The white light sears my vision.
I can hear screaming—Yuki's voice, but wrong, layered over itself like a dozen people screaming in harmony.
Then the light fractures.
Splits into thousands of threads that connect to every dead in the circle. I can see them now, luminescent lines running from the nexus to each corpse like puppet strings made of crystallized emotion.
And at the center, Yuki is seizing.
Her body convulses. The nexus is pouring into her—I can see it, streams of iridescent light flowing up her arms, into her chest, spreading through her like infection.
"SUPPRESSING FIRE!" Jin's voice cuts through the chaos.
The security team opens up. The modified rifles don't fire bullets—they fire something else. Sonic pulses that make the air shimmer.
The dead in the outer ring stagger. Some collapse. But they don't dissolve. They're too strongly tethered to the nexus.
"It's not working!" one of the guards shouts.
Jin is already moving, pulling something from his belt. A cylinder—the same kind of device Maya used on the dead man yesterday.
A Residuum disperser.
He's going to break the nexus.
"WAIT!" I don't know why I'm shouting. Don't know why I'm running forward. "If you disperse it while she's connected—"
"She dies or she dies," Jin snaps. "At least this way we get data—"
"She's thirteen!"
"She stopped being thirteen the moment she consumed her first fragment." But his hand hesitates on the trigger.
That hesitation is all Yuki needs.
She rips her hand away from the nexus.
The light snaps back like a broken rubber band. The backlash sends her flying—she hits the ground hard, rolls, doesn't get up.
The dead turn as one.
Toward her.
"MOVE!" Jin is already running. The security team lays down covering fire as he sprints into the circle of dead.
They don't attack him. They're focused on Yuki. Shambling toward her with that horrible patient determination.
Jin reaches her first. Scoops her up. She's not fighting. Not conscious. Her eyes are open but they're not seeing anything—just rolling back, showing whites.
"Fall back! NOW!"
We run.
The dead follow, but they're slow. We have maybe thirty seconds before—
The nexus pulses.
I feel it more than see it. A wave of pressure that makes my teeth ache and Claire's memories spike with panic—fire spreading, smoke filling lungs, can't breathe can't breathe—
The dead stop shuffling.
They start running.
"Oh fuck," someone breathes.
Three hundred dead, no longer slow and patient, sprinting after us with speed that corpses shouldn't have.
The security team is firing constantly now. The sonic pulses knock some down, but there are too many, they keep coming—
"THE WALL!" Jin bellows. "GET TO THE FUCKING WALL!"
I can see Sanctuary Seven in the distance. The north gate. So far. Too far.
The Residuum detector in my hand is screaming alerts. I glance down.
The screen shows a cluster of signals to our left. Close. Maybe twenty meters.
Residuum. Dozens of them.
Power. Abilities. Skills.
All I have to do is touch one.
Consume it.
Become something more than a therapist who can barely run two hundred meters without his lungs burning.
Claire's protective instinct is screaming at me to do it. Save them. Save the child. Yuki is a child, she needs protection, you have to—
"Kaine, MOVE YOUR ASS!"
I run.
Behind us, the dead are gaining.
One of the guards goes down. I hear her scream, cut short. Don't look back. Can't look back.
The gate is getting closer. A hundred meters. Fifty.
I can hear them behind us. Smell them—rot and rust and something else, something wrong.
Twenty meters.
The gate is opening. Security personnel inside are firing over our heads. Covering fire.
Ten meters.
Something grabs my ankle.
I go down hard. Face hits concrete. Taste blood.
Roll over. One of the dead—a man in a postal uniform, jaw hanging wrong—has my leg. His grip is cold. So cold it burns.
He's pulling me toward him.
Toward his other hand, reaching for my face.
I kick. My boot connects with his skull. His head snaps back but his grip doesn't loosen.
This is it. This is how I die. Day two of being a Residuum eater and I'm going to—
Jin appears. The disperser cylinder presses against the dead man's chest.
Glass-breaking sound.
The corpse dissolves into light.
Jin hauls me up. "GATE! NOW!"
We stumble through.
The gate slams shut behind us.
I can hear them on the other side. Hundreds of them. Slamming against reinforced steel. The impacts sound like thunder.
