Rin woke screaming.
The sound tore from his throat before he even understood where he was, ripped free by instinct rather than thought.
Cold metal pressed against his spine. A grated steel floor slick with oil and blood. Chains bit deep into his wrists and ankles, humming faintly as if alive, feeding on every tremor of resistance that passed through his body.
Heat rolled over him in suffocating waves, thick and relentless. The air reeked of iron, ash, scorched metal, and something burned so completely it no longer had a name.
He was still alive.
Which meant he had not been spared.
Only claimed.
Slowly, painfully, Rin forced his breathing to steady. His eyes adjusted to the dim glare above, and with it came understanding.
He was aboard a Khar'Vael ship.
Not the one Lucas had been on.
The vibration was wrong. The rhythm beneath the floor was different. A lower, heavier pulse that resonated through bone and marrow, like a colossal heartbeat buried beneath steel and void.
Whether this was another chamber or an entirely different vessel, Rin could not tell.
But the truth was undeniable.
He was in their custody.
Not dead.
Worse.
Floodlights flared overhead without warning.
Figures emerged along a raised platform carved directly into the ship's inner hull. Khar'Vael overseers.
Their black-gold armor caught the firelight in jagged reflections, angular and severe, as though forged from shadow and molten ore. Behind them, massive furnaces roared endlessly, vomiting molten slag into glowing channels carved across the chamber floor.
The heat intensified. The light burned.
"Stand," the overseer barked, its voice mechanically amplified, each syllable slamming into Rin like a physical blow.
Rin spat blood onto the deck, the red splatter hissing as it struck overheated metal.
He forced his arms beneath him. Muscles screamed in protest. His vision swam. The world tilted.
The chains discharged.
Agony detonated through his body. His spine arched violently as electricity ripped through nerve and bone. His jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth. Breath vanished in a silent, strangled gasp.
His scream echoed once across the chamber.
Then it vanished beneath laughter spilling from the platform above.
"Again," the overseer said flatly, emotionless, as though repeating a maintenance command.
No anger. No pleasure.
Just procedure.
The chains released.
Rin collapsed forward, then dragged himself upright again. His arms shook violently as he pulled himself onto his knees. Breath came in ragged, broken pulls. Teeth clenched until his jaw trembled uncontrollably.
Slowly, painfully, he stood.
The pain did not fade.
It instructed.
It carved lessons directly into flesh and nerve, into memory and instinct.
Something inside him split open.
And did not close.
---
Far away, beneath a sky stained black and red, Lucas felt the ground for the first time.
Not steel.
Sand.
Hot. Coarse. Unforgiving.
The transport doors slammed open, releasing a wave of heat so intense it stole the breath from every prisoner inside.
They spilled out onto the burning sands of Khelt.
A mining planet.
Nothing grew here.
Jagged rock formations rose like broken teeth from the earth. Towering excavation rigs clawed relentlessly into the land, their drills screaming as they devoured the planet's crust. Smoke choked the horizon. Ash drifted constantly through the air, settling on skin, hair, and clothing like a second layer of filth.
This was not a camp.
This was a grave that worked its victims to death first.
Lucas stumbled as restraints disengaged, barely catching himself before collapsing forward. Around him, other slaves fell to their knees. Some did not rise again.
They were dragged away without ceremony.
As Lucas steadied himself, a sharp, unfamiliar pain stabbed through his chest.
Not physical.
Something deeper.
Something wrong.
---
Across the void, Rin gasped.
Across the sands, Lucas froze.
For a single heartbeat… they felt each other.
Not sight. Not sound.
Pain.
Raw. Immediate. Unmistakable.
"Rin…" Lucas whispered internally, breath hitching, fear flooding his chest. "You're… alive." And hurting.
The connection vanished as suddenly as it had come.
Lucas staggered, breath shallow, heart pounding violently as if something vital had been torn from him and thrown into the dark.
A shadow fell across him.
A Khar'Vael guard stood close. Too close.
Up close, the creature was worse than any broadcast Lucas had seen before. Its skin resembled pale stone stretched tight over sharp, angular bone. Its eyes were dark and reflective, revealing nothing. Black-gold armor grew seamlessly from its flesh, pulsing faintly with internal energy.
"You reacted," the guard said, observing him with unsettling calm, curiosity sharpened by menace. "Interesting," it added, the single word delivered quietly. Not gently. Not kindly.
Pure curiosity, cold and invasive, as if Lucas were no more than a phenomenon worth dissecting.
Or perhaps the creature was closed to him for a reason. Maybe it knew something about his condition. After all, it was no mere coincidence that a Khar'Vael guard had lingered so close to him.
Lucas said nothing, lowering his gaze.
"Quiet ones endure longer. Sometimes," the guard said slowly, savoring every syllable as if tasting fear.
A pause lingered in the air. Then he added, voice lower, sharper, almost a whisper of menace:
"And sometimes they don't."
The creature gestured toward the horizon, where mining rigs loomed like executioners awaiting their sentence.
"Move," it ordered, voice final and unyielding.
Lucas obeyed. His gaze still watched the stones on the hard ground. As he walked, heat scorched his lungs. Sand burned through thin soles. Chains clinked with every step. Whispers rose and died before they could form words.
Khelt swallowed hope quickly.
---
Inside the Khar'Vael ship, the silence was overwhelming—thick, suffocating, broken only by Rin's screams.
The world narrowed to pain and blinding light.
The collar seemed to tighten around his neck, sharp and unyielding, biting into his skin with mechanical precision.
Agony surged down his spine, forcing a cry from his throat as his knees buckled.
"You live if you work," the guard sneered, voice dripping with amusement.
"And you work… until you break," he added, chuckling darkly.
"Then try harder, scumbag," Rin spat through clenched teeth, laughter breaking through the pain—raw, bitter, and unbroken.
"One day… I will make you pay," he promised, voice tight with fire and unyielding resolve.
"Oo, you'll make me pay?" the guard sneered, voice dripping with derision.
He showed no fear. No agitation.
Only a short, cruel laugh that echoed through the chamber—harsh, lingering, leaving a trace of something vile in its wake.
The collar discharged again.
Pain consumed him completely.
And still—Rin laughed.
Low. Broken. Defiant.
A sound that did not belong to a slave.
More like the laugh of someone who clings to the thoughts that make them whole.
The precious spark that keeps him alive.
---
Somewhere beneath the dying sun of Khelt, Lucas marched into the mines, shoulders bowed beneath invisible weight.
Somewhere in the void, Rin was being reshaped by agony, piece by piece.
They did not know where the other truly was.
They did not know how far apart they had been torn.
But the thread between them endured.
Stretched.
Strained.
Unbroken.
On Khelt, the drills screamed louder, rattling the sands like the planet itself was wailing.
In the void, the Khar'Vael ship shifted course—silent, deliberate, unrelenting.
And far beyond them both…
Something ancient stirred. Something vast, unseen, and patient.
It took notice.
And deep within Rin and Lucas… something answered.
A shadowed pulse. A hidden fire.
Something that had waited, silent, patient, for this exact moment… to be awakened.