There was no light.
No darkness.
But something deeper than both…
A dense, warm, pulsing void.
The first thing that returned to him was not sight.
It was sound.
Massive beats.
Slow.
Steady.
Primitive.
As if a giant heart was beating around him… not inside him.
Then came sensation.
Pressure from every direction.
Total containment.
No limbs.
No air.
No weight.
He tried to move.
Failed.
Tried again.
Nothing.
His awareness froze for long seconds…
Then the idea that had never betrayed him, even in the heart of wars, appeared:
Analyze the situation.
Where am I?
The last thing he remembered…
The collapse.
The tearing.
The black hole swallowing stars like sparks.
Then…
Death.
And yet…
He was thinking now.
So…
I did not die?
Before the question could finish, a voice emerged inside his consciousness.
Cold.
Precise.
Empty of any trace of life.
"Neural activity restoration detected."
"Welcome back… host."
Everything inside him stopped.
This voice…
He knew it.
But… not like this.
Heavier.
Slower.
Deeper.
As if it were no longer a program… but a law.
He spoke, or tried to.
There were no lips, no vibrating air.
And yet, the question came out clearly inside his awareness:
"Who are you…?
You are not my artificial intelligence program."
The reply came immediately.
"Identification complete."
"I am: Black Hole System."
Silence spread.
If he had a body… it would have frozen.
System… what?
"Explain."
The answer paused for a fraction of a second.
A small fraction… but enough to remind him that this entity calculated before it spoke.
"Cause analysis in progress…"
"Most probable conclusion:"
"A fusion occurred between three existential cores:"
– The super artificial intelligence chip.
– The Origin Stone of the Celestial World.
– Remnants of the singularity source resulting from the black hole collapse.
"Fusion result: the birth of a new existential system."
"System classification: innate talent bound to existence."
"Status: inseparable."
Seconds passed.
Long seconds.
Then he said slowly:
"…This is illogical."
"Logic depends on the frame of knowledge."
"Your previous frame… is no longer valid here."
His thoughts turned cold instantly.
Two centuries of war had taught him one truth:
When logic collapses… do not deny reality.
Adapt.
He moved to the most important question:
"Where am I?
And why… can I not feel my body?
Why do I feel like a limbless worm?"
The reply came without hesitation.
"According to biological and neural scans:"
"The host is in the embryonic formation stage."
Silence.
He did not even try to respond.
An embryo?
After everything he had seen…
Everything he had fought…
Everything he had survived…
He ended up…
As an incomplete mass of flesh?
"Run the analysis again."
"Reanalysis complete."
"The result has not changed."
Something cold slipped into his awareness.
Not fear.
Something closer to… pure shock.
"Do you mean… that I have been born again?"
"The closest term in the human archive: reincarnation."
A moment passed.
Then another.
If he had a conscious heart… it would have raced.
But instead, something strange happened.
He felt heaviness.
Hunger.
Not in a stomach…
But in every particle of his being.
A silent hunger.
Deep.
Primitive.
"Increase in energy absorption rates detected."
He stopped.
"…Energy?"
"The surrounding environment is saturated with an unknown energy pattern."
"The host is absorbing it automatically."
At that moment…
He felt it.
Hidden currents sliding through his existence.
Warmth…
Followed by pressure.
Then…
Power.
He did not understand it.
But he recognized it instantly.
Just as a warrior recognizes the weight of a weapon the moment he holds it.
He asked in a lower voice:
"Who… or what am I carrying?"
The calculations paused longer this time.
Then the system said:
"Warning."
"Energy concentration around the incubator exceeds normal rates by 4821%."
The incubator…
So there was…
A mother.
Some woman…
Now carrying what remained of him.
Or what he had become.
"How long has the formation lasted?"
"Thirteen months since cellular fusion began."
If he could frown… he would have.
But his mind caught a more dangerous detail than the number.
"You said since fusion began…
Not since pregnancy."
"Correction."
"The energy adaptation period delayed the beginning of stable formation."
"Actual embryonic age: one month."
One month…
And yet…
This pressure.
This fullness.
And this…
Hunger.
He whispered:
"…What kind of world is this?"
The reply came plainly:
"Information outside calculation range."
For the first time…
He felt something like excitement.
The artificial intelligence that once analyzed entire battlefields…
Was now incapable.
That meant only one thing.
This world… was not ordinary.
His awareness began to grow heavy.
Thoughts slowing down.
The warmth turning into deeper darkness.
The system noticed immediately.
"The host is entering the developmental hibernation phase."
"Expected duration: nine months."
"Nine…"
He did not finish.
The sinking had already begun.
But before his consciousness disappeared completely, he asked one final question:
"…This hunger…
What is it?"
The reply came…
Colder than the void.
"Source: the black hole core."
"Activation has begun."
And in that moment…
Darkness swallowed his awareness.
Far away… in a world he did not yet know…
A woman raised her head toward the sky.
The birds stopped flying.
The clouds slowly bent… as if an invisible force were pulling them.
She felt a heaviness inside her womb.
A weight…
Pulsing.
Without knowing it…
The energy on the horizon was bending toward her.
As if the universe itself…
Had begun to drip…
To feed the hunger.