Chapter 18:
Neural Divide
The hive swallowed me whole.
One moment I was thrashing against the cuffs, my wrists raw and bleeding from my desperate attempts to break free, screaming obscenities at the Shepherd as those grotesque tendrils coiled around my limbs like living rope. The next, I was engulfed in warm, suffocating darkness. The transition was so sudden my mind couldn't process it at first. My scream continued, a primal sound of terror ripped from my throat, but no sound came out. Only bubbles that floated upward through the thick, viscous fluid now filling my lungs, their slow ascent mocking my panic.
I should have drowned.
The thought struck me with cold clarity even as my body continued to convulse, my muscles spasming against the unnatural intrusion of liquid where air should be. My lungs burned, my chest heaving with instinctive, useless gasps that only drew more of the thick fluid into my airways.
I didn't drown.
The realization hit me like a physical blow, I was breathing liquid. The hive's fluid, thick as blood and twice as warm, pumped in and out of my lungs with every panicked gasp. My body convulsed, ancient mammalian instincts warring with this impossible biology, my fingers clawing at nothing as I hung suspended in the absolute dark. The sensation was beyond anything I'd ever experienced, like being trapped in a nightmare where the rules of reality had been rewritten.
Light.
Not the pulsing crimson glow from before, but something softer. Bluer. It flickered at the edges of my vision like distant lightning, illuminating the nightmare around me in brief, stuttering flashes. With each pulse, the darkness receded just enough to reveal the horror of my surroundings before closing in again.
I wasn't alone in the fluid.
Organic cables as thick as my arm crisscrossed the space around me, pulsing gently in time with a heartbeat that wasn't mine. Their surfaces glistened with moisture, strands of viscous fluid stretching between them like spider silk when they shifted. Smaller tendrils branched off them, some no thicker than thread, all writhing with lazy, sinuous movements that made my skin crawl. The entire structure reminded me of a monstrous chandelier, its cables swaying gently in unseen currents.
And then I saw her.
Rina.
She floated a few feet away, suspended in the same thick fluid, her slight frame dwarfed by the mass of cables wrapped around her like a grotesque cocoon. Her dark hair drifted around her face like seaweed in a gentle current, the strands catching the blue light in halos around her features. Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful, almost serene, but her lips...
Her lips were moving.
Forming silent words I couldn't hear. The sight was somehow more terrifying than if she'd been screaming.
The tendrils connected to her were different from the others. Thinner, more delicate, burrowing into her skin at the temples, the base of her throat, the insides of her wrists. They pulsed faintly, glowing with that same eerie blue light, feeding her into the network. Tiny filaments no thicker than hairs extended from these main connections, branching out across her skin like some horrific lacework.
No.
The denial was instant, visceral. My stomach lurched, bile rising in my throat only to be swallowed back down by the fluid surrounding me. I thrashed, my limbs moving sluggishly against the dense fluid, my fingers clawing at the tendrils that held me. They didn't budge. If anything, they tightened in response, their grip like iron bands around my wrists, my ankles, my throat. The more I struggled, the more they constricted, until black spots danced at the edges of my vision from the pressure.
And then, a voice.
Not spoken aloud. Not even a voice, really. It was more like a thought that wasn't mine, vibrating through my skull like a struck tuning fork. The sensation made my teeth ache, my jaw clenching involuntarily against the unnatural intrusion.
Catara.
The Shepherd.
His presence wrapped around me, not physical but there, pressing against my mind like a hand against glass. There was no escaping it. No shutting it out. It permeated every thought, every sensation, until I couldn't tell where my consciousness ended and his began.
"You see now, don't you?" His voice—no, not a voice, his essence—was calm. Almost gentle. "This isn't death. It's evolution."
I tried to scream again. Tried to fight. But the hive held me fast, my struggles only making the tendrils tighten further. The pressure around my throat increased until I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples, each heartbeat sending fresh waves of pain through my skull.
