Caden woke to the sound of the vents choking.
Not the usual rattle — that tired, metal-on-metal clatter that had been his lullaby for months.
This was wetter. Heavier.
Like the whole system had caught pneumonia.
Rotten eggs and rust. That's what it smelled like.
It's kinda like that one time - when you're standing in the kitchen, frying eggs half-distracted, and you're also trying to chop something on the side — onions, maybe, or whatever you swore would make it taste better. Then the knife slips, just enough to open your skin. Not a deep cut, but one of those annoying ones that bleeds fast, red already streaking across your hand. So you do what everyone does — stick the finger in your mouth, suck the sting out, taste that raw copper tang filling up your tongue.
And that's exactly when you catch it — the smell. The eggs you forgot about are still sitting in the pan, hissing in their own oil, edges blackening. That sulfur reek crawls up, thick and sour, curling right into your nose. And with blood already heavy on your tongue, the two things mix — iron and sulfur, copper and char, smoke in your throat and metal in your mouth.
That's what it smelled like.
He sat up slow in his bunk, groaning as his spine popped against the thin mattress. The prefab ceiling loomed inches above his. Somebody, bored or furious, had carved words into it with a knife:
FUCK THIS PLANET.
The letters were jagged, uneven. They'd been there since his first night. A welcome banner. Whoever wrote that was probably a fucking prophet.
He rubbed his face, palm grinding into his eyes until stars burst in the dark. Yesterday came back like acid reflux.
That miner prick — grinning with all his yellow teeth — talking shit to him. Said it loud enough for the whole bay to hear. Said it right to his face.
And the sergeant? Stood there like a wall, silent. Not a word, not even a flicker. Like Caden wasn't worth the oxygen.
He'd swallowed it down. He should've broken the bastard's jaw instead. At least then his knuckles would ache instead of his pride.
His omni-tool blinked awake, orange light casting his bunk. The system voice chimed, flat and cheerful:
Air Filtration Cycle Incomplete – 12 Hours Remaining.
"Twelve hours? Bro, it already smells like Satan's ass in here."
He thumbed the comms channel, patched into maintenance.
"Hey, it's Twist. I am choking on rotten egg soup in here. Will you swap the damn filter before I suffocate?"
A bored voice answered, thick with apathy. "Daily swaps aren't in protocol. The dorms are scheduled for replacement tomorrow."
Caden pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah? Well, protocol doesn't have to sleep here gagging on iron farts. Cmon, just change it."
Another voice cut in. Older. Gravel scraping against gravel. "Supplies are rationed. One filter, forty-eight hours. You got a problem with that, file it with command."
He grinned humorlessly, teeth clenched. "Yeah, I'll file it right after I die. Maybe you can bury me with the paperwork. Alliance honors, right?"
He killed the line before they could answer, muttering curses under his breath as he swung out of the bunk. The floor was cold; dust gritted against his socks. His uniform hung from a hook — wrinkled, sweat-stained, smelling faintly of sulfur and oil. He yanked it on piece by piece, still cursing.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The cafeteria hit harder than the barracks. Yeah it was the smell again. Which today - it smelled worse than the food. Which was saying something in Caden's book.
And together? Together it smelled like somebody had tried to cook pennies in swamp water. The vents tried to push it around, but all that did was spread the flavor evenly.
'Great.'
The line shuffled forward. Miners, marines, conscripts. Their boots scraped the metal floor in rhythm, like the universe's most depressing marching band.
Caden slid his tray down the counter. The cook — a square guy with a hairnet that looked like it had lost the will to live — slapped beige goo onto it. The goo actually jiggled.
Caden raised an eyebrow. "Ah, my favorite today huh? Industrial sealant."
Private Harker, dragging himself behind him, muttered, "Just eat man." His voice had that permanent tired-raccoon tone, like someone had been waking him up every hour since birth.
Caden glanced back. "Relax, kid. It's protein paste. Builds character. Is what Baines would say."
He drifted toward a table and dropped onto the bench across from Corporal Baines. The man didn't even glance up, just kept shoveling food like it was a tactical maneuver.
Caden poked the paste with his fork. The fork didn't bend — it bounced. He sighed heavily.
"Eat," Baines said, voice flat.
"You know what really kills me? This crap looks exactly the same going in as it does coming out. Like the cooks just scoop it off the toilets every morning, slap it on a tray, and call it 'fortified.' Full-circle dining, boys."
Harker made a face like he was about to gag.
