Maya's "somewhere safe" turns out to be a converted storage room in the lower levels of Sanctuary Seven's research district.
The room is small. Maybe ten feet by twelve. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are lined with lights.
Residuum.
Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Crystallized soul fragments in every color I've never seen before—iridescent blues that shift to purple, greens that bleed into gold, deep crimsons that pulse like dying stars. Each one is roughly the size of a marble, suspended in clear containers marked with dates, locations, and names I don't recognize.
I stop in the doorway. "What is this?"
"My collection." Maya closes the door behind us. There's a heavy mechanical lock. She engages it. "Seven years of work. Every Residuum I could find, document, and preserve."
"You collect dead people's souls."
"I study them." She moves to a desk buried under papers, tablets, and more containers. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
She doesn't answer. Just gestures to a chair that's seen better days. "Sit. We need to talk, and you need to not touch anything in this room. Understand?"
I sit. My arm still tingles where Claire's Residuum dissolved into my skin. The sensation is fading, but I can feel her in there. A presence at the back of my mind. Quiet now. Waiting.
Where is he where is he—
"It doesn't stop, does it?" I say. "The searching."
Maya is watching me. "You can still feel her. Claire."
"She's looking for her son. Thomas. He's dead—he died in the fire—but she doesn't know that. She can't know that because she died first." I press my palms against my eyes. "How do I make it stop?"
"You don't." Maya pulls up a second chair, sits across from me. "The obsession is part of the package. When someone dies with unfinished business, that business crystallizes into Residuum along with their memories and skills. You consumed her Residuum, you inherited everything. The protective instinct that saved that kid? That's hers. The combat reflexes when you grabbed that rebar? Also hers—she was a firefighter before the Veil tore. She had emergency response training."
"I didn't know that."
"You do now. It's in there somewhere." Maya taps the side of her head. "You just have to dig for it."
I think about the way my body moved. The sidestep. The weapon grab. Things I've never done before, flowing through me like muscle memory that isn't mine.
"How many can I consume before I forget who I am completely?"
"That's the question, isn't it?" Maya leans back. "I've been studying Residuum eaters for three years. Most people can't consume more than one or two before they fragment completely. Their personality dissolves. They become a patchwork of other people's final moments, no coherent self left."
"Most people."
"There are exceptions. People with stronger sense of self. People who develop coping mechanisms." She pauses. "People who don't care if they lose themselves because they're already broken."
"Which category am I in?"
"Too early to tell." She's studying me like I'm one of her specimens. "You consumed one Residuum and you're still mostly coherent. That's better than average. But you've already lost memories—your mother's face. That's concerning. It means you're susceptible to memory overwrite."
"Can I get it back? My memory?"
Maya's expression is answer enough.
"Fuck." I stand up. Pace. The room is too small. The lights—the Residuum—press in from all sides. "Why is this happening to me? Why can I see them when other people can't?"
"We don't know. Some kind of genetic marker, maybe. Or trauma exposure. Or random chance. About one in fifty thousand people can perceive Residuum at all. About one in a million can consume them." She pulls out a tablet, starts making notes. "Before today, I'd documented seven confirmed Residuum eaters in this sanctuary. Now eight."
"Seven others like me?"
"Six." She doesn't look up. "One of them died last month. Consumed too many too fast. By the end, she didn't remember her own name. Just stood there reciting other people's last words on a loop until her heart stopped."
The image settles into my brain like ice water.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you need to understand what you are. What you can become." Maya sets down the tablet. "Residuum eaters are valuable, Silas. Dangerously valuable. The sanctuary leadership would love to have someone who can consume souls and use their abilities. A living weapon against the dead."
"I'm not a weapon."
"No. You're a therapist who accidentally touched something glowing in an alley." Her voice softens slightly. "But there are people who will see you as a weapon anyway. People who will want to use you. Control you. Feed you Residuum until you're powerful enough to serve their purposes."
"And what do you want?"
The question hangs between us.
Maya is quiet for a long moment. Then she stands, moves to one of the shelves, and picks up a container. Inside is a Residuum fragment smaller than the others. Pale blue. Barely glowing.