But they can't get through.
We made it.
I'm on my hands and knees, gasping. My ankle throbs where the dead man grabbed it. I can see the mark through my torn pants—a perfect handprint, skin white with frostbite.
"Medic!" Jin is shouting. "I need a medic for Chen!"
Yuki.
I look up. She's on the ground a few feet away. Maya is there already—when did she arrive?—checking vitals, shining a light in those rolled-back eyes.
"Pulse is erratic. Breathing shallow. She's in shock." Maya's voice is clinical but I can hear the fear underneath. "We need to get her to medical. Now."
They lift her onto a stretcher. As they carry her past, I see her hand.
The one that touched the nexus.
The skin is covered in iridescent cracks. Just like my arm was yesterday. But worse. The cracks spread all the way up to her shoulder, and they're not fading.
They're pulsing. Like a heartbeat.
Like the nexus is still connected to her.
The medical wing smells like disinfectant and desperation.
I'm sitting in the waiting area with an ice pack on my ankle and a blanket someone draped over my shoulders. I don't remember getting the blanket.
Jin is pacing. He hasn't stopped since we got back.
The guard we lost was named Kira Patel. Twenty-six. Former EMT. She had a younger brother in the civilian quarter.
Someone's going to have to tell him.
The door to the examination room opens. Maya emerges. She looks worse than when she went in.
"Chen is stable. Physically." She sinks into a chair. "Neurologically, she's... we don't know. She's conscious but not responsive. Just staring at nothing."
"The nexus did something to her," I say.
"Obviously." Maya rubs her face. "But we don't know what. The cracks on her arm—they're not normal Residuum integration. It's like the nexus tried to download itself into her and her body is rejecting it. Or accepting it. We can't tell which."
"Can she recover?"
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this." She looks at Jin. "What the fuck was that thing, Captain? A compressed nexus of thousands of Residuum?"
"You're the researcher. You tell me."
"Residuum don't merge. They're individual soul fragments. Each one is discrete, unique. The idea of thousands of them compressed into a single point—it violates everything we understand about how they form."
"Then we don't understand shit," Jin says flatly. "Because I saw it. We all saw it. Someone or something is collecting Residuum and compressing them. The question is why."
"And who," I add.
They both look at me.
"The nexus didn't form naturally," I continue. "The dead were arranged around it. Guarding it. Feeding it. Someone set that up. Someone is organizing this."
"The entity," Maya says quietly.
Jin's expression hardens. "You're still on that conspiracy theory?"
"It's not a conspiracy if we just watched three hundred dead coordinate an attack the moment we got too close to their nexus." Maya stands. "Someone opened the Veil. Someone is harvesting Residuum. And now someone is compressing them into weapons or batteries or—I don't know what. But it's not random."
"Then we need answers." Jin turns to me. "Kaine. When you were out there, what did your detector show?"
I pull out the device. It's cracked—must have happened when I fell—but still functional.
"Residuum signatures everywhere. But the nexus..." I scroll through the recorded data. "It was putting out energy readings that don't make sense. Like it was actively drawing emotional resonance from the dead around it and converting it into something else."
"Converting it into what?"
"I don't know. But whatever it is, Yuki wanted it." I remember her eyes. The way they changed. "One of her fragments—she said it was a researcher who died studying Residuum. That fragment took over. Made her approach the nexus."
"So the fragments can override the host's will," Maya says.
"We knew that," Jin mutters.
"We suspected. Now we have confirmation." Maya is making notes on her tablet. "Which means every Residuum eater is a potential security risk. The more fragments they consume, the less control they have over which personality is dominant."
"Yuki has seventeen fragments," I say. "How has she stayed functional this long?"
"Coping mechanisms. Discipline. Sheer willpower." Maya pauses. "And luck. But everyone's luck runs out eventually."
The examination room door opens again.
A nurse emerges. "Dr. Zhao? She's asking for someone named Silas."
Me.
Maya nods. "Go. But if she starts acting strange—if her eyes change or her voice shifts—you get out immediately. Understand?"
I stand. My ankle protests but holds. "Understood."
The examination room is small and too bright. Medical equipment beeps steadily.