Baines froze mid-bite, jaw tight, then set his fork down slow, like even chewing had become disrespectful to his stomach.
Caden grinned wide. "What? Did I ruin chow time?"
Yeah. He definitely did. Corporal's appetite just flatlined — which was perfect, since Caden never liked the stuck-up bastard anyway.
"Bon appétit, comrades. May the sludge make us strong and/or kill us fast."
Across the aisle, one of the miners snorted into his tray — a wet, muffled laugh he tried to smother before it escaped.
Caden shoved a forkful into his mouth. The paste clung to his teeth like glue. It tasted of salt and nothing else. No texture. No flavor. Just sludge engineered to keep you alive and miserable.
The armory bay always sounded like a construction site having a panic attack.
Bolts clattered, rifle slides snapped back, helmet seals hissed in staccato bursts. Boots thudded on grated floors, shaking dust loose from the ceiling vents. The whole place smelled like gun oil, ozone, and somebody's half-burnt coffee.
Caden dropped his empty tray in the return bin and strolled in, rifle slung lazy across his shoulder. He tapped the butt of it against the wall just to hear the clang echo. Little rituals kept you sane.
"Another day in paradise," he muttered, loud enough for half the bay to hear.
Private Harker trailed behind him, fumbling with his chest plate like it was a Rubik's cube. Kid's fingers shook as he tried to snap the seals.
"I hate this place," he whispered, breath fogging inside his helmet.
"Relax, Harker," Caden said, snapping his own plate shut with one hand. "Therum's not so bad." He lifted his helmet, sniffed theatrically. "Just smells like… sulfur cotton candy. Real gourmet shit."
And hell, he'd take this over Earth any day. Back there, survival was the whole game — keep breathing, keep moving, that was it. Out here? At least putting holes in pirate skulls felt like a purpose. Like it meant something.
Before he could drift further into that overthinkhole, a chuckle drifted over from the next row of lockers. Private Deleon — wiry guy with an easy grin — shook his head as he loaded mags into a chest rig. "Don't encourage him, Harker. Twist is ninety percent mouth, ten percent bad decisions."
"And a hundred percent correct," Caden shot back, sealing his helmet with a hiss. HUD blinked green. "Besides, without me, you'd all die of boredom before a single raider shows up."
"Wouldn't be the worst way to go," Baines grumbled from across the bay, voice gravelly. He was stripping his rifle down with surgical precision, not looking up. Always not looking up.
Deleon just smirked.
"Just admit it y'all. I am the thin, sarcastic line between you and total despair."
Even Harker cracked a shaky grin at that.
Sergeant Kellan strode past, helmet under his arm, eyes sharp as always. He didn't even break stride. "Weapons green in five. Save the comedy for when we're not about to roast alive outside."
"Yes, Sarge," the squad echoed, Caden throwing in a half-mocking salute just subtle enough to pass as genuine.
He clipped his rifle to the mag-lock on his back, flexed his fingers, and grinned inside the helmet.
The airlock cycled with a long, rattling hiss, and then hell slapped them in the face.
Therum's heat wasn't heat. It was pressure. Like stepping into a giant oven where the thermostat had snapped and now the whole planet was set to "broil." Even inside the suits, sweat prickled under armor plates almost instantly.
The sky burned red-orange, a permanent sunset smeared with sulfur haze, since the planet was tidally locked. Black volcanic plains stretched forever, broken by rivers of lava that cut glowing scars through the ground. The whole place looked like somebody had spilled paint — black and red and orange bleeding together until it stopped being landscape and started being warning sign.
The colony's prefab walls loomed behind them, streaked with soot. From the outside, they looked even flimsier. Like a big bad wolf could huff and puff and blow the whole outpost straight into the lava pits.
The returning patrol stomped through the gate; armor dulled from dust. Sergeant Voss passed the logbook to Kellan. "Clear. Nothing out there today but rocks."
Caden shouldered his rifle, muttering on comms: "Rocks. My favorite. Love fighting rocks."
Deleon chuckled in his ear.
"Been dying for some decent sparring partners."
Private Harker trudged at his side; visor fogged faintly from nerves or maybe just panic sweating. "You think raiders'll hit today's freighter?"
Caden smirked under the helmet. "If the galaxy loves me, yeah. Raiders, pirates, mercs — anything with a pulse. I'm begging the universe for target practice."
"You're insane," Harker muttered.
"Just, bored."
Ahead, Baines swept his rifle across the haze, voice flat. "Keep chatter tight. Eyes forward. Raiders don't send you a calendar invite."
