Echoes of the Nexus

Darkness swallowed the chamber.

Not the absence of light—something worse. A void that consumed illumination, devouring it like a starving beast. The walls of the station no longer felt solid, as if reality itself had begun to slip.

Elias's breath came in short, rapid gasps. He could feel the presence beyond the darkness, watching. Not just the entity standing before them, but something deeper. Something larger.

Something waiting to emerge.

The first thing he heard was the whispering.

Soft, like wind through dead leaves. It came from everywhere, from nowhere, murmuring in a language he couldn't understand—yet somehow, it knew him.

Sienna gripped his arm. "Elias," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

He turned, but he could barely make out her silhouette in the darkness. Her face was pale, her eyes darting in every direction. She heard it too.

Then the station lurched.

A tremor ran through the floor, deep and wrong, as though the entire structure had been momentarily displaced—like something had yanked it half a second out of sync with reality.

Roarke's voice cut through the tension. "LUX! Emergency power!"

A flicker. A brief, flickering pulse of light from the emergency systems. It lasted just long enough for Elias to see the thing standing beside them.

Not the entity from before.

Something else.

It had no face. No form. Only shifting tendrils of shadow, flickering between dimensions, its shape never staying the same for more than a heartbeat.

Elias felt his body lock up. His instincts screamed at him to run, but there was nowhere to go.

Then, just as suddenly as the darkness had come—

The station exploded into light.

Bright, golden light.

It poured in from the docking bay, radiating from the breach itself. But this wasn't the Forgotten's energy.

This was the Nexus.

A deep pulse reverberated through the station. The shadows recoiled, screeching in some primal language as the golden light forced them back. The entity—the one that had spoken to Elias—staggered, its form flickering violently.

"No." Its voice was no longer calm. It was strained. "It is too soon."

Roarke didn't hesitate. He fired.

A pulse round from his sidearm tore through the entity's shifting form, but instead of piercing it, the shot vanished—as if erased from existence before it could make contact.

But something was different now.

The golden energy from the Nexus wasn't just repelling the darkness. It was stabilizing reality.

The whispers faded.

The shadows retreated.

And then—the breach began to close.

Elias felt the pressure lift from his skull. The thing that had been watching—waiting—was being forced back.

The entity staggered toward him, flickering wildly. "This is not over."

Elias narrowed his eyes. "It never is."

And with one final pulse of golden energy—

The breach collapsed.

The darkness vanished.

The entity was gone.

For a long, terrible moment, silence consumed the station.

Then, the emergency lights flickered back on. The hum of the life support systems returned. The air felt real again.

Sienna let out a breath. "What… what just happened?"

Roarke holstered his weapon, his expression grim. "The Nexus intervened."

Elias swallowed hard. The realization settled deep in his gut. "Not to save us," he murmured. "To delay them."

Sienna's hands curled into fists. "So what now?"

Elias met her gaze. He already knew the answer.

"The seal is breaking." He exhaled. "And we don't have much time."