Kai felt his breath coming fast and heavy. The heat was pulsing from inside his chest, where the core vibrated with a color he had never seen before. Every beat was accompanied by a strange glow under his skin, a light that seemed to have a life of its own. He stood there for a while, trying to get used to his own body. Even the smell of the place was different, stronger, richer in detail, as if the entire world had changed density.
He tried to take a few steps, but it was as if he was learning to walk all over again. The muscles responded before the intention, an uncanny precision, but mixed with a certain imbalance, as if he did not completely belong to himself. He looked at his hands, clenched his fists, opened them again. The skin felt elastic, the reflexes quicker. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead, but his body did not feel the old fatigue, just a strange anxiety.
The corridor ahead was shrouded in shadow, crossed by beams of bluish light. The moss on the walls formed patterns he had never noticed before, almost symbols, almost eyes. For an instant, everything seemed to move together with the shadow behind him. Kai felt that presence clearly, as if someone or something was stuck to his soul, waiting for a command or maybe just watching.
Suddenly, he heard Zero's voice echo inside his head, firm, mechanical, but with a strange undertone of calm. "Adaptation levels: sixty-four percent. Monitoring emotional fluctuations. I recommend balance." Kai put his hand to his chest, feeling the core pulse, and almost laughed at the absurdity. "Balance, easy for you to say." Zero's voice wavered, without any irony. "Emotional instability detected. Risk of memory lapses and anxiety attacks. I suggest controlled breathing and focus on the immediate environment."
He did not know if he should be annoyed or grateful, but he chose to obey. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. The sounds of the Nexus seemed clearer. He could hear the drip of water far away, the rustling of small creatures fleeing through cracks in the walls, even the low hum of energy stones vibrating inside the moss. The sensation was suffocating and fascinating at the same time.
Kai tried to move forward down the corridor. Each step came with small electric jolts running down his spine. The fear of losing control was real, but curiosity was growing, along with the sense of strength. He felt more agile, as if he could jump farther, run longer, endure pain without breaking down. On the other hand, all this came at a price: from time to time, flashes of memories that were not his crossed his mind. Strange landscapes, sounds of distant voices, fragments of war and destruction. It was like having nightmares while awake.
"Zero, why do I see these things?" he whispered, but there was no direct answer. Only a soft echo, as if the question had been registered for analysis. The silence that followed was heavy. Kai felt the core speeding up, as if it might explode.
Kai felt the corridor narrowing behind him, as if the entire Nexus was breathing along with his steps. The echo of his own movements hit the damp walls, mixing with the distant hums of creatures hiding somewhere dark. Now, he could sense presences long before he saw them. It was almost like having a radar, an intuition impossible to explain, but frighteningly real. The smaller creatures fled when they sensed his approach, but some stopped, watched from afar with deep, hungry eyes. None of them seemed truly willing to attack him right away, as if they recognized something different, something that was no longer just human.
For an instant, Kai thought about releasing all the new strength that Zero whispered about in his mind, but he hesitated. He still did not know where his own control ended and where the creature's inside him began. He kept going, dodging piles of debris and loose wires, feeling the shadow stretch behind him, mimicking every move. Each step felt like a test. And every whisper on the walls made his chest tighten.
With each attempt to calm his mind, new voices whispered in unknown tones. Panic tried to take over, but there was always that artificial calm, a coldness imposed by Zero. The feeling was of always being on the edge of losing his mind, but something, or someone, kept him anchored, almost like a strict teacher who did not let the student get distracted.
Kai passed between broken concrete blocks and rusty pipes, his flexible body ducking effortlessly under a bundle of hanging cables. He felt the shadow follow every turn and every dodge, gliding close to the ground like an extension of his own movements. He did not dare look back for long, but he knew that if he tried, he could command that shadow as if it were an extra arm. The idea made him uneasy and curious at the same time.
The tension never let up. Each new noise echoing in the corridors was an invisible threat. Kai's body reacted before his mind even processed what was happening around him. He was already in a state of maximum alert, chest rising and falling fast, cold sweat running down his back, but his muscles were always ready to jump, fight, or disappear at the first sign of danger. At any sign, his breathing shortened, and the whole world seemed to slow down around him.
That was when Zero manifested again, the voice cutting through Kai's head like a cold warning. "I suggest immediate relocation. Hostile activity patterns detected in adjacent sectors." It was a simple command, but the authority was impossible to ignore. Kai felt a chill down his spine, not knowing if he still obeyed by his own will or because he no longer had control over himself.
The mental fatigue was building with every step. Sometimes, Kai lost his train of thought, stopped in the middle of the corridor without knowing exactly how he had gotten there, needing to concentrate just to remember what he was doing. Images of his sister appeared out of nowhere, intertwined with memories of life in the city. And suddenly, sensations would come that did not seem to belong to him, memories or glimpses of things he had never experienced, mixing unknown scenes with a fear hard to name. Just a blink of an eye was enough for his heart to race again, the fear growing, his mind spinning as if he was running in circles without moving.
In the middle of that silent chaos, Kai finally realized that hesitating there was no longer an option. Stopping, even for a few seconds, was to surrender to the worst. The Nexus around him no longer resembled anything he knew. And, from afar, the creatures watched, sniffing out that change, as if they sensed that Kai was no longer just human.
Only then, feeling the gaze of all those presences on his skin, did Kai gather what little courage he had left. He grabbed the energy stones he managed to pick up along the way, felt the cold weight of the knife in his hand, and the shadow stuck behind him like an attentive animal. The secret inside his chest was a burden almost unbearable, but somehow he still needed to survive, for Lina, for any part of himself that was still truly human.