Caden rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Silent professional time." He muttered quieter, just for Harker: "Bet you five credits the Corporal's married to his rifle."
Harker's laugh cracked nervously, but it was there.
Their boots crunched on scorched grit as the squad fanned out across the ridge. The HUD blinked: Incoming Freighter – ETA: Two Hours. Fat, slow, packed with supplies. Which made it perfect bait.
Caden's trigger finger itched. He told himself it was just boredom. That he wanted something, anything, to break the monotony.
But the truth buzzed like static in his skull: he wanted blood. He wanted the rush. He wanted to feel alive. Even if it only lasted the three seconds it took to put a bullet through someone's visor.
On the surface, he played the soldier. "Yes, sir. No, sir." He followed patrol routes, ate the rations, logged the hours. The conditioning was still strong.
Deep inside. He'd wanted glory in the war, but the war denied him. He'd wanted purpose, but the Alliance gave him babysitting duty on a lava rock.
That itch never went away. Every shift he hoped for raiders, not out of duty, but out of need. To shoot, to bleed, to matter. Even if it was just for a heartbeat.
"Come on, raiders," he muttered.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The Systems Alliance loved to present itself as humanity's shining spear into the galaxy. They had posters, speeches, recruitment vids — all flags, music, and inspiring quotes about destiny.
Reality was less glamorous. The Alliance was basically a giant HR department with guns: part military, part government, part corporate logistics nightmare. To them, soldiers weren't heroes — they were numbers. Recruits in, assignments out. Like shipping crates, but with more paperwork.
Aliens were way stronger than us. They had fleets, tech, and what looked like straight-up space wizard magic — biotics, they called it. Humanity didn't have that. What we had was the thing that kept us alive through the Black Death, world wars, superviruses — adaptability. Every time history tried to snuff us out, we bent, we broke, but we pulled through.
And in 2157 after Shanxi burned, humanity bent again. Not into pieces, but into one banner: the Systems Alliance. Recruitment posters went up, conscription lists filled, and for the first time kids weren't just signing up for their country. They signed up for the whole species.
Caden Twist was one of them.
Caden's background didn't exactly scream "asset." He grew up in the slums of Earth's megacities, surviving on scams, scraps, and fists.
He wore the uniform, and for Caden, that meant he'd finally made it. He wanted glory. Medals. His name etched in history. He was going to matter.
The war ended before he fired a shot.
Seven brutal months were wrapped up in a treaty, the turians pulled back, and humanity called it a "proud moment." For Caden, it was drills, patrols, and the sour taste of almost. Almost a hero. Almost remembered.
Afterward, the Alliance shifted gears. No more war — now expansion. The Magellan Initiative launched in 2158, all about frontier colonization, mining rights, and making sure nobody else grabbed the good spots first. Former conscripts weren't discharged; they were repurposed. Security details, colonial garrisons, glorified rent-a-cops with Alliance branding.
Caden's assignment: Therum.
On maps, Therum was valuable — veins of eezo, rich metals, prime territory on the Traverse edge. On the ground, it was a furnace. The sky never cleared. Sulfur vents coughed poison day and night. Prefab shelters shook every time the earth groaned. The outpost looked more like a bad camping trip than the dawn of a new human age.
Security meant babysitting miners, walking fences, and trying not to choke when the filters inevitably clogged. It was supposed to feel important. It didn't.
When Caden got dumped on Therum, he thought maybe — just maybe — this was where the galaxy finally noticed him.
Therum was dangerous, after all.
Raiders, pirates, maybe a Batarian or two. Enough to put 'hazard pay' on the flyer, not enough to make headlines.
For Caden though, that sounded like opportunity. Gunfights. Glory. Proof he wasn't just another recycled conscript.
And raids did happen.
Not often, but enough. A freighter jumped on by slavers. A mining convoy strafed by mercs. Sometimes a skirmish outside the colony walls, sharp and fast, before the raiders cut their losses.
Every time, Caden went in with fire in his chest, sure this was it. Sure, the brass would see his grit, his nerve, his "refuse to kneel" streak. He pictured himself getting promoted, commended, maybe even transferred somewhere that mattered.
That never happened.
To the Alliance, he wasn't a hero in the making. He was inventory. A grunt with a rifle he could barely handle, and no remarkable skills outside of a sharp mouth. If he fought well, good. If he didn't, there were ten more kids waiting to fill his slot.