"I had a daughter," she says. "Her name was Lily. She was eight when the Veil tore."
Had.
Past tense.
"I'm sorry," I say automatically.
"She died in the first week. The dead—one of them got into our building. I was at work. She was with a babysitter." Maya's voice is flat. Clinical. The tone of someone who's told this story too many times. "By the time I got home, she was gone."
"Maya—"
"I've been searching for her Residuum for seven years." She's still holding the small container. "When someone dies, their Residuum forms at the site of death. Usually. Sometimes it migrates. Sometimes it gets absorbed by the environment. Sometimes it just... vanishes."
"You think you can find her."
"I know I can." She looks at me. "That's what I want from you, Silas Kaine. You can see Residuum better than anyone I've documented. You have a sensitivity that's off the charts. If anyone can find my daughter's soul in this graveyard of a world, it's you."
There it is. The real reason she brought me here. Not to help me. To use me.
Just like she warned someone else would.
"And if I say no?"
"Then I'll help you anyway." Maya sets down the container. "Because unlike the sanctuary leadership, I actually give a shit whether you survive this. But I won't pretend I don't have an agenda. I do. I want my daughter back."
"She's dead, Maya. Even if I find her Residuum—"
"I know she's dead." Something breaks in Maya's voice. Just for a second. Then she pulls it back together. "I know I can't bring her back. I know consuming her Residuum won't give me my daughter. I just—I need to know what she felt. At the end. I need to know if she was scared. If she called for me. I need—"
She stops. Turns away.
"I need to say goodbye," she finishes quietly. "That's all."
I understand that. God help me, I understand that.
Claire is still searching for Thomas in the back of my mind. Still hoping. Still reaching.
What would it mean to Claire if I told her Thomas was safe? If I could give her that closure?
What would it mean to Maya to hold her daughter's last moment and finally let go?
"Okay," I say.
Maya turns. "Okay?"
"I'll help you look for her. For Lily." I meet her eyes. "But you have to help me not lose myself in the process. Deal?"
She considers this. Then nods. "Deal."
"Good. Now tell me everything. What are these things? Where do they come from? How do I control—"
A knock on the door interrupts me.
Three sharp raps. Deliberate.
Maya goes very still. "I'm not expecting anyone."
"Is that bad?"
"In a locked research room in a restricted section? Yes." She moves to the door, checks a small monitor I didn't notice before. Her expression darkens. "Shit."
"Who is it?"
"Someone you need to meet eventually. I just hoped we'd have more time." She looks at me. "Don't mention that you consumed a Residuum. Don't mention what you can do. Just—follow my lead."
She opens the door.
The person on the other side is a child.
Maybe thirteen. Pale skin. Dark hair cut short and uneven, like she did it herself with dull scissors. She's wearing clothes that are too big for her—an oversized jacket with the sleeves rolled up, cargo pants tucked into boots.
And her eyes.
Her eyes are wrong.
They're brown. Normal brown. But the way they move—the way they track over me and then Maya and then the room—is too fast. Too calculating. Like she's processing information at a speed that shouldn't be human.
"Maya," the girl says. Her voice is light. Pleasant. Completely at odds with those eyes. "You found a new one."
"Yuki, this isn't—"
"He's fresh. Maybe an hour? Two?" Yuki tilts her head. "I can smell the Residuum on him. Maternal fragment, mid-forties, died protecting someone. Probably fire-related trauma based on the scent profile."
I stare. "How the fuck—"
"Language," Yuki says primly. Then smiles. It's a child's smile. Sweet. Wrong. "Sorry. Habit. One of my fragments gets upset at cursing. I think she was a teacher. Or a grandmother. I forget which."
Maya steps between us. "Yuki, you shouldn't be here."
"Neither should he." Yuki nods at me. "You know the rules. New eaters get reported to the council within twenty-four hours. For evaluation and... guidance."
The way she says "guidance" makes my skin crawl.
"He's not ready for evaluation," Maya says.
"They never are." Yuki steps into the room. Maya doesn't stop her. "But the council doesn't care about ready. They care about useful."
