The lab was cold.
Ethan lay strapped to a steel bed, wires snaking from his chest, arms, and temples. Machines surrounded him like mechanical vultures, their screens displaying every beat of his heart, every pulse of his blood.
Above him, a massive observation window revealed a room full of scientists in white coats. Their faces were tense. Fearful.
Only one man remained calm.
Dr. Steve stood beside the bed, holding a syringe filled with shimmering silver liquid. The nanobots swirled inside like living mercury, catching the harsh laboratory lights.
"Ethan," Steve said quietly, "this will hurt. But you need to stay conscious as long as possible. The nanobots need to bond with your neural pathways while your mind is active."
Ethan's throat was dry. "And if I pass out?"
Steve didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
"Beginning injection," Steve announced.
The needle pierced Ethan's forearm.
For a moment—nothing.
Then the fire came.
It started at the injection site—a burning sensation that raced up his arm like molten metal flowing through his veins. Ethan gritted his teeth, his fingers clawing at the bed's leather restraints.
I can handle this. I can—
The fire reached his chest.
Ethan screamed.
His back arched off the table as every nerve in his body ignited. It felt like his blood was being replaced with acid, like his cells were being torn apart and rebuilt simultaneously.
"Heart rate spiking!" a doctor shouted from behind the monitors. "One-sixty... one-eighty... two hundred!"
The machines began shrieking alarms.
"He's going into cardiac arrest!"
Dr. Steve remained motionless, watching.
"Sir!" A young doctor—Dr. Chen—grabbed his arm. Her face was pale with terror. "His vitals are crashing! We need to stop the injection!"
"No."
"He'll die!"
Steve's eyes never left Ethan's convulsing body. "Inject the remaining dose."
"WHAT?!"
"Do it. Now."
Dr. Chen's hands trembled. "Sir, his heart—"
"If we stop now, the partial bond will kill him anyway." Steve's voice was ice. "The only way forward is through. Full injection. Immediately."
The room fell silent except for Ethan's screams and the wailing machines.
Dr. Chen looked at the syringe—still half-full of silver liquid.
Her hands shook as she pressed the plunger.
The remaining nanobots flooded Ethan's system.
His scream cut off.
His body went rigid—every muscle locked, every vein bulging against his skin. His eyes rolled back, showing only white.
"HEART RATE CRITICAL!" someone screamed. "Two-forty! Two-fifty!"
The heart monitor flatlined.
BEEEEEEEEEEP—
Silence.
Ethan's body collapsed onto the bed like a puppet with cut strings.
Nothing moved.
"No... no, no, no—"
Steve shoved past the frozen doctors and pressed his fingers to Ethan's neck.
No pulse.
He slammed his fists onto Ethan's chest.
"COME ON!"
Compression. Compression. Compression.
"Charge the defibrillator!" someone yelled.
"There's no time!" Steve roared. He pumped Ethan's chest with desperate force. "Breathe, damn you! BREATHE!"
One second.
Two seconds.
Five seconds.
The observation room had gone silent. Scientists pressed against the glass, their faces ashen.
Seven seconds.
Eight seconds.
Dr. Chen covered her mouth. Tears streamed down her face.
Ten seconds.
Steve's arms burned. His rhythm faltered.
Please.
Please don't let this be for nothing.
GASP.
Ethan's body jerked.
His eyes flew open—and for a split second, they weren't brown anymore.
They were silver.
Then he blinked, and the color faded back to normal. His chest heaved as air rushed into his lungs.
Alive.
He was alive.
The lab erupted.
Doctors rushed forward, checking vitals, adjusting monitors, shouting readings to each other. But Steve simply stood there, his hands still pressed against Ethan's chest, breathing heavily.
"Sir..." Dr. Chen whispered. "He's stable. Heart rate normalizing. Brain activity... actually increasing."
Steve closed his eyes.
"Everyone," he said quietly. "Full observation protocol. Twenty-four hour rotations. Any change—no matter how small—you report directly to me."
He looked down at Ethan's unconscious face.
"The hard part hasn't even begun."
Ethan opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him was white. Clinical. The smell of antiseptic filled his nostrils.