No one cared if Caden Twist risked his neck during a raid. No one noticed if he held the line a little longer or fought a little harder. His reports got stamped, filed, and forgotten. Promotions went to lifers with clean records, not gutter kids with attitude problems.
That was the real lesson of Therum: Twist wasn't a hero-in-waiting. He was a spare part with a serial number.
He still dreamed, of course. He couldn't help it. But now it felt like life was bitch-slapping him in the face, spitting, "You wanna dream, you lil shit? Then keep on dreaming."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The drill shrieked like it had just chewed through steel instead of rock. Sparks spit across the shaft, bouncing orange against black basalt.
"Kill it!" the foreman barked, and the rig died with a groan.
The engine whined down, only leaving the hiss of coolant and the ragged breaths inside helmets. Dust hung in the air like smoke, swirling in helmet lamps. The rock face split open where the drill had bitten, exposing something.
It wasn't rock.
Black metal jutted out, edges sharp enough to catch the lamp beams weird, bending light like it wanted to eat it. Veins of faint glow pulsed under the surface — not bright like eezo, more like… veins under skin.
"We hit another Prothean ruin?" one of the miners asked, voice muffled by static.
Another comm near him crackled "Nah, ruins don't look like that. That's—maybe we should get the research team here."
The foreman stepped up, scanner whining in his glove. The readout spat static and spikes, like the shard was flipping it off in binary. He swore under his breath.
"Back it up. Nobody touches it."
They all shuffled a step back, except one idiot who crouched down with a long-handled brush, scraping basalt dust off the edge. The shard hummed. Not in the air — in their teeth. Everyone stiffened at once, hands flying to jaws like they'd just bitten tinfoil.
"Fuck this," the guy muttered, dropping the brush like it burned.
The foreman's hand twitched like he wanted to reach out anyway. He stared at the shard too long, then snapped back, yanking his glove away. "Spray it."
One miner hissed hazard paint in a bright circle around the rock, neon lines glowing ugly in the dust. Another rigged up more floodlamps, but the beams jittered every time they touched the thing, like even light didn't want to stick.
The foreman finally slapped his comms. "Outpost command, this is Tunnel Four. We got a find. Artifact class. Excavation's shut down. Requesting security detail and science division, ASAP."
There was a pause, only static and the shard's low vibration filling the silence. Then the reply crackled in:
"Copy. Stand by. Security en route."
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The comms crackled with half-formed noise — fragments of Caden's voice bleeding through, words tumbling over static.
"…sweet, but… wrong. Like—uh—burnt sugar in a gutter maybe? No, wait, hold up…" His tone sharpened as the signal steadied, his voice coming in clear now. "Okay, yeah, I got it — it smells like somebody tried to cook cotton candy in a sewage pipe. That's more accurate, right? I think? Kinda nostalgic though. Like Earth carnivals — except instead of funnel cakes you get, uh—" he gestured at the lava rivers boiling in the distance, "—that."
Their boots crunched over scorched grit, the horizon wobbling in sulfur haze.
Harker's nervous chuckle buzzed in his mic. "I've… never been to a carnival."
Caden groaned, exaggerated. "Jesus, kid, you haven't lived. You ever even had fried dough? Powdered sugar, grease stains, the works? I mean figures, I guess. They don't give gutter snacks in the barracks."
Deleon's laugh cut in. "Only you, Twist, could miss street food in the middle of a hell oven."
"Hey," Caden said, jabbing a thumb at him. "When this patrol's over, I'm filing a requisition order. One funnel cake, expedited shipping. What's the Alliance motto again? 'For Humanity and all her future fried snacks?'"
Deleon snorted. "How many of those damn orders have you filed now? Hundred? Two?"
Caden shrugged. "No idea, lost count. The Sergeant probably keeps track though — either a whole folder with my name on it, or he just deletes 'em and prays I die before I file another one."
"Comms discipline."
Caden leaned closer, visor glinting. "Translation: shut the fuck up, Twist." He exaggerated the whisper like a stage actor, making sure everyone heard.
"Problem is, Corporal, if I shut up, who's gonna keep morale alive? You? With that sexy radio silence?"
Deleon's chuckle leaked through again. Harker tried to smother his grin. And Baines? Baines' silence was louder than gunfire.
That's when the call broke in — sharp, official, cutting right through Caden's bullshit:
"Bravo Squad, report to Tunnel Four. Artifact discovery. Secure site until science team arrives."
The comms clicked dead.
Caden clapped his hands once. "And just like that, boys, boredom's canceled. Field trip to the spooky alien shaft!"