Yuki is sitting up in the bed. Her arm is bandaged—they've covered the iridescent cracks—but I can still see them glowing faintly through the gauze.
She looks at me. Her eyes are brown. Normal brown.
"Silas Kaine," she says. "You didn't die. Good."
"Neither did you."
"Didn't I?" She flexes her bandaged hand. "I touched it. The nexus. I felt it pour into me. Thousands of voices, all screaming at once. Thousands of obsessions. Thousands of final moments."
"Yuki—"
"I saw what it was," she continues. Her voice is distant. "The nexus isn't just compressed Residuum. It's a conversion engine. It takes human emotional energy—fear, grief, rage, desperation—and refines it. Purifies it. Concentrates it into something usable."
"Usable for what?"
"I don't know. The information was too much. Too fast. Like trying to drink from a fire hose." She looks at her hand. "But some of it stuck. Some of it integrated. I have new fragments now. Not seventeen. Twenty-three."
Jesus Christ.
"You consumed six Residuum from the nexus?"
"I didn't consume them. They were forced into me. Downloaded. Installed." Her voice cracks. "I can feel them. Six new people. Six new obsessions. They're fighting for control right now. One of them—Margaret? Martha?—she wants to check on her garden. One of them is trying to remember a phone number he died before calling. One of them is just... screaming."
"Yuki, we need to get you help—"
"There is no help." She meets my eyes. "You're new, so you don't understand yet. But there's no cure for fragmentation. There's no therapy that puts you back together. Once you start splitting, you just keep splitting until there's nothing left."
"That's not true—"
"It is." She smiles. That wrong, sweet smile. "I'm going to lose. Maybe not today. Maybe not this month. But eventually, one of the fragments will take over completely, and Yuki Chen will just be a memory that someone else has."
The beeping of the medical equipment is the only sound.
Finally, I say, "Then why do it? Why keep consuming? Why not just... stop?"
"Because people need me to be useful. The sanctuary needs eaters. And if I'm not useful—if I can't fight and scout and retrieve Residuum—then what's the point of keeping me alive? Food is scarce. Space is limited. Only the useful survive."
"You're a child. You shouldn't have to be useful to deserve to live."
"Should and is are different things." She leans back against the pillow. "I called you here to tell you something. About the nexus."
"I'm listening."
"When I touched it, when all those fragments flooded into me—I saw a pattern. A purpose." Her eyes go distant. "The dead aren't being controlled randomly. They're being positioned. The nexuses are being built in specific locations around the sanctuary. This was just one of them."
"How many?"
"At least six. Maybe more." She refocuses on me. "They're surrounding us. Penning us in. And when they're all complete, when all the nexuses are fully charged—something's going to happen."
"What?"
"I don't know. The information was fragmented. But I felt... intent. Hunger." She shivers. "Something wants what we have. What's inside us. And it's been farming us for seven years."
The implications make my skin crawl.
"We need to tell the council—"
"They won't believe me. I'm a fragmented eater. Unreliable. Possibly hallucinating." Yuki grabs my wrist. Her grip is cold. "But you—you're new. Still mostly coherent. If you find proof, if you can show them what's really happening—they might listen."
"How am I supposed to find proof?"
"Go back out there. Find another nexus. Study it. Document it. And whatever you do—" Her grip tightens. "—don't touch it. I made that mistake. Don't repeat it."
There's a knock on the door. The nurse. "Miss Chen needs rest now."
I stand to leave.
"Silas?" Yuki's voice is small. Young. Actually thirteen for just a moment. "Do you still know your name? Like, really know it? Not just remember reading it in a journal?"
I think about my mother's face. Gone. Replaced by Claire's mother.
I think about the way I grabbed that rebar yesterday. Instinct that wasn't mine.
I think about how many more pieces I'll lose if I keep doing this.
"Yeah," I lie. "I still know."
She can tell I'm lying. But she smiles anyway.
"Good. Hold onto that as long as you can."
I leave the medical wing.
Maya and Jin are waiting outside.
"What did she tell you?" Jin demands.
I relay everything. The conversion engines. The multiple nexuses. The pattern surrounding the sanctuary.
Jin's expression gets darker with every word.
