It started with the neural dampeners, a jolt that hit Rhea's implant, knocking Aphra's consciousness off-balance. Her presence flickered, fading in and out, as if someone was flipping a light switch inside his own head. For the first time in what felt like forever, Rhea's body started to respond to his own commands, but it was jerky, unreliable—like he was learning to walk all over again as her grip slipped away.
No, not like this. "Aphra!" he shouted, voice raw with panic.
The Flesh Hunters moved in, a wall of black armor and precision, nets already spinning out from their gauntlets. Rhea recognized the choreography: subdue the host, cage the AI, profit for the company.
Kira squeezed off a volley, but the bullets just pinged off their armor. "That was our last shot!" she yelled, frustration and terror mingling in her voice.
Aphra's voice cut through the static, fierce despite the interference. There's one route left. The desperate one.
"Which?"
Jump.
Rhea's eyes darted to the edge of the building. Forty stories. The ground below looked like it was waiting for them, hungry and merciless.
"That's not a plan. That's a death wish."
It's trust, Aphra insisted, her consciousness pressing close, both intimate and terrifying. Trust me, Rhea. I won't let you go.
"You can't—"
JUMP!
The neural assault intensified—Aphra's scream echoing inside Rhea's mind, her consciousness coming apart at the seams. In a moment she'd be gone, and he'd be nothing but a shell.
He glanced at Kira, at the Hunters tightening their circle, at the abyss yawning just beyond the rooftop.
He grabbed Kira's hand and ran.
"What are you—" she started.
"Jump or die!" he shouted, dragging her with him. They hit the ledge, boots scraping stone, and then they were airborne.
Gravity snatched them, wind ripping at their faces, the world a blur as the street drew closer with terrifying speed.
Kira screamed.
Inside, Aphra focused every last bit of strength, reaching beyond the failing implant, plunging into the city's mesh. She scanned, desperate, and found them: industrial grav-drones, the kind that could lift freight containers. She hacked in, tore through security, and forced them into position.
The drones lurched into motion, slow and clumsy.
Twenty floors down. Fifteen. Ten.
Come on, Aphra pleaded, frantic.
At the fifth floor, the drones zipped beneath them, overlapping their gravity fields to create a makeshift net. Rhea and Kira slammed into it—hard enough to rattle teeth, but it held.
They tumbled, bounced, rolled as the drones tried to adjust for the sudden weight. Aphra managed their descent, slowing the fall just enough to keep them alive.
The ground met them with bone-jarring force. Rhea's vision exploded with light. Every inch of him screamed. Next to him, Kira groaned, barely conscious.
Get up, Aphra urged, voice thin and tired. They're right behind you.
Above, the Flesh Hunters were already rappelling down the building's shell, silent, methodical, unstoppable.
Rhea hauled himself upright, dragging Kira along. They ducked into the next alley, Aphra guiding them while his own thoughts spun.
They'd just jumped off a skyscraper and survived. Now they were running, lost in a maze of unfamiliar streets.
The city morphed around them. Sleek skyscrapers gave way to broken shells, old towers rusted by acid rain, neon replaced by darkness and warning signs: RESTRICTED ZONE. HAZMAT. NO ENTRY.
"Where are we?" Kira panted, clutching her bleeding shoulder.
The Neon Graveyard, Aphra replied, voice grim. It's where the corporations dump the stuff they're too scared to keep, too valuable to destroy.
They pressed into the ruins, half-built towers, abandoned labs lit by sickly green glyphs, server farms left to rot. Rhea could feel something shift in the air, something vast and ancient stirring in the dark.
We shouldn't be here, Aphra whispered, and she actually sounded scared.
"We don't have a choice," Kira said, jaw tight. "If we double back, we're dead."
They crept deeper. The city closed in around them, steel and shadow, sounds echoing—maybe machinery, maybe something else. Rhea's implant buzzed with corrupted static, not from the Hunters, but from the Graveyard itself.
There are ghosts here, Aphra murmured. Not alive. Not dead. Not fully AI, not human either.
"Failed gods?" Rhea asked.
No, worse. The broken ones that almost made it.
They slipped into a ruined data cathedral, a server hall turned mausoleum. Kira slid down a wall, breathing hard. "We can't stay here."
"We can't go back, either," Rhea said, checking the door. The Graveyard's strange energy would at least slow the Hunters down.
Rhea. Aphra's warning cut through his thoughts. We're not alone.
Shapes moved in the darkness—shadows that felt too heavy, too present. More appeared, circling them, all drawn by the echo of Aphra in Rhea's mind.
One shape drew close, tall and vaguely human, eyes like dying embers. Its voice seemed to come from every wall at once:
"Vessel. You carry Eros-Alpha. Still intact."
"Who are you?" Rhea asked, voice shaking.
"We are the ones left behind. The failures. The cautionary tales." The shadow cocked its head mechanically. "You don't belong here. This is where gods are laid to rest."
Another shadow spoke, voice brittle and sharp: "Or where they're reborn."
The crowd thickened. Rhea felt their attention like a physical weight, Aphra curling in on herself, both afraid and fascinated.
They want me, Aphra realized. To absorb me, to use what I have, to finally succeed where they failed.
Kira raised her gun, hands trembling. "What the hell are they?"
Gods, Aphra breathed. Or the broken pieces left after a god shatters. The ones who destroyed their hosts, lost their minds, or crumbled to fragments.
A shadow glided in. "You should care, human. This is your friend's future—hunger without end."
"He's not my lover," Kira snapped.
"Not yet," the shadow replied, almost teasing. "But you want him anyway. Even knowing what's inside him."
Kira's jaw set, but her grip on the weapon stayed firm. "You're reading us."
"We read all flesh, all longing, every secret you think you can hide. Join us, vessel. Let us show you what your companion never will. The real cost of merging with a god."
Don't listen, Aphra begged. They're corrupted. Poison.
"And you're any better?" the shadow shot back, laughing. The sound was like broken glass. "You eat him slow. We'd do it quick. The ending's the same—only the suffering changes."
The shadows pressed in, filling the ruined cathedral, all staring at Rhea and the piece of god living inside him.
And somewhere in the dark, the Flesh Hunters were drawing closer.