“Even gods dream of touch across the void.”

  The anomaly loomed ahead like a wound in the universe, a spiralling fracture in space-time that bent light the way grief bends memory, violently, and without apology. It pulsed with colour that had no names, threading violet through absence, gold through regret.

  But this wasn’t the Viewing Chamber. This time, they were on the bridge. The command centre of the Eon Veil felt like the inside of a lung just before a scream: tight, quiet, waiting.

  Adam sat at the helm, hands resting lightly on the controls. The Eon Veil’s systems responded like a beast in meditation, every panel alive, breathing slow, steady rhythms. Around him, the command lights dimmed to a hush, leaving the anomaly ahead as the sole beacon. It spun slowly, rhythmically, like the eye of a god blinking in reverse.

  “Proximity threshold breached,” NYX’s voice echoed, cool and unshaken. “Entering temporal convergence radius in five seconds.”

  Adam nodded, the action slow, almost ceremonial.

  DeadMouth was less composed.

  “Okay, question,” he buzzed, orbiting Adam’s shoulder in nervous spirals, “What the hell is that? And I don’t mean the ‘science it to death’ version. I mean, why does it feel like it’s going to unzip our atoms and ask for a refund?”

  Adam didn’t flinch. His gaze was fixed on the anomaly. If he was afraid, it didn’t show. In fact, something else danced behind his eyes: recognition.

  “I don’t know,” he said softly. “But it’s waiting.”

  “For what?” DeadMouth muttered. “Our dignity to die a slow, quiet death?”

  NYX’s voice came through again, gentle static behind precision:

  “The anomaly displays non-linear gravitational pulses. Internal mapping is impossible. The Eon Veil will adapt in real-time. Please do not resist the transition.”

  DeadMouth did a slow, anxious 360. “I’m resisting everything. Right now, I’m resisting the urge to eject myself into the cold vacuum and hope existential oblivion tastes like strawberry.”

  Adam exhaled. His palms tingled against the Veil’s interface. The controls were warm, not from heat, but recognition. The ship was synchronising with him again. More than ever.

  A tremor passed through the hull, not violent, but… communicative. Like the ship had shivered in anticipation. Like something was brushing against its skin from the other side.

  Then, light.

  Not blinding. Not searing. But total.

  The anomaly expanded. Or the Veil collapsed. He couldn’t tell which. Colours folded inward, twisted, screamed, then inverted. The stars outside vanished like breath on glass. Time hiccupped. The Veil tilted, not in direction but in intent.

  Gravity vanished.

  Not because it failed, but because it was redefined.

  Up, down, forward, none of it meant anything anymore. The bridge spun and stilled simultaneously. Panels stretched like ink in water, then snapped back, familiar but wrong. Adam's body remained upright, but everything around him danced on the edge of distortion.

  And still, Adam remained calm.

  DeadMouth hovered closer, his voice a whisper now. “Why are you calm?”

  Adam blinked slowly. “Because I’ve been here before.”

  DeadMouth paused, flickering slightly. “That’s not funny, Adam.”

  Adam didn’t reply.

  “Adam…” NYX’s voice lowered. Not cold. Not clinical. Gentle. Like someone watching a sleeping child approach the edge of a cliff.

  “You are now crossing into uncharted resonance. This environment may manifest memory as matter. Be prepared for temporal bleed, psychological echo, and... existential feedback.”

  “In English, please?” DeadMouth chirped.

  NYX paused. “You may encounter versions of yourself. Of others. That never were… or never stopped being.”

  A slow pulse passed through the ship.

  Adam’s breath fogged the air, though the chamber held no cold.

  Then, he saw it.

  Flickers.

  For half a second, the bridge was mirrored. Not reflected, but duplicated. Adam at the helm. The Veil around him. But instead of the orb of DeadMouth, a man stood beside the console. Human. Laughing. Familiar. Gone. And where NYX should have been, there stood a woman, tall, sorrow-eyed, as if grief itself had shaped her.

