The first thing to return wasn't a sense, but a sound. A low, steady, rhythmic beeping that was blessedly mundane. It was the sound of machines that were working as intended, a stark contrast to the symphony of chaos that had been his last waking memory. Kael's consciousness drifted back into his body like a tide returning to a desolate shore, bringing with it the flotsam of pain—a dull ache in his head, a phantom itch under his skin, and a deep, resonant thrum in his bones that felt utterly alien.
He peeled his eyelids open. The world was a smear of sterile white. The ceiling panels of the enclave infirmary. The air smelled of antiseptic and recycled oxygen, a smell that had always meant minor injuries and routine check-ups. Now, it smelled like the aftermath of an apocalypse.
He tried to sit up, but a wave of vertigo slammed him back into the thin mattress. His body felt disconnected, a borrowed suit of clothes that didn't quite fit. The thrumming in his bones intensified, a low-grade vibration that was both a source of strange new strength and a nauseating reminder of the violation he'd endured. The Hound's Echo. It was still there, a parasite in his soul.
"Stay down. You're in no shape to be moving."
The voice was a low rasp, like stones grinding together. Kael turned his head slowly. The man from the battlefield, the one with the hammer and the scarred armor, was sitting on a stool by his bedside. Out of his brutalist armor, he looked… smaller. Older. He was maybe in his late forties, his face a roadmap of old battles, his short-cropped grey hair doing little to soften the permanent scowl etched into his features. This was Jax.
"Lina?" Kael's voice was a dry crackle. "My friend… is she…?"
"She's alive," Jax said, his tone flat, offering no comfort. "Critical. They're working on her. Whether she makes it or not is up to the medics and her own damn stubbornness. Your problem is more complicated."
Kael's relief was a sharp, painful pang, immediately followed by a cold dread. "What… what happened to me?"
Jax leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his gaze intense and completely devoid of pity. "The good news is you're alive," he stated, as if reading from a particularly boring report. "The bad news is, you're one of us now, kid. You awakened."
The word hung in the air between them. Awakened. A term Kael had only ever heard in hushed, reverent tones, reserved for the heroes and protectors of the enclave. It didn't feel heroic. It felt like a disease.
"The Shard Hound," Kael whispered, the memory flooding back—the cloud of blue light, the invasion, the searing pain. "I… absorbed it."
"You did," Jax confirmed with a grim nod. "A raw, Tier-1 Echo, straight into an unprepared Frame. A one-in-a-million screw-up. By all rights, you should be a puddle of screaming protoplasm right now. Or worse, a feral beast chewing on the bed rails. The fact that you're semi-coherent is a medical anomaly."
He stood up and walked to a nearby table, picking up a strange, handheld device that looked like a piece of salvaged Ancient tech. "Let me be blunt, kid, because I don't have time to waste on bedside manner. That Echo you swallowed? It's not a power-up. It's a spiritual parasite. Your Aethel Frame, your soul's own blueprint, was dormant. It had no defenses, no conditioning. The Echo has latched onto it, and right now, your body is tearing itself apart on a fundamental level trying to reject it."
The thrumming in Kael's bones felt more sinister now. The heightened senses, the memory of strength—they weren't gifts. They were symptoms.
"So what happens now?" Kael asked, his throat tight.
"What happens now is you die," Jax said, his voice cold and hard as ferrocrete. "Slowly. The internal conflict will cause cellular breakdown over the next few months. Your mind will go first. You'll get flashes, instincts. The Hound's memories will start to bleed into your own. One day you'll forget your own name, but you'll remember the scent of prey on the wind. Then your body will follow. It'll be… unpleasant."
A cold sweat broke out on Kael's forehead. He thought of Lina, fighting for her life just a few rooms away. The idea that he would just… decay, that his sacrifice would be for nothing, was a horror beyond any Chimera.
"There's no other way?"
Jax paused, his hand hovering over the diagnostic tool. For the first time, a flicker of something other than grim assessment crossed his face. It might have been curiosity. "There might be. Your file says you're a technician. Good. Maybe you'll understand this." He activated the device, which emitted a low hum. "Your Frame is dangerously unstable. Off the charts. But the initial field report, and my own senses, picked up something else. Your potential for… Flow… is abnormally high."
He held the scanner over Kael's chest. A holographic image shimmered into existence above the device—a complex, three-dimensional lattice of pale blue light. Kael's Aethel Frame. It was beautiful, intricate, and horrifyingly damaged. A jagged, angry shard of darker blue energy was embedded in its center, angry tendrils of energy corrupting the lattice around it.
"This is you," Jax said, his voice a low murmur. "And that… that's the parasite." He pointed to the shard. "Strength, Agility, Resilience… your core attributes are garbage. But Flow… the attribute that governs energy control, assimilation, the ability to guide the current instead of being swept away by it… yours is the highest I've ever seen in a raw awakening."
He deactivated the scanner, the image vanishing. "It gives you a choice. A shitty one, but a choice nonetheless."
He locked his eyes on Kael's, and the full weight of the veteran's presence filled the small room. "Option one: you do nothing. We make you comfortable, and you let the Echo consume you. You'll be dead before the year's out. Option two: you accept this. You accept that you're a Frame User now. You let me train you, put you through a living hell designed to condition your body and mind to withstand the strain. I will teach you how to tame the beast inside you, how to integrate that Echo, how to turn that parasite into a weapon. Most new awakenings who try this path die anyway. But you might not. Your talent for Flow gives you a sliver of a chance."
Jax leaned in close, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "So that's the choice, kid. Lie here and die a victim? Or stand up, walk through fire, and fight for a chance to live, even if it's a life you never asked for?"
The rhythmic beeping of the medical monitor seemed to fade away, replaced by the thrumming in Kael's own bones. It was the hum of the wall, the song of the cage, but now it was inside him. He thought of Lina's pale, terrified face. He thought of the Shard Hound's cold, hungry eyes. He thought of the impossible strength he'd felt for a single, fleeting moment.
It wasn't a choice. Not really. It was a diagnosis. And there was only one cure.