Chapter 52 The Last Thread
The glass shattered.
Air roared out of the pod, a screaming wind that tried to pull me into the black void. I gasped, but there was no air to catch. My lungs burned like I had swallowed hot coals. Outside the broken window, my father floated in the silence of space, his red eyes fixed on mine. He wasn't bothered by the vacuum. He wasn't a man anymore. He was a door.
"Come back to the centre, Eara," his voice echoed directly in my brain. It was cold, devoid of the warmth he once had when he tucked me into my tank. "Stop fighting the dark. The dark is where we began."
I grabbed the edge of my seat, my fingers turning blue as the cold of space bit into my skin. The black hole, the giant shadow of my mother, was pulling everything in. The stars were being stretched like pieces of gum, turning into long, thin lines of light.
"I won't go back," I told myself, even as my vision began to fade. I’ve spent my whole life being moved around like a pawn. If I’m going to die, I’m going to die moving forward.
I reached for the small emergency kit under the seat. My movements were slow and heavy. I pulled out a portable oxygen mask and slammed it onto my face. A hiss of air filled my lungs. I could breathe, but I was still trapped in a metal can that was falling into the mouth of a god.
My father’s hand reached through the broken window. His fingers were long and metallic, clicking against the frame.
"The Master is waiting," he said. "She needs the Weaver to seal the rift. You are the only needle that can sew the universe back together."
"Then let it stay ripped!" I yelled through the mask.
I didn't use a gun. I used the only thing I had left: the silver disc the other Eara had given me before the ship blew up. I hadn't lost it in the chaos. I jammed the disc into the pod’s manual override port.
"What are you doing?" my father’s voice hissed, sounding worried for the first time.
"I'm changing the destination," I said.
I didn't aim for the green planet or the escape route. I aimed the pod’s thrusters directly at my father’s chest.
"Eara, no!"
I hit the ignition.
The pod’s engines roared to life. A blast of blue fire hit my father dead centre. He didn't burn; he shattered. Pieces of his silver suit and black wires flew into the void, swallowed instantly by the black hole. The force of the blast kicked the pod away, sending me spinning into the darkness.
But I wasn't free. The pull of the black hole was too strong. I was a leaf in a hurricane.
I looked out the window. The shadow with my mother’s face opened its mouth wider. I could see things in the dark. I saw cities of glass. I saw millions of people floating in tanks, their minds linked in a giant, golden web. It wasn't just a harvest; it was a hive. They weren't killing people; they were making them part of a single, giant brain.
"One mind," the shadow whispered. The sound made my ears bleed. "One dream. No more war. No more pain. Give us your heart, Eara, and we can finally be one."
"I don't want to be one of you!" I screamed. "I want to be me!"
The pod began to groan. The metal walls were buckling under the pressure. I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my chest. I looked down and saw my skin was starting to turn into that familiar black glass. The "virus" of the weaver was taking over again. My body was reacting to the power of the black hole.
If I become glass again, I can survive the fall, I realized. But I’ll lose Eara forever. I’ll just be a tool for the Hive.
Suddenly, a light cut through the black.
It wasn't a ship. It was a man.
Kael was floating in the dark, but he wasn't alone. He was surrounded by a thousand glowing white birds, the same birds I used to weave in my dreams. They weren't made of code. They were made of the souls he had saved from the station.
"Eara! Take my hand!" Kael’s voice was a bell in the silence.
"Kael? How?"
"The glitch didn't die!" he shouted. "It grew! The souls... they don't want to be part of the hive! They want to be free!"
He flew toward the pod, the white birds forming a shield around him against the pull of the black hole. He reached through the broken window, his hand warm and solid.
I reached for him. Our fingers touched.
For a second, the universe stood still. The black hole stopped pulling. The shadow of my mother screamed in frustration. I felt a surge of pure, white energy flow from Kael into my body. The black glass on my skin began to melt away, replaced by real, soft flesh.
"We have to go," Kael said, his face glowing with a light that hurt to look at. "The Master is coming through the rift. If she gets out, the harvest begins for every world in the sky."
"How do we stop her?" I asked.
Kael looked at the black hole. Then he looked at me. There was a look in his eyes that I had seen before. It was the look of someone saying goodbye.
"We don't stop her from the outside," Kael said. "We go in. We break the heart of the hive from the centre."
"We'll never come back," I whispered.
"I know," he said. "But we'll be together."
I gripped his hand tighter. I didn't care about the green planet anymore. I didn't care about the throne. I only cared about the person holding my hand.
"Then let's finish it," I said.
We dived. Not away from the black hole, but straight into the centre of the shadow's eye.
The world turned into a tunnel of screaming light. I felt my soul being stretched. I saw the beginning of time and the end of it. And then, we hit the bottom.
I opened my eyes.
I wasn't in space. I was standing in a small, white room. There were no windows and no doors. In the middle of the room sat a woman at a desk. She was typing on an old, clicking machine.
She stopped and looked up. She had my face, but she was wearing a modern suit and glasses.
"Oh, good," the woman said, checking her watch. "You're just in time for the rewrite. I was starting to hate this ending."
She stood up and pulled a gun from her drawer.
"Now," she said, pointing the gun at Kael. "Who should I kill first to make the readers cry?"