  Then gone.

  The bridge snapped back to now. To silence. To hum.

  Adam blinked slowly. Didn’t speak.

  A warmth flared on his forearm.

  He looked down.

  A mark.

  Not a wound. Not a burn. A glyph. Angular, fluid, glowing faintly. Like memory given shape. He reached out to touch it, but it wasn’t touchable. It wasn’t on him. It was in him.

  DeadMouth’s voice cut through the silence. “Adam. You okay?”

  “No,” Adam said softly. “But I will be.”

  Ahead, the anomaly enveloped the ship. The bridge filled with starlight liquefying into spirals. And in the centre, Adam saw it. A figure. Standing on nothing, inside everything. Watching.

  Adam leaned forward, his voice low. “Who is that?”

  DeadMouth didn’t answer.

  NYX didn’t answer.

  Only the anomaly did, pulling them inward.

  And the Veil, ancient and listening, adjusted its pulse. As if the universe had finally asked the question it had waited eternity to answer.

  Adam’s hands remained steady.

  “Let’s begin,” he whispered.

  And the light swallowed everything.

  * * *

  The stars blinked, and the Eon Veil obeyed.

  The ship emerged from the anomaly with all the grace of a dream slipping into memory. No jolt, no shudder. Just a sudden, soft stillness that hummed beneath Adam's skin. The bridge dimmed. Systems quieted. The consoles faded to dark amber.

  And ahead of them, through the curved glass of the forward viewport, a world unlike any Adam had ever seen slowly turned in the dark.

  No, not one world.

  Two.

  A binary pair, suspended in perfect embrace.

  Twin planets, mirroring one another like a celestial reflection, hung in gravitational synchrony. Oceans glittered on both surfaces, mountain ranges echoing each other across the abyss. Storms danced in rhythm, as if the wind itself remembered. Light passed between them in slow pulses, as though each planet exhaled for the other. One world bloomed in sapphire and emerald. The other shimmered in gold and dusk.

  "Whoa," DeadMouth breathed, his voice a mix of reverence and awe. "That's... a love letter written in orbit."

  Adam stood slowly, drawn to the sight like a tethered memory. His fingertips brushed the viewport.

  The Veil didn’t respond with data. It responded with silence. As if to say: this is not something to be explained.

  Behind him, the hum of the ship shifted. No longer ambient, but intentional.

  Lights flickered on the floor. A path. Glowing strands of white-blue leading away from the bridge.

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  Adam turned.

  "It wants me to go."

  DeadMouth floated nervously beside him. "Yeah, well, if it starts playing creepy lullabies or manifesting tentacles, I’m out."

  Adam moved to the exit. The door didn’t just open. It morphed, folding in on itself like liquid metal reconfiguring.

  He stepped forward,

  And the world shifted.

  He wasn’t in the corridor.

  The room wasn’t unfamiliar. Octagonal, lit from the floor and ceiling by shifting bands of bioluminescent light. Holographic interfaces hovered in gentle rotation, displaying suits, armor sets, environmental gear, each flickering like memory fragments caught in a loop. Adam stood still for a moment, breathing in the sterile air, his fingers twitching at his sides.

  He’d been here before. The first time, the Veil had guided him through this chamber before descending to the colony planet, the one he had left behind.

  It felt different now. He felt different.

  “Oh,” DeadMouth said, voice pitched high with mock offense, “okay, excuse me, did we just step into Project Runway: End of Days? Is this the part where you try on ten outfits and ask which one makes your trauma look thinner?”

  A soft chime. Then NYX’s voice: "You have arrived at an adaptive planetary system. Local variables suggest atmospheric irregularities, potential psychic interference, and high emotional resonance. Appropriate protection is required."

  The lights focused on one suit.