Where am I?
Memories crashed back—the lab, the needle, the fire, the darkness...
He sat up slowly.
The room was different now. Smaller. A private recovery suite. Machines still monitored his vitals, but the frantic energy from before was gone.
Dr. Steve sat in a chair by the window, reading a tablet. Other doctors stood nearby, watching Ethan with a mixture of awe and fear.
"You're awake," Steve said without looking up.
Ethan opened his mouth to speak—but stopped.
Something was different.
His body felt... wrong.
No—not wrong. New.
Every sensation was sharper. The hum of the air conditioning. The faint heartbeat of the doctor three meters away. The microscopic vibrations of the floor beneath his bed.
And in the back of his mind...
Something else.
A presence.
Cold. Mechanical. Waiting.
Ethan closed his eyes.
He didn't speak. He didn't know what to say. His brain felt like it had been rewired, expanded, crammed with information he couldn't yet access.
"How do you feel?" Steve asked.
Ethan remained silent.
What could he possibly say? That he felt like a stranger in his own body? That he could hear the blood pumping through his own veins?
That something was living inside him now?
Steve seemed to understand. He nodded slowly.
"The bond is complete. The nanobots have fully integrated with your nervous system, your cellular structure... your very DNA."
He set down his tablet.
"You're no longer entirely human, Ethan."
The next two days passed in a blur.
Tests. Scans. Injections. Observations.
Ethan barely spoke. He spent hours sitting on his bed, eyes closed, trying to understand the thing inside him. The presence that hummed beneath his thoughts like a second heartbeat.
Finally, Steve entered his room carrying a small device.
"It's time."
The DepartureThe hangar was massive.
Ethan stood before the Horizon—a sleek, angular vessel that looked more like a silver blade than a spaceship. Its hull shimmered with a faint blue glow, lined with circuitry that pulsed like veins.
"The wormhole generator is built into the ship's core," Steve explained, walking beside him. "Once you activate it, you'll have approximately four minutes to reach Sambala before the wormhole destabilizes."
He handed Ethan a small device—barely larger than a wristwatch.
"This is the Beacon. Once you reach Sambala, find an open area and activate it. The signal will allow us to lock onto your position and create a stable wormhole for resource extraction."
Ethan strapped the device to his wrist.
"That's the mission," Steve continued. "Plant the Beacon. Survive until we arrive."
Survive.
Such a simple word for something so impossible.
Ethan climbed into the cockpit.
The interior was minimalist—a single seat surrounded by holographic displays that flickered to life as he sat down. The controls were intuitive, almost organic.
Or maybe that was the nanobots feeding information directly into his brain.
Steve's voice crackled through the comm system. "Ethan. Are you ready?"
Ethan stared at the endless displays, the blinking lights, the vast unknown waiting beyond the hangar doors.
Was he ready?
No.
But Maya's face flashed in his mind—her weak smile, her thin fingers wrapped around his, her voice whispering, "Come back to me, okay?"
He had made a promise.
He intended to keep it.
"Nanobot," Ethan said quietly inside his mind. "Can you hear me?"
A pause.
Then—cold, mechanical, precise:
[ACKNOWLEDGED. NANOBOT INTERFACE ACTIVE. DESIGNATION: NEXUS. HOW MAY I ASSIST, HOST?]
Ethan's heart skipped.
It worked.
"Guide me through the wormhole. Show me the path to Sambala."
[AFFIRMATIVE. CALCULATING OPTIMAL TRAJECTORY. NAVIGATION OVERLAY... ENGAGED.]
A luminous pathway appeared in Ethan's vision—not on the screens, but directly in his mind. A golden thread stretching into the void.
"Wormhole generator," Ethan commanded aloud. "Activate."
The ship trembled.
Outside the cockpit window, space itself began to tear apart.
A swirling vortex of light and darkness ripped open before him—a wound in reality that crackled with energy beyond human comprehension. Colors that shouldn't exist spiraled into the abyss.
The wormhole.
"Ethan," Steve's voice came through the comm, tense but steady. "Whatever happens in there... don't stop. Don't look back. Just keep moving forward."
Ethan gripped the controls.