She walks past Maya like she owns the space and stops in front of me. Up close, I can see more details. Scars on her hands. A tremor in her left eye. The way she breathes—too shallow, too fast, like her body forgot the rhythm.
"What's your name?" she asks.
"Silas."
"Silas," she repeats. Testing it. "That's a good name. Strong. Biblical. You'll want to remember it."
"Why wouldn't I remember my own name?"
That smile again. "Because in about three months, you'll wake up and won't be sure if you're Silas or if you're Claire the firefighter or someone else you consumed last week. You'll have to check. Look at photos. Read notes you left yourself. Ask people who knew you before."
My blood goes cold. "You're—you're like me."
"I'm what you'll become if you keep consuming." Yuki reaches up—I notice Maya tense—and touches my arm where the Residuum dissolved. "Seventeen fragments. That's how many I have. Seventeen people's final moments, all living in here." She taps her temple. "Some days I'm Yuki Chen, thirteen years old, likes strawberry ice cream and used to have a cat named Pepper. Some days I'm Margaret, forty-seven, died of a heart attack reaching for her phone to call her daughter. Some days I'm Marcus, thirty-two, shot in a robbery, spent his last seconds thinking about a girl he never asked out."
She's still smiling.
"Some days I don't know which one I am until someone tells me."
I look at Maya. "How is she still—"
"Functioning?" Yuki finishes. "Coping mechanisms. I write myself notes. Keep a journal. Record videos. Every morning I watch a video of myself explaining who I am, what I've consumed, what I need to remember." She pulls out a small notebook from her jacket. The cover is worn. "WHO I AM TODAY. That's what I title it. Because yesterday's Yuki might have been someone else."
She flips it open. The pages are covered in different handwriting. Different languages. Some entries are neat and careful. Others are frantic scrawls.
"This is insane," I whisper.
"This is survival." Yuki closes the notebook. "Maya's right not to report you yet. The council will want to use you. They'll feed you Residuum and send you against the dead until you burn out or fragment completely. They've done it before."
"What happened to them?"
"Most died. One went catatonic. And one—" Yuki glances at Maya. "—is currently locked in a containment cell because she consumed something she shouldn't have and now she thinks she's a hive mind of forty-seven people who need to 'rejoin the collective.'"
Jesus Christ.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask.
"Because you seem nice. And Maya likes you, which means you're probably actually nice and not just pretending." Yuki moves to the shelves, examines the containers. "And because I need you to understand something important."
She picks up a Residuum—green-gold, pulsing slowly.
"Every fragment you consume makes you stronger. Faster. More skilled. More powerful." She holds it up to the light. "But it also makes you less you. The obsessions pile up. The memories blur together. The instincts override your choices."
She sets it down carefully.
"By your tenth fragment, you'll be the most dangerous person in this sanctuary. By your fifteenth, you won't care. And by your twentieth—if you make it to twenty—the question won't be 'Who is Silas Kaine?'"
She looks at me with those too-fast eyes.
"It'll be 'Was there ever a Silas Kaine at all, or just a convenient space for other people to fill?'"
The room is silent except for the hum of the ventilation.
Finally, Maya speaks. "Yuki. Why are you really here?"
"The council is calling a meeting. Tomorrow morning. They've detected increased dead activity near the north wall. Something's organizing them." Yuki's expression shifts—becomes more focused, more adult. "They're going to want eaters on the response team. That means me. And if they know about Silas—that means him too."
"He just consumed his first fragment today," Maya protests.
"Then he has until tomorrow to decide if he wants to consume more and become useful, or stay weak and become expendable." Yuki moves toward the door. "Those are the options in Sanctuary Seven. Power or irrelevance."
She pauses at the threshold.
"For what it's worth, Silas Kaine? I hope you choose to stay yourself. We have enough ghosts already."
She leaves.
The lock clicks shut behind her.
I turn to Maya. "What the fuck was that?"
"That was your future." Maya sinks into her chair. "Yuki Chen. Thirteen years old. Been consuming Residuum for three years. She's the longest-surviving eater in sanctuary records."
"She's a child."
