The end.
Not just rot. Not just fungus.
Soul-deep decay.
The kind that comes from believing you’re right long after the universe has already passed judgment.
“History—” he croaks, voice warping through fractured crystal and ruined flesh. “I made history?—”
I don’t answer.
Jillian is beside me now. Solid. Breathing. Alive in a way the station hasn’t been for days. Her eyes are clear—sharp with furyand something better beneath it. Purpose. Her hand grips my forearm, grounding both of us.
Ciampa stumbles, claws at a wall slick with melting crystal, leaving streaks of luminous residue behind him.
“You can’t stop it,” he insists, turning back toward us, desperate now. “The consciousness—it’s already spread. You’re standing in the future!”
His laugh breaks apart halfway through, turning into a wet rattle. Cracks race across the crystalline masses embedded in his face, reacting to Jillian’s proximity. To my blood still smeared across her hands.
She steps forward.
“No,” she says, voice steady as a blade. “You were just loud.”
The station trembles faintly. Somewhere far away, something explodes—maybe a system overloading, maybe the song unraveling thread by thread. The hum that’s haunted my skull since I entered this place flickers, unstable.
Ciampa’s eyes dart between us.
Calculation.
Fear.
But he still thinks he can win.
“Please,” he wheezes, holding out a misshapen hand. “I can show you?—”
I bare my teeth.
“Enough.”
He flinches.
Jillian squeezes my arm once. A signal.
We’ve already decided.
She steps closer, shoulders slumping, posture loosening. Her eyes glaze just a fraction. Her breathing changes—subtle, but wrong.
She hums.
Soft. Off-key.
Ciampa freezes.
Hope flares across his ruined face.
“Ah,” he breathes. “Yes. There you are. You feel it now, don’t you?”
She sways, clutching her head, stumbling toward him. “It’s… it’s so loud,” she murmurs. “I tried—I tried not to listen?—”
