Luna didn't walk into the void.
She unspooled herself into it.
After Theta-7's miracle, the coalition held—but barely. The Devourers had pulled back, not in retreat, but like a predator circling, studying this strange new prey that bled hope instead of fear.
And Luna knew why.
They weren't fighting an army.
They were fighting grief wearing armor.
So she did the one thing no commander had dared: she stepped off the Resonance Ark—not in a suit, not in a ship—but in raw consciousness, wrapped only in memory and will. Her body remained on the bridge, breathing slow, eyes closed. But her mind? It reached out.
Not to attack.
To touch.
The galactic core swallowed her whole.
One moment, stars. The next—silence so complete it felt like being buried alive in velvet.
Then, a presence.
Not hostile. Not kind. Just… watching.
"You are not like the others," a voice said—not in sound, but in the shape of absence. Like wind through an empty house.
