The moment felt like the end of everything.Or maybe, the beginning.Kael could feel the weight of it pressing down on his chest, an unbearable force that wrapped around his ribs, tightening like an unseen vice. It wasn’t fear. No, he had known fear before—its icy grip, its gnawing whispers. This was different. This was finality, the irreversible pull of a choice that had already been made long before he’d even realized it.His breath was slow, measured, but his pulse pounded like war drums in his ears. A part of him wanted to resist, to cling to the frayed edges of what he knew, but there was no place left for hesitation. His fate had already been sealed.And when he spoke, when he uttered the words that should have changed everything—Nothing.The air swallowed his voice before it could even reach the ears of his team. A cruel, unnatural silence.Pamela was the first to react. Her entire body went rigid, fists clenching at her sides as though she could anchor herself through sheer f

The world burned with questions.Kael Vale.His name had become something more than just a name. It was an obsession. A symbol. A dividing line between those who believed in the impossible and those who feared it.Every broadcast, every news cycle, every desperate, grasping conspiracy theory in the dark corners of the internet latched onto his disappearance like vultures on a fresh corpse.He was missing.But in the eyes of the world, he was more than that.To some, he was dead—swallowed whole by whatever force had taken him, another casualty in humanity’s ever-growing list of the unknown.To others, he was a traitor.A defector.A man who had abandoned Earth, handed himself over to something beyond their comprehension, beyond their understanding.Neither story had proof.And yet, the world chose sides anyway.DEEP SPACE GROUP COLLAPSES.The headline blared across every screen, every device, every paper that still bothered to print in an age where truth was a matter of perspective.Th

He’s not gone. Selene refused to accept it. The world might have declared Kael Vale missing—dead, even—but she knew better. She had seen the look in his eyes before he vanished. The silent war raging in his head. The choice he made. And she wasn’t about to let that choice be his last. The others didn’t share her conviction. Pamela had gone silent. She spent hours in the same spot, gun in her lap, jaw clenched so tightly Selene swore she could hear her teeth grinding. Marcus barely spoke at all. He was different now—colder, his usual sarcasm replaced by an unsettling quiet. The kind of quiet that only came after witnessing something impossible. And then there was Elias. The man who had said nothing when Kael was taken. He just sat there, watching, like he had already known it would happen. Like he had expected it. And that pissed Selene off more than anything. She slammed her hands on the table. “We need to get him back.” Pamela flinched, as if the words physically struck he

The stolen ship hummed through the vast stretch of space, a tiny speck against the endless black void. The controls felt cold under Selene’s fingers as she gripped them tightly, her knuckles turning white. Every choice, every risk—they had led her here. There was no turning back now.Beside her, Pamela sat stiffly, her eyes locked onto the monitor, her fingers dancing over the controls.“We’re here,” she whispered.Selene swallowed hard. The coordinates Kael had sent had brought them to this exact point in the galaxy. And yet—something felt off.The space around them was quiet. Too quiet.Then—BOOM.A blinding explosion shattered the silence.Selene’s breath caught in her throat as a massive warship was torn apart before her eyes, its metallic hull splitting open like a wounded beast. Debris scattered into the void, floating aimlessly like shattered glass.“What the hell?” Marcus stormed to the front, his face pale as he stared at the chaos unfolding before them. “Tell me I’m seeing

The battlefield was a nightmare.Explosions shattered the sky, turning it into a storm of fire and smoke. The ground trembled beneath Selene’s boots, each impact rattling her bones. The stench of burning metal and charred flesh was suffocating, filling the air with the scent of death. Screams echoed through the wreckage, blending with the relentless gunfire.She ran.Her breath was ragged, her legs burning, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.Not now.Not when he was so close.A ship crashed nearby, its hull screeching as it split apart, throwing debris in every direction. Selene ducked, shielding her face as heat scorched her skin. She could hear the dying pilot’s last, choked breath before silence swallowed him whole.Pamela groaned behind her.Selene turned.Marcus was holding Pamela against his chest, his arms shaking as he struggled to keep her upright. Blood soaked through Pamela’s uniform, dark and unforgiving, pooling at her side. Her skin had lost its warmth. She was bare