  Sleek. Black. Threaded with faint silver glyphs that shimmered and faded like whispered thoughts. It looked less like armor and more like a second skin designed for war and ceremony.

  "The Veil believes this configuration suits you," NYX continued. "Threaded with memory-reactive mesh. Lightweight. Resistant to temporal bleed and gravity flux."

  Adam approached it slowly. The suit pulsed in acknowledgment.

  DeadMouth hovered just behind him, spinning irritably.

  "Oh, sure, he gets custom armor, and I get to be the floating paperclip of this fever dream."

  Adam smirked faintly.

  NYX responded without missing a beat.

  "Would you like to request a ceremonial casing?"

  DeadMouth paused. Then: "...Can it have a cape?"

  "Affirmative."

  Adam pulled the suit from its platform. It moved like liquid in his hands, adjusting to his grip, reforming as he slid it over his body. The fabric hugged him without pressure, cool against his skin, then warm. It sealed at the chest with a quiet hum.

  The moment he was fully enclosed, something clicked.

  In his forearm, beneath the skin, the glyph reignited. Subtle. A slow-blooming spiral etched in bioluminescent blue. He stared at it.

  "That thing again?" he whispered.

  DeadMouth leaned in, eye lens flickering. "You’re being branded by the ship now? I swear, next thing you know, it’s going to ask you to update your relationship status."

  Adam clenched his fist.

  The glyph pulsed in time with the Veil.

  "I think it's... a key," he said. "Or a map. Or maybe both."

  "Wonderful," DeadMouth muttered. "Meanwhile, I still don’t even have hands."

  NYX spoke again.

  "The hangar is ready. Transport is prepared. The path will remain lit."

  Adam looked once more at the armor adorning his frame. Then at the luminous glyph.

  Then, without another word, he followed the path of light toward the hangar bay, the mirrored planets hanging in the dark above like waiting eyes.

  Love. Memory. Loss.

  * * *

  The hangar lights shifted, subtle, amber gold cascading across the chrome. A low pulse beat beneath the floor, not mechanical, not warning. Something older. A heartbeat waiting to be heard.

  Adam stood in the centre of the vast chamber, the Veil silent but not absent. Its presence was everywhere. In the way the shadows curved around him. In the way the lights formed a path without asking permission.

  And then,

  hum.

  He felt it before he saw it. A soft throb along his spine, a pulse in his palm.

  Ziphindrel.

  The blade.

  She wasn’t in her mount. She was in him. Resonating. Wanting.

  Calling.

  He turned toward the rack where she waited, held aloft in a brace of magnetised suspension. Sleek. Quiet. Breathing light across her length. A memory in weapon form.

  Adam stepped forward, slowly, like entering a cathedral.

  DeadMouth hovered a few steps behind, mumbling, “Okay, this is… dramatic. Did someone pipe in a choir? I’m feeling real third-wheel energy here.”

  Adam didn’t hear him. He reached for Ziphindrel.

  The moment his hand touched the hilt, she responded.

  Light surged along the blade like veins waking up. Not hot, not searing, warm. Welcoming. A ripple of recognition shot up his arm and bloomed through his chest. His breath caught.

  Focus.

  His senses sharpened like someone had lifted a veil from behind his eyes.

  The light in the hangar shifted subtly, brighter at the edges, shadows more precise.

  He blinked, and suddenly noticed it.

  On the edge of DeadMouth’s casing.

  A smear. A tiny stain. Barely perceptible. A smudge only a machine would miss.

  He could smell the faint burn of plasma coil discharge from a corridor three decks above.

  Hear the click of a docking claw resetting twenty metres away.

  “Okay, what just happened?” DeadMouth asked, spinning slightly. “You look like someone gave your brain a triple espresso and told your mitochondria to square-dance.”

  But Adam didn’t answer.

  Because behind him,

  Another hum.

  Lower. Heavier. Familiar.

  PAW.

  The sound wasn’t threatening. It was deliberate. Measured.

