Kael learned early that breathing hurt.
Not in the way sickness hurt, or fear, or hunger—but as if every inhale dragged against something unseen, an invisible pressure pressing inward on his chest, his bones, his blood. It was a weight he had no words for, only endurance.
He lay awake on the floor of the shelter, staring at the ceiling as condensation crawled along cracked metal panels. The structure had once been a transport depot, long abandoned and partially collapsed into the red clay earth. Now it housed thirty-seven people who called survival a life.
Kael did not remember a time before the weight.
The others said the planet's gravity was heavy, that it took getting used to, that children born here adapted faster. But even among those born beneath the copper sky of Virex-9, Kael was different. He felt it in the way the ground resisted him when he stood. In the way every movement demanded intention.
At twelve years old, he already carried scars.
He sat up slowly, muscles tightening as if anticipating resistance. His ribs ached faintly, a constant reminder of pressure that never fully relented. Outside, the settlement stirred. Footsteps echoed. Someone coughed. Somewhere, machinery groaned like a tired beast.
Kael rose.
The shelter door slid open with a hiss of depressurizing seals, releasing him into the morning heat. Virex-9's sun—dull and bloated—hung low in the sky, casting amber light across the scattered remains of an old industrial outpost. Towers of rusted alloy leaned at odd angles, half-buried by centuries of dust storms.
The air tasted metallic.
"Kael!" a voice called.
He turned toward the sound. Mara, one of the older scavengers, waved from near the perimeter fence. Her left arm was mechanical, patched together from three different models. She watched him with narrowed eyes, as she always did.
"You're late," she said when he approached. "Again."
"I couldn't sleep," Kael replied.
That was true. It was always true.
Mara studied him for a moment longer than necessary. Her gaze lingered—not with suspicion, but with something closer to unease.
"You feel it again?" she asked quietly.
Kael nodded.
She exhaled. "Figures."
They didn't speak of it openly. Not the way Kael strained under gravity others barely noticed. Not the way he recovered too fast from injuries, or how tools bent in his grip when he lost focus. In settlements like this, difference invited attention. Attention invited death.
"Scav run today," Mara said, turning back toward the outer ruins. "East sector. Old power conduits."
Kael followed her.
The east sector was dangerous. Unstable ground. Radiation pockets. Worse—raiders had been sighted in the region two nights ago. Kael had overheard the elders arguing, voices tight with fear.
He didn't ask why he was being sent.
He already knew.
They needed someone expendable.
The ruins loomed as they crossed the boundary fence. Towers collapsed into jagged silhouettes against the sky, shadows stretching long across the dust. Kael adjusted the strap of his pack, feeling the familiar drag against his shoulders.
Every step pressed into him.
He felt it again—the weight—not just on his body, but on his awareness. Like the world was leaning in, testing him.
Mara slowed as they approached a collapsed conduit hub. "Stay close," she said. "Radiation spikes here."
Kael nodded.
They entered the ruins.
The temperature dropped abruptly inside the shadowed corridors. Broken cables hung from the ceiling like exposed veins. The floor vibrated faintly beneath Kael's feet—a low hum he felt more than heard.
Then it happened.
The pressure intensified.
Kael staggered, catching himself against the wall. His breath hitched as if the air had thickened, resisting his lungs.
"Kael?" Mara turned. "What is it?"
Before he could answer, the ground shifted.
A tremor rippled through the corridor. Dust fell. Somewhere deeper within the structure, metal screamed.
"Move!" Mara shouted.
They ran.
The corridor collapsed behind them in a roar of debris. Kael felt the pressure spike violently, crushing inward. His knees buckled as the weight became unbearable.
Then something else surfaced.
Not strength.
Not rage.
Awareness.
Time seemed to stretch—not slow, but clarify. Kael's vision sharpened, edges of the world aligning into patterns. He saw stress fractures spiderwebbing through the walls. He saw the precise moment the ceiling would give way.
He moved.
Not faster—truer.
Kael lunged forward, grabbing Mara's arm as the ceiling collapsed where she had been standing. Debris slammed into his back, pain flaring hot and immediate—
—and then fading.
He hit the ground hard, shielding her instinctively. Dust swallowed them both.
Silence followed.
Kael lay still, breath ragged, waiting for agony that never came. The pain dulled quickly, receding like a tide pulling back from shore.
Mara pushed herself upright, staring at him.
"You should be dead," she whispered.
Kael didn't answer. He couldn't. His heart hammered violently, not from fear, but from something deeper—something reacting.
The pressure eased.
He stood slowly, dust cascading from his shoulders. His back throbbed faintly, skin warm where metal had struck him. No broken bones. No internal damage.
Mara backed away.
"What are you?" she asked.
Kael looked down at his hands.
They trembled—not from weakness, but from restraint. The air around them seemed… thinner. Responsive. As if the world itself had shifted slightly to accommodate him.
"I don't know," he said.
They didn't finish the scav run.
That night, Kael lay awake again—but the weight felt different now. It no longer crushed him.
It tested him.
Somewhere far above Virex-9, beyond the reach of its bloated sun, something ancient stirred. A dormant signal pulsed once, faint but unmistakable.
Solaryth signature detected.
Kael closed his eyes, unaware of the echo his existence had sent across the stars.
The pressure returned.
And this time—
it felt like anticipation.