An hour had passed since the violet light first spilled across Sector 01.
Astra found Kai near their old shelter — a half-collapsed technical bunker on the edge of District 47-B. He sat on a rusted step, his back pressed against the wall, clutching a broken steel pipe as if it were a real weapon. His face was ashen pale, his eyes fever-bright. A fresh scrape darkened his cheek, and his lower-leg prosthetic emitted a faint hiss — the hydraulics were close to failing.
When Astra emerged from the dense violet mist still crawling along the ground, Kai flinched so hard he dropped the pipe. Metal struck concrete with a dull clang.
"Astra?.." His voice broke.
"You… I saw you get hit. A direct plasma shot. You should be—"
"Dead?" she finished calmly.
She stepped closer. Her footsteps were silent, too light for a human. The air around her still carried a faint scent of ozone and something cold… something lifeless.
When she stopped a couple of steps away, Kai instinctively recoiled, pressing himself against the wall.
Her gaze was different.
Once, Astra's eyes held a quiet, stubborn anger toward the world. Now they were deeper. Colder. In her left eye, a faint violet glow pulsed — as if a tiny galaxy drifted within her pupil. The right eye remained almost human… but even there, something sharper, чуждое, had appeared.
"Death took the day off, Kai," she said softly.
Her voice sounded almost the same, but at times a low, vibrating undertone slipped through — as if a second, far older throat spoke alongside her.
Kai activated his mechanical eye with a trembling motion. A red scanning beam swept across her body. Readouts flickered into existence — then collapsed into errors.
Heartbeat — unstable.
Body temperature — below normal.
Biological index… not found.
"Your readings…" he whispered, voice shaking.
"Astra, what happened to you? Your Spark Index… it's gone. The scanners show… nothing. Like you're not even there."
Astra glanced down at her hands. Thin violet haze still curled faintly from her fingertips. She slipped them quickly into the pockets of her worn jacket so he wouldn't see.
"That's good," she said. A faint smile touched her lips — both reassuring and unsettling.
"If the System can't see me, we can finally start hunting for real. No more red eye overhead. No index. No 'defect.'"
Kai stayed silent for several long seconds. His gaze flickered between her face and the faint violet glow tracing her skin at the neck and wrists.
"That's not just you talking," he said quietly at last.
"I know your voice. There's… something else in there. Something inside you. I saw that Enforcer just… turn to ash. You touched it — and it was gone. Astra, what happened down there?"
She lowered her eyes.
For a moment, the old Astra surfaced again — the one who fixed drones and hated the System with a quiet, human kind of anger.
"I called to the Void, Kai. And it answered. Its name is Thanatos. It… he… it says I'm part of it now. Or it's part of me. I haven't figured that out yet. But I can feel it looking through my eyes. Breathing with my lungs. And it's… hungry."
Deep within her chest, a low, satisfied rumble echoed — almost like a purr.
I like him, little spark, Thanatos whispered, a voice only Astra could hear.
Sharp mind. Fear. Loyalty. A perfect foundation. Don't scare him too much… not yet.
Astra winced slightly and shook her head, pushing the voice away.
"It's not your enemy, Kai. Not yet. It gave me power the System will never have. The power to undo their rules. But I'm still me. I remember fixing drones with you. I remember you limping and cursing your prosthetic. I remember how we dreamed about reaching the Outer Ring."
She stepped closer and extended her hand… then stopped short of touching him.
"I don't want to lose you. You're the only one left. The only one I trust. But if you're afraid… if you see a monster in me — say it now. I'll leave."
Kai stared at her for a long time.
His mechanical eye finally stilled and powered down. In his human eye, tears shimmered — fear, relief, and something deeper.
"You've always been a little strange, Astra," he said hoarsely at last.
"But you were never a monster. If this… if this is what it takes to tear down their rotten world… then I'm with you. To the end. Just promise me one thing."
"What?"
"Don't disappear completely. Don't let that… Abyss consume you. I want the Astra who sat on the edge of that shaft fixing drones… to still come back sometimes."
Astra fell silent.
The violet glow in her left eye dimmed for a moment.
"I'll try," she said softly.
"But the world has already changed, Kai. And we'll change with it."
Deep inside her, Thanatos purred again — low, almost gentle.
He truly liked this limping boy with the sharp mind and loyal heart.
A good first brick… for what they were about to build on the ruins of all Sector 01.