Harker groaned, "Why do you sound excited about this?"
"Because, my sweet summer child, 'artifact' means 'finally something not a rock.' And if the galaxy loves me, it means danger. Raiders, curses maybe, laser ghosts? ...now that's a story my bones would love to tell the lava."
Baines sighed so hard it crackled over comms.
"Move."
Bravo Squad trudged down Tunnel Four, boots clanging on steel plates that turned the mine into a man-made canyon. The whole shaft roared like a factory — drills on caterpillar rigs chewing rock, ore carts rattling past on maglev tracks, loader mechs stomping around with claws full of basalt. It was less "archaeology" and more "strip mall for minerals."
Except for the hazard zone ahead.
Floodlamps blazed against the wall where the shard jutted out, their beams bouncing hard off the dust. The miners had painted a wide neon ring around it, left their scanners and brush tools scattered like they'd bolted mid-shift.
And there it was. Black. Jagged. Veins of faint light crawling under its skin.
Caden's visor tilted, eyes wide even if they couldn't see it. "Okay… yeah. I really wanna touch it."
Deleon snorted. "Of course you do."
Harker's laugh cracked in his mic. "Honestly? Me too."
Even Baines' silence felt like half an admission.
They stood there, shoulder to shoulder, visors reflecting the shard. Nobody moved closer. Nobody wanted to be the guy who went down in the report as 'touched the spooky rock and died'.
So unspoken and unanimous, they all decided the same thing: wait. Wait for the nerds. Just marines and miners, surrounded by the roar of drills and the stink of hot machinery, staring at the thing like it might blink first.
Then their comms chimed — flat system voice: Incoming freighter, ETA: 2 Minutes.
Deleon let out a breath. "Supplies. Finally."
The relief lasted exactly three seconds before Kellan's voice ripped through, sharp and raw:
"All units! Defensive positions, now! Pirates inbound! Repeat — pirate raid, heavy numbers!"
The tunnel lit up with warning strobes, alarms bleeding red across the dust.
The order to redeploy came in sharp, and Bravo squad didn't wait for science.
They turned, boots pounding on steel decking, rushing toward the tunnel mouth where daylight bled through dust. The roar of drills and loaders thundered behind them — industry still chewing at the planet like nothing was happening.
Then the world split.
A fireball ripped across the tunnel entrance, white-orange swallowing steel. The shockwave hit like a god's backhand — tossing marines, miners, and chunks of scaffolding through the air.
Caden hit the deck hard, his HUD spiking red with warnings. His ears rang, vision strobing. The mouth of the tunnel — much narrower than the cavern itself — caved like wet cardboard, boulders and twisted struts collapsing in slow-motion horror.
"—fuck!" Harker's voice squealed across comms.
Caden coughed dust, tried to stand. His hands scrabbled against debris until one found solid purchase.
And that's when he realized what he was gripping.
The artifact. Cold as space. Veins of light crawling under his glove like it was alive.
"Aw, sh—" was all he got out.
Then the world folded in on itself.
Black swallowed the tunnel. The alarms, the dust, the pirates, the screams — gone. Like someone had hit mute on reality.
And Caden Twist fell headfirst into the dark.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Darkness.
Not the kind where you're dead and gone. No — this darkness was alive. He could feel it breathing, humming. He was standing in it, looking, but there was nothing to see. Yet somehow, he knew everything was there. He could feel his body — flex his fingers, clench his fists — but when he tried to touch himself, nothing. No skin, no texture, just the idea of a body.
"HELLOOOO?" he yelled into the void. His own voice echoed back, hollow. "Okay, what the actual fuck. Did I die? Is this… the afterlife? Because wow, false advertising. Thought there'd be more fire, less… Ikea blackout."
Then he felt it.
A presence. Massive. Gargantuan. Cosmic. He couldn't see it — still nothing but dark — but he knew it was there. Like when you walk into a room at night and sense a wall in front of you before you smack into it. Only this wasn't a wall. This was… a mountain. A continent. A god?
Instinct made him look up — and his imagination failed. The scale was impossible.
And then, without warning:
KNEEL.
The word wasn't sound. It was force. Weight. It slammed down on him from every direction, crushing his not-body like a soda can, shoving the thought of obedience straight into his marrow.
It hit him like drowning.
