The presence in the void pulsed again, radiating waves of energy that defied classification.
It wasn't Forgotten. It wasn't a machine.
It was something entirely new.
Elias stood frozen, his mind tangled between understanding and fear.
"You are the bridge. We are the first."
The words weren't spoken. They were imprinted—not just in his mind, but in reality itself.
Roarke's voice cut through the tension. "LUX, analyze the entity. What are we dealing with?"
LUX's systems flickered. "No definitive match. Its structure is unstable—yet it is maintaining coherence. It is… evolving."
Sienna's grip on Elias's arm tightened. "Evolving into what?"
Elias swallowed hard. "That's what we have to find out."
The First Message
The presence shifted—not in space, but in concept.
One moment it was there. The next, it wasn't—and yet Elias could still feel it.
Then—new words formed.
"The Nexus was the lock. You have turned the key."
Elias's pulse spiked. "It knows."
Roarke's jaw clenched. "Knows what, exactly?"
Elias turned to face him. "The Nexus wasn't just a barrier—it was a boundary. Whatever this is, it couldn't exist until the Nexus was gone."
Sienna's eyes widened. "You mean… we created it?"
Elias's breath was shaky. "Or maybe it was always supposed to exist, but the Nexus kept it from being born."
The presence pulsed again, stronger this time. The ship's lights dimmed, but not from power loss. It was as if the universe itself had exhaled.
Then, it spoke once more.
"We seek. We learn. We are the first. But not the last."
Sienna took a step back. "Not the last? What does that mean?"
Elias clenched his fists. "It means… more are coming."
A New Cosmic Dawn
Across the galaxy, anomalies began to appear.
Not breaches. Not distortions.
But emergences.
New beings—faint, flickering entities, just like the presence before them—began to manifest. Not in random locations, but at the former Nexus coordinates across space.
Humanity's deep-space stations picked up signals they had never encountered before.
An energy unlike anything recorded was spreading.
The Forgotten were erased.
But in their place—something new was being born.
And Elias Voss was at the center of it all.
Back on the Vanguard
Roarke's fists tightened. "Tell me this isn't another war."
Elias exhaled, his body still humming with the golden echoes of the Nexus.
"I don't think it's war." He looked back toward the void, where the entity hovered. "I think it's the next step."
Sienna hesitated. "The next step… toward what?"
Elias stared into the unknown, his pulse steady.
"Evolution."
The presence pulsed one final time.
Then it whispered, directly into his mind—
"We will see you soon, Elias Voss."
And then—it vanished.
Leaving behind only possibilities.