"She was a child. Now she's seventeen different people wearing a child's face." Maya looks exhausted. "And she's right. If the council finds out about you, they'll put you to work. Feed you fragments. Use you up."
"Can't I just... refuse?"
"You can try. But when the dead are breaking through the walls and people are dying, and you have the power to stop it—can you really say no?"
I think about Oliver. The kid with the stuffed rabbit. The way Claire's instinct moved my body to save him.
I think about doing that again. And again. Becoming stronger. More capable.
Losing more of myself each time.
"There has to be another way," I say.
"Maybe." Maya stands. "But first, you need to survive tomorrow's meeting. Which means we need to prepare you."
"Prepare me how?"
She moves to the desk, pulls out a folder. Inside are photographs. Documents. Maps.
"The dead are being organized. Directed. Something's controlling them, using them for a purpose we don't understand yet." She spreads the documents out. "The council thinks it's random dead clustering. I think it's something worse."
"What do you think it is?"
Maya looks up. "I think someone opened the Veil deliberately. I think the dead are being harvested—their obsessions, their emotions, being collected and used. And I think whatever's doing it is getting stronger."
"That's—"
"Insane? Maybe. But seven years of data doesn't lie." She taps one of the photos. It shows a pattern. Dead clustered around something I can't quite make out. "And if I'm right, Silas—if something is farming human suffering through the dead—then Residuum eaters aren't just weapons."
"What are we?"
"The only people who can see what's really happening. Because you can see the Residuum. The anchors. The connections." Maya meets my eyes. "You can see what they're building."
A chill runs down my spine.
"What are they building, Maya?"
"I don't know yet. But tomorrow, when the council sends you north to investigate the dead activity? You're going to help me find out."
She hands me a small device. Looks like a flashlight.
"Residuum detector. It'll help you locate fragments from a distance. Practice with it tonight. And Silas?"
"Yeah?"
"Get some sleep. Write down everything you remember about yourself—your mother's face might be gone, but other memories are still there. Write them down before you lose those too."
I take the detector. It's heavier than it looks.
"Maya—thank you. For helping."
"Don't thank me yet." She's already turning back to her research. "Tomorrow might kill you. Or worse—it might turn you into something that wishes it could die."
"Comforting."
"I'm not here to comfort you. I'm here to keep you functional long enough to find my daughter." But there's something almost kind in her voice. "Now get out. I have work to do."
I leave the research room.
The corridor outside is dim. Empty.
Somewhere in the sanctuary, people are living their lives. Eating dinner. Talking. Sleeping.
And in the back of my mind, Claire is still searching.
Where is he where is he—
"He's gone," I whisper to her. To myself. "Thomas is gone. You can stop looking."
But she doesn't stop.
She'll never stop.
That's the price of hope. It doesn't die just because reality says it should.
I make my way back to my quarters—a small room in the civilian housing. Ten feet by eight. A bed. A desk. A window that looks out at the sanctuary walls.
Beyond the walls, I can see them.
The dead.
Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Standing in the wasteland beyond the barriers. Patient. Waiting.
And between them, scattered like stars, I can see the lights.
Residuum.
So many.
Each one a person who died with something unfinished. Something they needed to do, to say, to fix.
Each one a potential power-up.
Each one a piece of myself I'd lose.
I sit at the desk. Pull out paper. Start writing.
My name is Silas Kaine. I'm twenty-eight years old. I was a therapist before the Veil tore. My mother's name is—
I stop.
I can't remember.
Claire's mother was named Helen. Helen with the gray hair and the garden she loved and the way she hummed while cooking.
But my mother—
Gone.
One Residuum. One consumed soul.
And already I'm losing pieces.
I write what I can. Physical details. Memories that feel solid. My apartment before the collapse. My college roommate's terrible cooking. The client who brought me cookies every session.
Small things.
Human things.
Things that make me Silas Kaine and not just an empty vessel waiting to be filled.
I write until my hand cramps.
Then I lie down and try to sleep.
In my dreams, I'm searching through a burning building.
I can't tell if it's my dream or Claire's memory.
By morning, I'm not sure it matters.