Not the cinematic kind — no thrashing arms, no lifeguard sprinting in. The stupid kind. It's like that one time when you are a teenager again. A prank goes too far. You're not a swimmer yet, but one of your friends pushes you into the pool, right into the deep end. You try to flail your arms. You shout out to them—you don't know how to swim! But they're not there anymore. Something way cooler has distracted them. They went inside and forgotten you.
You stretch up, reach for the surface, fingertips brushing light, hanging onto your current breath. You try to catch the next one — and then you slip under again.
This time the breath doesn't hold. This time water goes in. Just a sip, just a trickle at first, but it's enough. Your chest seizes, every nerve screaming, and all you can think is I'm not supposed to be breathing this. But you do anyway. You can't stop it. And once it starts, it keeps going — water pouring in where air should be, lungs filling with the wrong thing.
That's what the pressure felt like. Not a weight, not even pain. Just inevitability. Like his body had already lost, and all he could do was choke on the command shoved into him.
KNEEL.
But did he want to kneel? To whatever bullshit alien space-god this was?
No. No, he fucking didn't.
So he struggled. Just like a man drowning. He thrashed in the dark, lungs already burning with pressure that wasn't even physical. He screamed, though the void ate the sound.
KNEEL.
The command slammed harder, and this time it brought visions with it — flashes seared into his skull. Colossal shadows drifting in oceans the size of worlds, bodies so vast they defied scale. The sheer weight of their existence pressed into him, crushing down like continents. He saw them. Felt them. But he didn't know what they were, or what they wanted, except for that one endless word.
KNEEL.
The surface was gone; his back hit the pool floor. He was sinking into the dark, water filled where air should be. Inevitable. Final.
But he didn't want to. He really, really didn't want to.
So he fought one last time. He gathered everything he had left, the rat's stubbornness, the hustler's rage, the dreamer's hunger — and he screamed into the black:
NO.
His whole being tore with it. Muscles, will, mind — everything screaming in defiance. He planted his feet against the metaphorical floor of that ocean and he jumped.
Pushed against the crushing dark current with one last, filthy, furious roar:
FUCK. YOU.
And suddenly — surface. Air. Oxygen ripping into him like fire, filling every nerve, every vein. His metaphysical body surged back alive, stronger, sharper, burning with stolen strength.
So he did it. He forced his head up in that crushing void, teeth bared, lungs blazing with stolen air.
"FUCKER WANTS TO MAKE 'ME' KNEEL?" His voice was a roar, ragged and alive in the black.
He planted his will like fists against the weight. Every ounce of rage, every ounce of spite, every gutter-born refusal to bow boiled out of him.
"LET'S SEE HOW THAT FEELS FOR 'YOU' THEN."
The void trembled. The command faltered.
Caden leaned in, voice cracking from laughter and fury all at once.
"KNEEL, BITCH. KNEEL."
The presence roared. The ocean raged with it, waves crashing, currents tearing, a storm that should've drowned him a thousand times over.
But Caden felt the power in it. Felt it rushing through every inch of his not-body, that raw force the thing thought would break him.
And he took it.
He seized the tide, turned it, clenched it in fists made of pure will.
And then he started to crush the shit outta it.
The ocean buckled, pressure folding in, collapsing around the alien will. It screamed, a sound that wasn't a sound but a fracture in the fabric of thought.
Caden roared louder, driving it further, tighter. He didn't just want to defeat it. He wanted to implode it. Crack its will. Shatter the fucker's body. Fucking erase its existence.
Every shove was fire in his veins. Every collapse was laughter and fury tangled together.
And the echo, the ancient thing that had probably made empires bow, buckled. Folds of its being crushed inward, crushed again, until there was nothing left but pressure snapping in on itself — a black star going nova in silence.
And then… quiet.
The ocean calmed. The storm was gone.
And now he was alone again. The darkness pressed in from every side — but this time, it didn't feel alien. It didn't feel crushing.
It felt familiar.
Like it belonged to him.
Like he owned it.
For the first time in his life, Caden felt what he'd always craved, what he'd always dreamed of in the gutters, the alleys, the barracks where he was just another rat.
Power.
Raw, burning, undeniable power.
He felt it thrumming in his marrow, bending around his skin. It was power over force itself. Over will itself.
And something inside him shifted.
He was no longer a rat clawing for scraps. He was a predator?..... Yes, a Predator, he was.
Not just another wolf, not just another shark. No. Higher. Above them. Apex. The instinct ran deeper than thought — primal, absolute. Something in his subconscious lit up like it had been waiting all along.
Caden Twist had stopped asking if he mattered.
Now the only question was how far his fame will spread.