It started with a hiss.
Not the dramatic kind—the slow, shrill whisper of pressure loss that most people don't even hear until the floor beneath them buckles. In the maintenance levels of Cradle Helion, sounds like that were common. Pipes leaked, vents groaned, and the occasional thermal panel peeled under stress like a sunburned snake. Nothing unusual.
Except this time, something was off.
Null Kael paused mid-swipe, mop still dragging a streak of red across the bulkhead. It wasn't blood, not really—just rust mixed with condensation and whatever mold passed for atmosphere in Maintenance Block B-07. He blinked, adjusted his grip, and leaned closer to the hiss.
There. Behind the coolant housing. A seam that shimmered.
He shouldn't have seen it. Pressure seals didn't shimmer. They didn't ripple like heat waves in a vacuum. He stepped back, not because he was scared—he didn't know how to be scared of things like this—but because something in his skin recoiled before his brain caught up.
The hiss grew louder.
The lights flickered.
Then everything went silent.
Not quiet. Silent.
No hum of machinery. No groaning metal. No clicking relay behind the walls. Even the air felt...still. Wrong. It was like standing inside the breath between two thoughts.
Kael turned.
And the world peeled open.
A seam in space split down the corridor wall like a vertical eyelid, dark and wet and pulsing with iridescent veins. Something moved behind it—not like a shadow but inside one. Then the seam widened, and Kael saw teeth.
Not metaphorical teeth. Actual ones. Curved, spiraling in impossible patterns, anchored in a mouth that was too large to fit in the corridor but somehow did.
"Ah," Kael said blandly, mop still in hand. "So it's Thursday."
A scream would have made sense. Running too. But his body didn't twitch. He only stared, eyes narrowing, trying to recognize the shape.
He shouldn't have.
The world buckled.
Everything—metal, light, logic—folded inward, collapsing into the breach like paper being uncreased. A shockwave rippled outward, unseen but absolute. Kael felt it strike his chest like a memory, then pass through him.
And then...
The air vibrated like it had swallowed a voice.
He heard something—not with ears, but behind the skull. It scraped like a chorus of broken bells.
Catalyst protocol... restored.
His mind fractured. But it didn't break.
Kael fell to one knee, gasping.
Reality stuttered.
The corridor was gone. The walls were gone. He stood on a floor that looked like glass and smoke, with stars swimming below it and nothing above. A figure loomed across the void, wrapped in something that was not cloth and not shadow, head crowned with spiraling horns of white noise.
It did not speak. But something inside Kael understood.
Do you accept the weight?
He opened his mouth to ask what that meant.
And said, "Yes."
The answer didn't come from his mouth. It came from his bones. From something asleep inside him that had been waiting.
The figure vanished.
The floor shattered.
Kael fell again—this time into himself.
He woke up coughing, blood in his throat, the hiss now a full-blown alarm. Red lights blared from the corridor ceiling. Emergency klaxons. System lockdowns.
The seam was gone.
So was the breach.
Except for the burn left in its place.
Kael's hand hurt. He looked down and saw a pattern etched across his palm, glowing faintly like the afterimage of a sigil burned into retina. It pulsed with every heartbeat.
A whisper licked at his mind.
Step between. Step beneath.
You are not what they think.
He staggered upright.
Steps echoed behind him.
"HEY! Maintenance!" a security officer shouted, armored boots slamming the deck plates. "This section's sealed. Who the hell authorized—"
He stopped. Looked at Kael. Looked at the blood. The rust. The walls. Something in the officer's eyes dimmed, like a candle seeing wind.
Kael stood up slowly.
"I didn't see anything," he said softly.
The officer nodded once, hesitated, then turned and left.
Kael stared at his hand.
He didn't know what had just happened. Not really. Not yet.
But something inside him had changed.
And something outside had recognized it.