life. Forests turned to ash. Oceans boiled into fog. Civilizations devoured, their screams flickering out like dying embers in the dark.

The hive-mind doesn’t think. It remembers. Billions of memories overlap in grotesque harmony. A chorus of extinction.

And in the middle of it, I lose myself.

My sister’s piano notes echo over alien death chants. My father’s voice, soft, kind—dissolves into planetary harvest protocols. The boundary between me and them dissolves like sugar in fire.

I don’t know who I am.

But they do.

Because I don’t just connect, I interfere.

My neural pattern creates static inside their collective. Individuality becomes infection. My thoughts don’t sync. They clash. Their network reels.

“What’s happening?” Kira’s voice echoes from miles away.

“He’s disrupting their intelligence,” Dr. Aveline says, awestruck.

“Human consciousness, uniqueness—it’s something they can’t process. He’s poisoning them.”

Panic rips through the alien hive. I feel it.

The construct starts broadcasting, massive pulses of data aimed directly into deep space. The facility shakes as systems overload, screens fry, and alarms scream.

“Sever the connection!” Aveline shouts.

“I can’t!” Devon’s voice cracks. “The system won’t obey. It’s gone around me!”

Kira’s scanner is shrieking.

I’m still inside.

Inside something that knows me now.

Their fleet stirs. Ships shift course. No longer drifting—they lunge. Slow predators turned rapid hunters.

“They’re accelerating,” I whisper through clenched teeth.

“They’re not coming for Earth anymore. They’re coming for me.”

The moment fractures.

I drop to the floor like a cut marionette, gasping. Cold. Disconnected. Devon grabs my shoulders, trying to stabilize me. Kira hovers, eyes wide with fear.

“What did you see?” she asks.

I look up. “Everything. They know me now. I’m in their memory. I’m… marked.”

Aveline doesn’t blink. “The invasion timeline just moved. They’ll be here in six weeks. Maybe less.”

“Six weeks?” Devon stares at her, voice brittle.

“We can’t build planetary defenses in six months.”

“You interfaced,” she tells me.

“Seventeen others tried. They all died within minutes. You didn’t.”

“Seventeen?” Kira snaps.

“You experimented on children?”

Aveline doesn’t flinch. “We prepared for war. They volunteered. We lost them. But we gained you.”

“So I’m a weapon,” I say. “A tool.”

“No,” she replies. “You’re a possibility.”

Kira’s scanner chirps again. She glances at me. “The veins under your skin, they’re spreading.”

I look down. Silver traceries glow across my arms, crawling toward my chest.

“It’s accelerating,” she mutters. “You’re integrating with the construct’s frequency permanently.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means you’re becoming more like them,” Aveline says. “More compatible. Which makes you more dangerous, and more valuable.”

The construct pulses again. Those same three rings of light. But faster now. Urgent.

“It wants another interface,” I say.

“No,” Kira says immediately. “That almost killed you.”

“What if permanent is what we need?” Aveline asks.

“You breached their mind. You hurt them.”

“You’re talking about sacrificing him,” Kira says.

“I’m talking about saving humanity.”

“No,” I say. “That choice is mine. Only mine.”

Aveline stares at me for a long moment. “We’ll talk soon. But the clock is ticking.”

As the alarms wail around us and the lights flicker red, I finally understand…

I’m not just humanity’s last hope.

I’m its target.

And the Devourers are no longer coming for Earth.

They’re coming for me.