When I finish, Maya is typing furiously on her tablet. "If she's right—if there are six or more nexuses being built around us—we need to find them. Map them. Understand what they're building toward."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Jin asks. "We just lost a guard trying to investigate one nexus. You want to send more people to their deaths?"
"I want to send eaters. They can perceive the nexuses from a distance. Map the locations without getting close enough to trigger a swarm."
"We have six eaters. Five are unstable. Chen just consumed six more fragments and is barely holding on. That leaves—" Jin looks at me. "One fragment. Combat instinct from a dead firefighter. You really think that's enough to survive out there?"
"No," Maya says. "Which is why we need to augment him."
I don't like where this is going.
"Augment how?" I ask.
Maya pulls out a container from her coat. Inside is a Residuum. Blue-green. Pulsing slowly.
"This is from a former scout. Died three years ago during a reconnaissance mission. Military training, enhanced perception, tactical analysis skills. If you consume this, you'll have the abilities you need to navigate the wasteland and identify nexus locations without getting killed."
"And I'll lose more of myself."
"Yes."
"How much more?"
"There's no way to predict that," Maya admits. "Everyone's fragmentation rate is different. But you've already proven you're more resistant than average. One fragment in a day and you're still coherent. This could be sustainable."
"Or it could push me over the edge."
"It could," she agrees. "But if we don't map those nexuses, if we don't understand what's being built around us—we're all dead anyway. At least this way, you have a chance to save everyone."
At the cost of saving myself.
I look at Jin. "What do you think?"
"I think this is insane," he says flatly. "I think using untrained civilians as expendable scouts is exactly the kind of shit that got us into this mess. I think—" He stops. Takes a breath. "But I also think Yuki is right. If there's a pattern, if something's surrounding us, we need to know. And eaters are our only option."
"So you're saying I should do it."
"I'm saying it's your choice. But if you do—I'll go with you. Standard security escort. Keep you alive long enough to get the intel and get back."
Maya extends the container. "Your decision, Silas. Consume this and help us map the nexuses. Or refuse, and we find another way."
I look at the Residuum.
Blue-green. The color of deep water. Or old bruises.
Inside is a person. Someone who died with unfinished business. Someone whose skills and memories and obsessions I'll inherit.
Someone whose identity will overwrite parts of mine.
I think about my mother's face. Already gone.
I think about what else I'll lose. My favorite foods. My childhood memories. The way I take my coffee. Small things that make me Silas Kaine and not just a collection of other people's endings.
But I also think about Yuki. Seventeen fragments—now twenty-three—holding herself together with journals and videos and sheer desperate will.
I think about the child with the stuffed rabbit. Oliver. Alive because Claire's instinct moved my body.
I think about all the people in Sanctuary Seven who don't know something is surrounding them, building toward some terrible purpose.
And I think about Maya's daughter. Lily. Eight years old. Lost in the first week.
If I can help find her—give Maya that closure—maybe that's worth losing a few more pieces of myself.
"If I do this," I say slowly, "I need something from both of you."
"Name it," Maya says.
"You—" I point at Maya. "—you document everything. Every personality change. Every memory I lose. You keep a record of who I was before this. So if I survive, I can know what I sacrificed."
She nods. "Agreed."
I turn to Jin. "And you—if I fragment completely, if I lose myself and become a threat—you put me down. No hesitation. No trying to save me. Just end it. Deal?"
Jin's expression is stone. But he nods once. "Deal."
I take the container from Maya.
The Residuum inside pulses like a heartbeat.
"How do I do this?" I ask.
"Open the container. Touch it. Let it integrate." Maya's voice is gentle. "It won't hurt. That's the worst part. It should hurt, but it doesn't."
I open the container.
The Residuum floats up. Hovers in the air for a moment.
Then it rushes toward me.
Impacts my chest.
And the world fractures.
NAME: Marcus Rivera
AGE: 34
DIED: March 15th, three years ago
CAUSE: Sniper shot to the chest while scouting dead movements near Sanctuary Seven's western perimeter
LAST THOUGHT: "I should have told Ana I loved her"
The memories hit like a freight train.
