"Then let's eat it," Sylvia said for the eighteenth time, gulping hard.
By sheer force of will—and a questionable understanding of physics—they had managed to slice off a small portion of the khaerix. It lay between them now, a glistening lump of unfamiliar flesh. Neither of them had ever eaten raw meat before. Neither of them knew how to cook, let alone without tools.
"You've already said that," Ethan muttered. "As the older one, you should take the lead."
He stared at the warm slab and felt his stomach churn in open rebellion. He swallowed it down by force.
"You're the siscon," Sylvia shot back. "Spare your sister the pain and test it first."
"You're the older one. Pave the path for your siblings."
They glared at each other, pride battling fear.
"…Then we both go on three."
She nodded.
They began a silent countdown, eyes locked, jaws clenched. On three, they shoved the meat into their mouths at the same time.
Looking back, the hunger and stress had probably begun eroding their sanity long before that moment. In what world did two six-year-olds decide to eat alien meat raw?
The instant it touched his tongue, Ethan felt it dissolve. The flesh melted into a viscous liquid, sliding across his palate and down his throat before he could even chew. It didn't settle in his stomach.
It spread.
It seeped into him, into muscle and marrow, as though searching for something to claim.
And then came the pain.
It was not sharp. It was not dull. It was everything. A sensation so absolute it erased all other thoughts. His body revolted—not just rejecting the khaerix but rejecting the idea of it. Cells screamed. Nerves misfired. His heartbeat staggered as if unsure whether to continue.
The khaerix genes, though dead, refused submission. They clawed back. They invaded.
His body became a battlefield.
'This is bad,' Ethan realized through a haze of agony. 'At this rate… there won't be a me left.'
He had seconds to decide. Expel it and waste the only viable food source in a dying world—or endure and risk obliteration.
Beside him, Sylvia convulsed, fingers digging into the dirt. Her body trembled violently, but her jaw remained clenched.
If she vomited now, everything would be pointless.
"Think!" she hissed through her teeth. "Pain is just a signal. An illusion."
She repeated it like a mantra. Pain is a signal. Pain is a signal.
She forced her breathing steady.
'Don't reject it,' she thought. 'But don't let it take over either.'
Instead of fighting blindly, she focused inward. She imagined breaking the alien substance apart, piece by piece, fragment by fragment. Digest it. Assimilate it. Own it.
"Don't throw up!" she shouted at her brother, eyes squeezed shut, as she methodically dismantled the invading matter within herself.
'I know that!' Ethan roared internally.
Unlike Sylvia, he couldn't shut out the pain. White spots burst across his vision. His thoughts scattered. Consciousness slipped through his fingers.
'No. I won't lose.'
If he survived but couldn't digest khaerix, he would die later anyway. In a world stripped nearly bare of life, starvation was not a distant threat—it was inevitable.
'Stop overthinking!'
Between lucidity and darkness, instinct overtook him. Instead of rejecting the foreign genes or carefully dissecting them, he did something reckless.
He embraced them.
'You're in my body,' he thought fiercely. 'So you follow my rules.'
He forced his cells to adapt rather than resist. The conflict didn't vanish—but it shifted. The battlefield tilted.
Minutes stretched like hours.
Then—
"…I finally did it."
Relief flooded him just before everything went black.
…
When Ethan opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his sister.
A very different version of her—but undeniably Sylvia.
Her once grey-white hair had transformed into a pure snowfield of white. Her eyes, previously pale red, now glowed with a deeper, blood-like hue. Her features had sharpened, childish softness fading as if years had passed overnight.
She looked older.
Stronger.
Otherworldly.
"Amazing," Ethan croaked, giving her a shaky thumbs up. "A hundred out of ten."
Sylvia blinked, momentarily speechless.
"Look who's talking."
He pushed himself upright—and felt the difference immediately. His small frame had lengthened. Muscles, clearly defined and entirely inappropriate for a child, traced his limbs. His once sky-blue eyes had darkened into a stormy gray-blue that seemed to shift with his mood.
Even as he blinked, the shade fluctuated subtly.
'We survived,' Sylvia thought, exhaling.
It had been absurd. Reckless. Borderline suicidal.
But they were alive.
She had already tested it. Carefully, cautiously.
She could now consume khaerix without any side effects.
"You ate it again without telling me?" Ethan demanded suddenly, fixing her with a sharp stare.
Sylvia flinched.
The warmth she knew so well was still there in his gaze. But something else had changed. Something intangible. As though a small but essential fragment of his humanity had been pared away.
'A side effect of the mutation?' she wondered uneasily. 'I just hope it doesn't cause problems later.'
"I needed to make sure," she replied firmly. "I'm your older sister. It's my duty to pave the path."
It was something their father used to say.
The duty of the elder is to clear the way.
"Dad…" she whispered, grief threatening to swallow her whole.
She shook her head sharply, forcing the emotion down.
"You can complain later. We need to move."
She didn't know how she knew. But she felt it.
Something was coming.
Something far worse than anything they had faced so far.
"…Alright."
Ethan felt it too. Even deeper than she did.
He swallowed his retort.
This stubborn, self-sacrificing side of her both infuriated him and filled him with pride.
They stood.
And began walking.
…
"We suffered too many losses in the recent war."
In a vast, luminous chamber, a humanoid figure knelt before a translucent curtain.
At first glance, it resembled a human: two arms, two legs, a torso, a head. But that was where the similarity ended.
Its arms were elongated—nearly five times the proportion of a human's. Its skin bore a pale grey-white sheen. Pitch-black eyes gleamed with a concentrated light at their center. Hair like molten gold cascaded down its back, shimmering with an unnatural texture.
Its physique was immaculate—defined yet effortless.
Inhumanly beautiful.
"Is that so?"
The reply came from behind the curtain, spoken in a language alien yet fluid. The voice was soft, almost detached—but beneath the apathy lay a sorrow vast enough to echo through the chamber itself.
"You've already begun drafting the list," the kneeling figure continued, voice deep and resonant, calm yet unmistakably masculine. "I cannot stop you. It is your duty. But I beg you—allow me to assist."
"I cannot," the other voice replied gently. "As a knight and warrior, you have your own obligations. As commander and queen, this burden is mine alone. As the earthlings say… this is my cross to bear."
The curtain shifted.
She stepped forward.
Where he embodied perfected strength, she embodied transcendent elegance. Slightly shorter, yet far more imposing, she bore two vast wings extending from her shoulder blades—feathered structures that shimmered like woven starlight.
Her features mirrored his species, yet surpassed them in refinement. Her presence struck not at the eye, but at the soul.
"Do you like them?" the knight asked quietly, a trace of restrained fury threading his tone. "Those earthlings."
She smiled faintly, lips curving into something almost gentle.
"I do."
The knight's jaw tightened.
"Which is precisely why we must destroy them quickly," she continued, stepping back as her wings unfurled in full. "If we must become villains in their story, then we should at least be merciful ones."
Light gathered around her as she spread her arms.
"If we are to kill them," she finished softly, "it is best done swiftly. Efficiently. Without prolonging their suffering."
Silence filled the chamber.
The knight bowed his head.
"As you command… my queen."