Kaelen woke to silence.
For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was. The pitch-black void of the ship's corridors stretched before him, and for a moment, he thought he was dreaming. But then he remembered. The signal. The core. The countdown.
The ship was no longer responding. It was a hollow shell, floating aimlessly in the black void of space. They had failed.
But had they?
Kaelen's mind felt strangely clearer, the fog lifted, but there was still a weight in his chest—a pull, deep and insistent. He wasn't sure if the signal was truly gone or if it had simply moved.
Mira and Laz were unconscious nearby, their bodies bruised and battered from the collapse.
The silence around them was suffocating. The ship had stopped shaking, but it felt as if it were holding its breath.
Kaelen stood, surveying the wreckage of the control room. The core was destroyed, but the signal—whatever it had been—was not gone.
It had left its mark.
And Kaelen could feel it still.