I'm not Silas anymore. I'm Marcus. I'm in the military. I know how to read terrain, how to move silently, how to identify threats from a hundred meters away. I know the weight of a rifle and the feeling of a scope pressed against my eye and the cold certainty that comes with pulling a trigger.
I know Ana. Twenty-nine. Dark hair. Brilliant smile. The way she laughed at my terrible jokes. The way she looked at me like I was worth something.
I never told her I loved her.
I died before I could tell her.
I need to find her. I need to tell her. It's been three years but maybe she's still here, maybe she's waiting, maybe—
"Silas!"
The voice cuts through.
I blink.
I'm on my knees. Maya is holding my shoulders.
"Say your name," she commands.
"Marcus—" I stop. No. Wrong. "Silas. My name is Silas Kaine."
"Good. Who's Ana?"
"Marcus's—someone Marcus knew. Not mine. I don't know an Ana." But I can see her face. Can remember the way she tasted like coffee and cinnamon.
Memories that aren't mine.
Maya helps me stand. "How do you feel?"
I run a mental inventory.
I know things I didn't know ten seconds ago. Tactical movement. Weapon handling. How to read the environment for threats and opportunities. The knowledge is there, solid, like I've had it my whole life.
But underneath it, there's an ache. A need.
Marcus needs to find Ana. Needs to tell her he loved her before it's too late.
Except it's already too late. He's dead. I just inherited his regret.
"I feel like I need to find someone named Ana and tell her something I don't actually feel," I say.
"The obsession," Maya confirms. "It'll fade. Or you'll learn to compartmentalize it. Either way, you can function around it."
"Can I?"
"You're standing. You're talking. You know your name." She meets my eyes. "That's more than most people manage after their second fragment."
Jin is watching me like I'm a bomb that might detonate. "Can you walk?"
I test my legs. They hold.
But I notice the difference immediately. My posture has shifted. More balanced. Weight on the balls of my feet. Ready to move.
Marcus's muscle memory.
"Yeah. I can walk."
"Then let's move. We need to brief the council on what Chen told us, and we need to plan the reconnaissance mission." Jin starts walking. "You've got until tomorrow morning to integrate that fragment. Then we go back out."
Tomorrow morning.
Less than twenty-four hours to get used to having two dead people living in my head.
I follow Jin and Maya through the sanctuary corridors.
People stare. Word must have spread about the incident at the north wall. About Kira.
I catch my reflection in a window.
I look the same. Same face. Same dark hair. Same exhausted eyes.
But I move differently now. Carry myself differently.
Marcus is in there. Changing me from the inside.
And Claire is still searching. Still hoping to find Thomas.
Two obsessions. Two sets of memories. Two voices in my head that aren't mine.
How many more before I can't hear my own voice at all?
We reach the council chambers.
Director Voss is already there. So is Dr. Reid. They look grim.
"Captain Park. Dr. Zhao. And Mr. Kaine." Voss gestures to chairs. "Sit. We have a situation."
"We know," Jin says. "The nexus at the north wall—"
"Not just the north wall." Voss pulls up a holographic display.
It shows Sanctuary Seven from above. And around it, at six equidistant points—
Clusters of dead.
Just like the one we saw.
"Two hours ago, our long-range sensors picked up massive dead movements at all six cardinal and ordinal points around the sanctuary," Voss continues. "They're forming the same pattern. Concentric circles. All facing inward."
"Building nexuses," Maya breathes.
"We don't know what they're building, but Chen's report corroborates the pattern." Voss looks at me. "She also said you consumed a second fragment. A scout. Is that accurate?"
"Yes."
"On whose authority?"
"Mine," Maya says. "We need eaters who can navigate the wasteland and identify these structures. Kaine volunteered."
"Volunteered or was coerced?"
"Volunteered," I confirm. Though the line between volunteering and being backed into a corner is pretty thin.
Voss studies me. "How's your coherence?"
"I know who I am. Mostly."
"Mostly isn't good enough. Dr. Reid, assessment."
Reid approaches me like I'm a lab specimen. Shines a light in my eyes. Asks me basic questions. My name. My age. What I did before the Veil.
I answer correctly. I think.
