Night in Sector 01 was never truly dark. It was gray, polluted, stitched with dull neon and flickering emergency lights.
But for Astra, this night felt endless.
She did not sleep.
She could not sleep.
Every sound within a kilometer echoed inside her mind with terrifying clarity: the scrape of mutant rats along pipes, a distant cough of someone dying in a neighboring block, the hum of a patrol drone high above, the faint hiss of Kai's prosthetic as he turned in his sleep in the corner of their temporary shelter — an abandoned maintenance recess beneath Level 39.
Astra sat pressed against the cold metal wall, arms wrapped around her knees.
Her body no longer needed rest… but her mind desperately searched for it.
And then Thanatos spoke.
The voice did not come from outside.
It was born within her — soft as silk, sharp as a blade sliding across skin.
"Are you afraid of me, Astra?"
The question was almost tender. Almost caring.
Astra clenched her teeth. Her left eye flickered with a faint violet glow in the darkness.
"You're a monster," she whispered, careful not to wake Kai. "You turned me into a killer. I can taste their blood and oil on my tongue. I see their bodies breaking apart… and part of me wants it again."
"I turned you into truth," Thanatos replied, a faint amusement in its tone.
"This world is a cheap illusion. A code written by cowards who fear true emptiness. They built their towers, their protocols, their 'Sky' and 'Dead Moon' to hide from what I am. I am the only real thing here. I am the end of all their beautiful lies."
Astra closed her eyes — but the darkness inside was worse.
Behind her eyelids, a massive violet eye slowly turned, watching her.
"Shut up…"
"You think Kai is your friend?" the voice softened, becoming intimate, as if it leaned into her ear.
"He studies you. Every glance, every movement. His mechanical eye scans you even now while he sleeps. He fears you as much as he cares for you. And that fear… is sweet. It makes him useful. But if you become too dangerous, he will betray you. Humans always betray gods when they stop being convenient."
"Shut up!" Astra clutched her head, fingers digging into her hair. Her nails left red marks on her skin.
Thanatos laughed quietly.
The sound rippled through her spine like ice.
"We are bound, little spark. Forever. I am your reflection in the abyssal mirror. The more you deny me, the louder I become inside you. The more you fear me, the deeper I root myself into you. Accept it. Accept the taste of steel and blood. Accept the hunger. There is much work ahead. This world is cracking… and we are the fracture that will finally tear it apart."
Astra breathed heavily, though she barely needed air anymore.
She felt the threads beneath her skin again — violet, alive, hungry. They coiled around her ribs, her heart, her spine… becoming part of her.
At some point, she stopped resisting.
And when she did, the world inside her changed.
Her eyes in the dark flared open — steady, cold violet light, unblinking. Her pupils narrowed into vertical slits, like a predator from another world.
That night, she did not dream.
Instead, her inner vision filled with endless streams of data — чужие, древние, not belonging to the System. Columns of numbers, fragments of dead code, echoes of dying galaxies.
They condensed into a single, absolute command pulsing through every cell of her body:
SURVIVE.
DESTROY.
ASCEND.
Astra slowly lowered her hands.
Her expression froze — a mixture of fear and strange, dark relief.
She looked at Kai.
He slept peacefully, though even in sleep his face tightened slightly from the pain of broken ribs.
He will not betray me, she thought… but she was no longer sure whether it was her thought or Thanatos'.
Thanatos purred softly inside her.
"Good girl. We are beginning to understand each other."
Astra stood and walked to the edge of the maintenance recess, staring down into the bottomless shaft of Sector 01.
Her violet eyes reflected off the metal surfaces.
Somewhere far above, the real forces were already gathering.
But now…
She was ready.
The symbiosis of fear was complete.
And fear no longer belonged to her alone.