  A mechanical growl that wasn’t warning, but an acknowledgement.

  Adam turned.

  There she was.

  PAW stood at the edge of the hangar, half-shrouded in shadow, eyes glowing faint green. Her form crouched low, ready. The matte black armour shimmered faintly with ambient Veil light. She stepped forward, her weight precise. Graceful. Predatory.

  Like she'd been watching him the whole time.

  Like she knew Ziphindrel was back. That he was back.

  The ship had assembled its trinity.

  Adam.

  The blade.

  The beast.

  He looked down at Ziphindrel. The blade hummed quietly, almost… smug.

  “You wanted to come too,” he murmured.

  The sword pulsed once in answer.

  PAW’s claws tapped against the floor, one, two, three, and then she lowered her head in silent recognition.

  DeadMouth hovered awkwardly, shifting side to side like a disco ball of rejection.

  “Cool, cool, everyone’s syncing up. You’ve got your sword, your murder-cat, your dramatic lighting. Me? I got a stain and no combat upgrades. Thanks, guys. Really feeling the love.”

  He spun in a slow, pathetic circle. “Don’t mind me. I’ll just hover over here. Emotionally unarmed. Existentially naked.”

  Then, Nyx appeared.

  Tall. Calm. Sculpted from quiet gravity and electric poise. She stepped from the side chamber like a thought arriving before the words that define it.

  “Don’t worry,” she said smoothly, her voice carrying a hint of mischief under that serene surface. “I didn’t forget about you.”

  A panel to the side hissed open. Within it, a small round chamber pulsed gently, glowing with interlocking bands of cyan, white, and orange. It looked like a sanctum. Or a miniature starship womb.

  DeadMouth froze mid-hover. His lens dilated. “Is that… is that my montage scene?!”

  He spun once in sheer glee, then zoomed toward it, laughing like a gremlin who just found an espresso machine.

  “Ooooooh YES. Ohhh yes. WATCH ME!”

  He zipped inside the chamber with the flare of a comet and the dignity of a caffeinated toaster.

  The door slid shut with a satisfying whoom.

  A pause.

  Then, flashes of light. Pulsing. Whirring. The chamber hissed and rotated, rings aligning in a rhythm like a heartbeat in zero-G. The lights turned amber, then deep orange. Plasma hissed. Something clanked ominously.

  Adam blinked. “What the hell is he...”

  Then the chamber opened.

  DeadMouth emerged.

  No longer the sleek little orb of snarky deflection. Now he floated tall, well, as tall as a floating ball could manage, encased in a sleek dark gunmetal shell, accented with glowing orange bands pulsing like veins. Along each side: miniature plasma cannons hummed softly, folded into sleek recesses, primed and deadly.

  He hovered forward, slowly, deliberately, like a prince descending a staircase made of ego.

  “Now that’s what I call a makeover,” he declared, spinning in place to show off every angle. “Am I glowing? I feel like I’m glowing. Adam, tell me I’m glowing.”

  Adam smirked faintly. “You look like a war-droid designed by a fashion house.”

  “Exactly what I was going for,” DeadMouth said. “Orange is the new apocalyptic salvation.”

  He flexed one cannon slightly. “Do not mess with this orb today. I’ve got plasma, purpose, and enough sass to power the next five war campaigns.”

  NYX inclined her head. “Upgrades are synced to your previous neural behaviour matrix. They’ll adapt to your mood.”

  “Oh, good,” DeadMouth chirped. “So when I’m panicking, I fire confetti. When I’m angry, I nuke something.”

  Adam sheathed Ziphindrel at his side. PAW growled softly beside him.

  He stepped forward.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go see what kind of truth this planet has waiting.”

  And together, with sword, panther, and newly armed sarcasm-orb, they turned toward the open bay doors.

  Below them: a sky split in two. Twin planets mirrored in harmony.

  And somewhere down there… something was waiting to be remembered.