"He's coherent," Reid confirms. "Two fragments in as many days and he's still functional. That's exceptional integration speed."
"Or he's hiding the degradation," Voss counters.
"I'm not hiding anything," I say. "I have two dead people's obsessions rattling around my head and I've lost memories I can't get back. But I can still think. Still function. Still help."
Voss considers this. "Fine. Here's what's going to happen. Tomorrow at 0600, you and Captain Park will lead a reconnaissance team to the western nexus. You'll observe from a distance, document the structure, and return. No engagement. No touching. Understand?"
"Understood."
"And Kaine? If you show any signs of fragmentation in the field—if your obsessions override your judgment—Captain Park has standing orders to neutralize you. For the safety of the team."
I glance at Jin. His expression hasn't changed.
"I understand," I say.
"Good. Dismissed."
We file out.
In the hallway, Maya touches my arm. "You should rest. Integration is exhausting."
"I need to do something first."
"What?"
"Marcus—the fragment I just consumed—he needs to find someone named Ana. Tell her he loved her." I can feel the obsession pressing against my thoughts. "If I don't at least try to resolve it, it's going to eat at me all night."
Maya's expression softens. "Ana Rivera. She's in the civilian quarter. Works in hydroponics." She pauses. "She remarried last year. Has a daughter now."
Marcus's grief hits like a punch to the gut.
She moved on. Of course she moved on. It's been three years.
But Marcus's obsession doesn't care about logic.
"I still need to tell her," I say.
"That a stranger consumed her dead boyfriend's soul and now has his memories and feelings? Silas, that's going to traumatize her."
"Then what am I supposed to do? Just carry this around forever?"
"Yes. That's exactly what you're supposed to do." Maya's voice is gentle but firm. "The obsessions don't go away just because you fulfill them. Because you're not actually Marcus. You're Silas with Marcus's regrets. And forcing those regrets onto a woman who's spent three years grieving and rebuilding her life—that's cruelty disguised as closure."
She's right.
I know she's right.
But Marcus's need is so strong. So immediate.
"How do you live with this?" I ask. "The unfulfilled obsessions?"
"You learn to recognize which thoughts are yours and which are theirs. You build walls. Compartmentalize." She squeezes my arm. "It gets easier. Or you get better at pretending it's easier. Either way, you survive."
"What if I don't want to just survive?"
"Then you shouldn't have consumed that second fragment." She releases my arm. "Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be hard."
She leaves.
I stand in the hallway alone.
Claire is searching for Thomas.
Marcus is aching for Ana.
And somewhere underneath it all, Silas Kaine is trying to remember what he wanted before he became a vessel for other people's endings.
I make my way back to my quarters.
The room looks the same. Bed. Desk. Window.
But I see it differently now. Marcus's tactical assessment notes the sight lines, the vulnerabilities, the escape routes.
I sit at the desk. Pull out my notebook.
Read what I wrote yesterday.
My name is Silas Kaine. I'm twenty-eight years old. I was a therapist...
I add to it.
My name is still Silas Kaine. I've consumed two fragments now. Claire Mendez, firefighter, died in a fire searching for her son. Marcus Rivera, scout, died on a mission before telling Ana he loved her.
I can't remember my mother's face anymore. I can remember Claire's mother and Marcus's mother, but not mine.
I know how to move tactically now. How to assess threats. How to fight.
But I don't know if I like strawberry jam anymore or if that's someone else's preference bleeding through.
I'm losing pieces. Small ones. But pieces.
Tomorrow I go back out there. And if I'm not careful, I'll lose more.
I need to remember: this is worth it. The people I save are worth the pieces I lose.
I need to remember that.
I need to believe it.
I set down the pen.
Outside my window, the dead are still visible beyond the walls. Patient. Waiting.
And somewhere out there, six nexuses are being built.
Six conversion engines, refining human suffering into something terrible.
I need to stop them.
Even if it means there's nothing left of Silas Kaine when I'm done.
I lie down.
Close my eyes.
In my dreams, I'm searching through fire for a child I've never met.
And in the same dream, I'm dying in the wasteland, whispering a name to no one.
Claire's dream and Marcus's memory, tangled together.
I can't tell which is which anymore.
Maybe that's the point.