The silence was absolute. It wasn't the kind of quiet you get on a night with no wind, but a deep, complete absence of sound, as if the very idea of noise had been forgotten. Shane lay on the cold metal floor of the engineering bay, his body a mess of aching limbs and raw nerves. His mind, which had just moments ago been a battlefield of a million screaming voices, was now a perfect, empty blank. He didn't know who he was, or where he was. He was a perfect, unmade thing.
Slowly, as if from a great distance, his memories returned. The ship, the Void, Lyra, the plan. The battle. The flash of light. He pushed himself up, his body groaning with the effort. The engineering bay was a tomb. The purplish growths that had covered the walls were now a brittle, grey ash. The organic organs that had pulsed with sinister light were now dead husks. The air, which had been thick and warm, was now cold and still. The ship was dead.
The Void's voice, the constant, hateful hum in his head, was gone. The silence was his victory, a terrible and total one. But he was not alone. The ghostly whispers of the unmade, of Lyra and the others, were no longer a raging chorus. They were a faint, constant echo, a whisper on the edge of his consciousness, a reminder of the price he had paid. The song of the dead was a part of him now, a constant, quiet presence.
He looked down at his arm. The dark, swirling galaxy mark had spread, covering half of his skin in a permanent, black pattern. It wasn't just on the surface. He could feel it, a cold, alien presence deep in his bones. He was a survivor, but he was also a monument to the war he had just won.
He staggered out of the engineering bay and into a main corridor. The ship was a graveyard. The corrupted crew members were now lifeless husks, their bodies frozen in mid-movement, their milky-white eyes staring blankly into the darkness. The organic growths had withered, and the lights were completely gone. The Supreme was not a living weapon anymore. It was just a broken machine, a coffin in the endless night.
He had to get out. The air was getting colder, and he knew the life support was a luxury that would soon be gone. He needed to find an escape pod. His mind, now a strange mix of his own thoughts and the echoes of a million others, guided him through the ruined ship. He was a scientist, a man of logic, but he was also a ghost, guided by the knowledge of a million dead souls.
He finally reached the escape pod bay. It was a mess of debris, and most of the pods were either gone or destroyed. But one, in a small, hidden corner, was still intact. Its door was slightly ajar, and a faint, hopeful light glowed from within. He pushed it open and slid inside, sealing the door shut behind him. He was safe. For now.
He looked out the small porthole, and his blood ran cold. The Void was still there. He had destroyed its gateway, its heart on the ship, but the vast, all-consuming blackness was still outside. It was a perfect, beautiful blackness, an empty canvas waiting to be painted. It had moved, but it had not gone away.
"You won a battle, little human," a new voice said, a deep, gentle voice, a twin of the one that had just been erased. It wasn't in his head; it was a feeling, a thought that seemed to come from the silence itself. "But the war is far from over. You have not destroyed us. You have only… delayed us."
Shane's heart sank. He had risked everything to win, and it was all for nothing. The Void wasn't just a physical presence; it was a law of the universe, a constant that would always return. He was a small, fragile man in a small, fragile pod, floating in the heart of an endless cosmic predator. He had won the battle, but the war had just begun. He was alone, and he was lost in the silence.