"I'll see you on the other side."
The Horizon shot forward.
And reality shattered around him.
Inside the Wormhole It was hell.
The moment the ship entered the vortex, Ethan felt it—a crushing pressure against every cell in his body. The radiation Steve had warned about wasn't just dangerous.
It was alive.
It crawled across his skin, seeped into his lungs, clawed at his mind. Every nerve screamed in agony.
"AAAARGH!"
Ethan's vision blurred. His hands spasmed on the controls.
[WARNING: HOST EXPERIENCING CRITICAL PAIN LEVELS. INITIATING NEURAL DAMPENING PROTOCOL.]
Suddenly—silence.
The pain didn't disappear, but it became distant. Muffled. Like watching a fire through thick glass.
[PAIN RECEPTORS SUPPRESSED BY 94%. MAINTAINING MINIMUM SENSORY INPUT FOR NAVIGATION. FOCUS ON THE PATH, HOST.]
Ethan gasped, forcing his eyes open.
The golden thread still glowed in his mind, weaving through the chaos of the wormhole. Around him, reality twisted—time and space folding into impossible shapes.
He followed the path.
Then he heard it.
CRACK.
"What was—"
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The ship groaned. Metal screamed.
[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. HULL BREACH IN 47 SECONDS.]
"No, no, no—"
Ethan pushed the engines harder. The ship shuddered violently, pieces of the outer hull ripping away into the void.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
[32 SECONDS TO COMPLETE STRUCTURAL FAILURE.]
The golden path flickered ahead. And beyond it—
Light.
An ending.
"Come on..." Ethan growled through gritted teeth. "COME ON!"
[15 SECONDS.]
The cockpit glass spiderwebbed with cracks.
[10 SECONDS.]
An entire wing tore away.
[5 SECONDS.]
The light grew blinding.
[BRACE FOR EXIT.]
Ethan screamed as the ship burst through—
And suddenly, there was sky.
Not the gray, polluted sky of Earth. This sky was violet—streaked with ribbons of gold and crimson, dominated by two massive suns that hung like burning eyes on the horizon.
Ethan had one second to take it in.
Then gravity claimed him.
The ship—or what remained of it—plummeted toward the planet below.
Warning alarms blared. Smoke filled the cockpit. Through the cracked glass, Ethan saw an endless expanse of alien wilderness rushing up to meet him.
Forests of crystalline trees. Mountains that glowed with inner light. Rivers of liquid silver.
Beautiful.
Deadly.
[IMPACT IN 12 SECONDS. INITIATING DEFENSIVE PROTOCOL.]
Pain lanced through Ethan's body as the nanobots surged outward. His skin rippled—then hardened, coating itself in a thin layer of metallic silver.
[DERMAL ARMOR ACTIVATED. ENERGY CONSUMPTION: SEVERE. BRACE FOR IMPACT.]
Ethan had no time to brace.
The ship hit the ground.
The world exploded into chaos—fire, metal, earth, sky, all spinning together in a hurricane of destruction. Ethan was thrown from the wreckage, his armored body bouncing across alien soil like a ragdoll.
When he finally stopped, he lay in a crater of shattered crystal and scorched vegetation.
Everything hurt.
[DERMAL ARMOR DEACTIVATED. ENERGY RESERVES: 7%. HOST CONDITION: CRITICAL EXHAUSTION.]
Ethan groaned, forcing himself to move.
The ship—or what was left of it—burned thirty meters away. Flames of blue and green licked at twisted metal. Smoke rose into the violet sky.
Destroyed.
Completely destroyed.
Ethan crawled.
His limbs felt like lead. Every movement drained what little strength remained. The nanobots had saved his life—but at a cost. They had consumed nearly all his body's energy reserves.
The forest loomed ahead—trees of glowing crystal, their branches humming with strange energy. Unknown. Dangerous.
But staying in the open was worse.
Ethan dragged himself toward the treeline.
One meter.
Two meters.
Five meters.
The violet sky spun above him.
His vision darkened at the edges.
Maya...
I made it...
I'm here...
He collapsed face-first into the alien soil.
The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was a sound.
Footsteps.
Something was coming.