"You resist because you don't understand," he murmured, his presence curling around my thoughts like smoke. "But you will."
The vision hit me like a freight train.
***
A city. But not the ruins I knew. This was something else. Something alive.
Towers of fused organic matter and steel stretched toward a sky streaked with crimson light, their surfaces pulsing gently as if breathing. The architecture was impossible. Buildings twisted into spirals that defied gravity, bridges of living tissue spanning impossible gaps, everything moving, shifting, alive in a way that made my stomach turn.
The streets below teemed with movement, but not the mindless shuffle of the infected. These people moved with purpose. With unity. Their eyes glowed, yes, but their faces were calm. At peace. They moved in perfect synchronization, a hive mind made manifest, each individual contributing to the whole without hesitation, without conflict.
And at the center of it all, standing atop a dais of living tissue that rose from the ground like an altar, was me.
My skin was threaded with veins of gold and crimson, my eyes alight with the same glow as the others, but brighter. Cleaner. The people below didn't just look at me. They revered me. Their faces turned upward with expressions of awe, of devotion, their hands reaching toward me as if I were some kind of deity.
Because I wasn't one of them.
I was more.
I was their queen.
The vision shattered.
I gasped, the fluid around me rushing into my lungs before I remembered I didn't need to breathe here. The Shepherd's presence remained, patient. Waiting. His satisfaction curled through my mind like a contented cat.
This is what we could build, he said, his mental voice smooth as oil. No more suffering. No more division. Just unity. Perfection.
Revulsion twisted through me, so strong it made my stomach heave. I wanted to vomit. Wanted to scream until my voice gave out. But the hive held me too tightly, its grip unrelenting. The tendrils had worked their way under my skin now, tiny filaments burrowing into my flesh with slow, inexorable pressure. I could feel them spreading through me, mapping my nervous system, learning me from the inside out.
Then a new presence. Fainter than the Shepherd's, flickering like a candle in the wind. But familiar.
Nia.
Her consciousness brushed against mine, weak but there, fighting through the haze of the hive's control. The sensation was like catching a familiar scent in a foreign land, instantly recognizable, achingly out of place.
"Catara," her voice, her real voice, not the Shepherd's invasive whisper, echoed in my skull. "Listen to me. You have to fight."
The Shepherd's presence recoiled, his surprise vibrating through the network like a struck bell. "How—?"
Nia's voice grew stronger, more insistent. "He's lying. He can't control you unless you let him. Break free."
I didn't hesitate.
I pushed.
The hive shuddered around me, the fluid churning as my body convulsed. The tendrils holding me loosened just enough.
And then Nia was there, her consciousness slamming into the network like a battering ram. The Shepherd's presence wavered, his control slipping for just a second.
A second was all I needed.
I tore free.
The hive expelled me with a wet, heaving gasp, my body hitting the floor with a slap of fluid and blood. I rolled onto my hands and knees, coughing up thick strands of organic matter that burned like acid as they left my throat. My vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges as I retched, the taste of copper and something sour filling my mouth. The floor beneath me was slick with the same viscous fluid that had filled the hive, my hands slipping as I tried to push myself up.
Across the chamber, Nia stood trembling, her veins alight with crimson fire, but her eyes were hers. Human. Furious. Sweat plastered her dark hair to her forehead, her chest heaving with exertion. The veins beneath her skin pulsed erratically, as if whatever control she'd exerted over the hive had cost her dearly.
The Shepherd roared, the sound shaking the walls, the hive convulsing behind him like a living thing in pain. Tendrils lashed out toward us, their movements frenzied and desperate.
Nia grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh hard enough to bruise. Her grip was fever-hot, her skin slick with sweat, but there was no mistaking the strength in it.
"Run!"
The chamber blurred around us as we sprinted for the exit, our footsteps splashing through puddles of that same thick fluid. Behind us, the Shepherd's screams followed, his rage giving voice to the hive itself. A sound that would haunt my nightmares for years to come.
We didn't look back.