The silence hit like a shockwave.
No alarms. No beacons. No hum of engines.
Just... stillness.
Elara opened her eyes and found herself not aboard the Wraith but somewhere else.
A field of black glass stretched endlessly beneath her boots. Above, the stars pulsed unnaturally, like they were alive... watching. But not with kindness.
"Where"
Her voice cracked, and the sound was swallowed instantly by the void.
She turned and standing behind her was herself.
Not the fractured version from the beacon. Not the haunted shade in the journal. This one was worse.
This Elara had no eyes only dark hollows flickering with recursion static. Her skin shimmered like broken code, glitching in and out of a thousand possibilities. A whisper escaped her lips, not in words but feeling and the meaning bled straight into Elara's thoughts like poison.
"You are the last."
"No," Elara whispered, stepping back. "I survived. I merged. I chose this reality. I'm real."
"They all said that."
