The silence didn't leave with him.
Even after the specter of "the other me" dissolved into the darkness of the alley, his words lingered in the air like heavy smoke that refused to fade.
"Don't trust them."
The warning echoed in my mind, syncing with that strange second pulse in my chest. Rio. Nova. The Organization. Every face I thought I was beginning to understand had suddenly turned into a mask.
I looked down at my hand.
It was trembling.
Not from fear.
But from something else… something boiling beneath the skin.
I returned home.
The hallway leading to the kitchen was drowned in a dim, yellowish light. The familiar smell of coffee was there, but it felt wrong—like it belonged to another time… to someone who no longer existed.
My mother was sitting there.
She wasn't moving.
She wasn't reading.
She was just… staring into nothing.
I stopped at the doorway.
"You're late, Kyle," she said without turning.
Her voice didn't carry a mother's concern. It was flat, cold—weighted in a way I had never noticed before.
"You met him, didn't you?" she continued.
My breath froze.
"Who do you mean? The monster from the shadows? The woman in the black suit? Or the version of me that looks like he's seen the end of the world?"
She finally turned. In her eyes, I didn't see the worry I was used to. I saw something else… something like sorrow mixed with acceptance.
"The choice we've been running from for so long," she whispered. "It has found you."
I stepped forward, feeling the Heart of Infinity slam against my ribs.
"Who are you, Mom? And what is the Organization, really?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she looked toward the window.
Sector 7 Awakens
Suddenly—
The world exploded into red.
The sirens in Sector 7 didn't scream; they howled. A sound that tore through the stillness of the night, announcing that the "system" had detected the anomaly.
And the anomaly… was me.
"They're here," my mother said as she slowly stood up. "Not to retrieve you—but to contain you."
A sudden heat surged through my right arm.
I rolled up my sleeve.
There, beneath my pale skin, violet veins appeared for the first time. They twisted like cracks in shattered glass, glowing with a faint, unnatural light.
It didn't hurt.
It felt… complete.
"Go," my mother said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "If you stay here, this place will turn to ash."
I looked at her one last time.
I wanted to say something.
I wanted to be the old Kyle for just one more second.
But the pulse wouldn't let me.
The outside world was no longer the same.
The streets were thick with smoke, searchlights cutting through the rain. The Organization's aircraft hovered overhead like metallic predators.
I saw her in the wreckage.
Lina.
She was cornered. Her rifle was useless, and in front of her stood a creature I had only seen in nightmares. A Fallen—stripped of all human features, reduced to a mass of shadow and hunger.
It raised its claw to finish her.
I didn't think.
I didn't choose.
The world faded away, leaving only that hunger inside my chest.
In an instant, I was there.
Inches between me and the monster.
I grabbed its arm.
And the moment my skin touched its shadow, something exploded inside me—knowledge, raw and overwhelming.
This wasn't a fight.
It was consumption.
The violet veins in my arm extended, piercing into its being, pulling its core out. I saw terror in its tiny eyes as it withered, turning into gray dust that dissolved into the rain.
I turned toward Lina.
She was staring at me.
There was no gratitude in her eyes.
Only fear.
I looked up.
A massive searchlight locked onto me, turning me into a single target in an empty void.
The countdown had begun.