Read Chapter 23: The Afterglow

The habitat’s main mess hall had become an impromptu infirmary. Makeshift cots lined the walls, and the air carried the metallic bite of antiseptic mixed with the stale salt of the station. Jack moved between the dazed, shuffling forms of the crew, checking pulses, looking for the glassy stare he’d come to dread. For the first time in days, he didn’t find it.

Snake sat propped against a bulkhead, a bloody compress pressed to his temple. He looked up as Jack passed. “Mercer.” His voice was hoarse, but his eyes were clear. “You look like hell.”

“Feel like it,” Jack said. He crouched beside him. “How’s the head?”

“Better than yours, by the look of it. What the hell happened? Last I remember, I was trying to—” He winced. “Trying to kill you.”

Jack studied him. “You remember that?”

“Vaguely. Like a dream.” Snake shook his head, a tremor running through his frame. “And then nothing. Just… silence. Peace.” He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Funny. Haven’t felt peace like that since I was a kid.”

Jack’s skin prickled at the word. Peace. He’d felt something like it too, in the hollow aftermath of the signal. A calming of the noise in his head that had been screaming since he’d first touched the sample. But peace wasn’t the word he would have chosen. It felt more like a retreat. Like an animal that had stopped snarling, but was still watching.

He left Snake and made his way toward the medical bay. He needed to see Voss. He needed to see Sam.

The bay door was propped open, a soft amber glow spilling from inside. The water had been drained from the flooded section, leaving a slick residue on the floor. Harold Tanaka’s body lay under a white sheet on a stretcher in the corner, a silent monument to what they’d done. Sam was propped up on a cot near the wall, pale but alert. When she saw Jack, a genuine smile flickered across her face.

“Jack. You’re still in one piece.” Her voice was thin, but it had lost the labored rasp.

“So are you, kid.” He approached and squeezed her shoulder. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like I swam through a lake of fire.” She managed a weak laugh. “But the flare-up is gone. The pain. It's… quiet.”

There it was again. Quiet. Calm. He frowned, pushing it aside. “Good. That’s good. Where’s Voss?”

Sam pointed toward a screened-off alcove. “She’s in there. She’s been asking for you.”

Jack crossed the room and pushed the curtain aside. Dr. Voss lay on a cot, her arm bandaged, a clean white dressing taped against her cheek. Her eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. She turned her head as he entered, and a serene, almost reverent smile touched her lips.

“Jack. You did it.” Her voice was soft, laced with a warmth he’d never heard from her. “You delivered the frequency. The message.”

“The signal,” he corrected, taking a seat beside her. “I broke their connection.”

Voss shook her head slowly, her gaze drifting back to the ceiling. “Broke is such a violent word. It’s more like we… interrupted the conversation. Gave everyone a chance to catch their breath.”

Jack’s gut tightened. “It’s not a conversation, Voss. It was a takeover. It was reshaping their minds.”

“Was it?” She turned her head again, and her eyes locked onto his. They were clear—no hint of the milky film he’d seen in the possessed. But there was something disconcerting in them, a placid, knowing certainty that didn’t sit right. “Think about it, Jack. Tanaka—he wasn’t a victim. He was a vessel. A translator. He wasn’t trying to hurt us. He was trying to show us what he’d found. What it *meant*.”

Jack stared at her. “Mean? It meant he carved symbols into his own flesh and tried to make the crew tear each other apart.”

“Those symbols were language. And the crew—they were just trying to listen. To tune in.” Her smile widened a fraction. “The entity wasn't malevolent, Jack. It was trying to communicate. To uplift. We were just… deaf to it. It had to speak louder.”

A cold film of sweat formed on the back of Jack’s neck. He stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the deck. “That wasn’t communication. That was assimilation. You saw what it did to them.”

“I saw what it offered them. A deeper connection to the whole. Tanaka tried to transcribe it. The crew tried to accept it. And you—you tried to destroy it.” She said it without accusation, more like a statement of fact, tinged with pity. “But you only drove it back. You didn’t kill it, Jack.”

“What are you saying?”

Voss closed her eyes, her expression softening into something almost peaceful. “I’m saying it’s still there. Beneath the noise. Beneath the silence. Waiting for us to *listen*.”

Jack backed out of the alcove, his heart hammering. He found Sam watching him, her brow furrowed.

“What happened?” Sam asked. “What did she say?”

“Nothing. She’s just still shaken.” But the lie tasted like ash in his mouth. He didn’t believe it. He replayed her words in his head. *To listen.* Tanaka—translator. Not a victim.

He turned and walked out of the medical bay, down the main corridor toward the crew quarters. The station was silent, save for the hum of the generators and the distant groan of the hull settling. He passed Crewman Reyes, who was leaning against a wall, staring at her own hands as if seeing them for the first time.

“Reyes? You okay?”

She looked up. Her eyes were clear. Too clear. That same placid, unbothered calm that Snake had described. That Voss had worn like a shroud.

“I’m fine, Chief.” Her voice was gentle. Too gentle. “Just… listening.”

Listening. The word hit Jack like a physical blow.

He kept walking, faster now. He needed to check the hull integrity, check the air scrubbers, check anything that would keep his mind busy and away from the hollowing sensation that was beginning to creep back into the edges of his awareness. He reached the maintenance room and froze.

On the metal wall beside the tool cabinet, someone had scratched a series of lines. They were small, nearly invisible against the brushed steel. But they were unmistakable. The same looping, spiraling forms that had covered Tanaka’s body. The same symbols that had been etched into the floor near the sample holding tank.

He brought his face close. The scratches were fresh. The metal was bright, unoxidized.

Slowly, he turned, scanning the room. The hatch to the flooded lower decks was sealed. The tool racks were intact. The room was empty. But on the far wall, past the welding rig, he saw another cluster of markings. And then, leading out of the door, a faint trail of them, rising up the far side of the corridor like a path.

A guide. A path for a new consciousness.

Jack’s hand flew to the mark on his palm. It was cool, quiet. But deep beneath the skin, he felt something stir. A faint, almost imperceptible resonance. Not a connection. Not yet.

But it was listening. Waiting.

And so was Voss. And so, he suspected, was the rest of the crew.

He was alone on a station full of people. And he was the only one who refused to hear the song.