Twilight refused to end.

  The bronze sky lingered in a permanent half-light, neither day nor night, as if the world itself was holding its breath. The smell of fresh blood hung thick in the air—metallic, warm, impossible to ignore. It clung to Michael’s clothes, his skin, his thoughts.

  Somewhere in the distance, familiar voices echoed.

  Broken. Misdirected. Wrong.

  Michael leaned heavily against the rough bark of a tree.

  His right arm was gone.

  Not numb—gone. The absence screamed louder than pain ever could. His thoughts spiraled, fragmented, unable to hold a single coherent thread. Every breath dragged fire through his chest. Every pulse reminded him of what he’d lost.

  He needed to go back to the camp.

  The thought felt distant. Abstract. Like something that belonged to another version of him.

  His body disagreed.

  Michael tried to push himself upright. His legs buckled immediately. He hit the ground hard, breath tearing from his lungs as dirt and blood smeared beneath his cheek.

  {The cauterization is holding, but barely,} Kevin said inside his head, voice tight. {Another fight will tear it open. You’ll bleed out in minutes.}

  Michael stared at the soil beneath him. Dark flecks of his own blood soaked into the dirt, sinking fast under the planet’s crushing gravity.

  “That thing is still out there,” he muttered. “I can hear it.”

  {You can hear copies,} Kevin snapped. {Mimicry. Lures.}

  “I need to kill it,” Michael said. “Before it hunts the others.”

  {No.} Kevin’s response was immediate. Sharp. {Your blood pressure is dropping. Another engagement will result in death.}

  Michael laughed.

  It was dry. Broken. More air than sound.

  “Even if I die,” he said quietly, “at least I won’t be running.”

  {MICHAEL. DO NOT—}

  “Because that damn thing,” Michael interrupted, pushing himself upright again, his eyes narrowing, “is playing with its food.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  Michael stayed standing this time.

  He had had enough.

  {You… are not like him…} Kevin said at last, hesitant. {You don’t have to—}

  “I don’t care who he is,” Michael muttered.

  The implant-heart in his chest pulsed.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Dark-blue Sourceflow surged through his veins like liquid fire.

  Michael raised his remaining hand. Dream Source gathered in his palm—not forming a blade, not a bow, not anything familiar. The energy twisted, coiled, reshaped itself under sheer force of will.

  An arm.

  Dark-blue light solidified, bone and muscle defined by impossible geometry. He pressed it against the bloody stump without hesitation.

  {What are you—NO. Michael, that's not—}

  "Shut up." Michael pressed the solidifying limb against the stump. Pain exploded.

  {Dream Source isn't meant to replace flesh permanently! It's MEMORY made solid—it'll hold for a few hours at most, and when it collapses, the backlash could kill you!}

  "Then I'll make it count."

  fusion was instant.

  Michael pressed the Dream Source arm against the cauterized stump.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

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  Then his nerves ignited.

  Every severed ending tried to reconnect at once—firing signals into tissue that didn't exist, grasping for phantom muscles, phantom bone. The Dream Source responded, forcing itself into the gaps, bending reality just enough to make flesh accept energy as substitute.

  Michael's vision whited out. His jaw clenched so hard he felt teeth crack. Blood filled his mouth.

  He screamed—once, raw and animal—and bit down on the sound until it choked in his throat.

  When the white faded, the arm was there. Solid. Dark-blue light pulsing beneath translucent skin that wasn't quite skin.

  He flexed the fingers. They moved—stiff, delayed, like puppeting someone else's hand. But they moved.

  The arm moved.

  Not perfectly. Not naturally.

  But it obeyed.

  With what remained of his Dream Source, he didn’t form a weapon.

  Instead, the energy stretched.

  Unspooling.

  Dark-blue strands slid from his palm—so thin they were nearly invisible, shimmering only when the light caught them just right.

  Threads.

  Not for slashing.

  For slicing.

  For slipping between feathers. Between joints. Between moments.

  {Michael, stop,} Kevin warned, fear edging his voice. {That level of precision requires focus you do not have. One mistake and the recoil alone—}

  “Then I won’t miss,” Michael said.

  He moved.

  Fast.

  Michael ran through the trees, trailing Dream Source behind him like silk from a spider. He anchored threads between trunks—waist-high here, neck-height there, diagonal cuts designed to sever limbs mid-stride.

  Eight threads. Ten. Twelve.

  Each one stretched taut, nearly invisible, shimmering faintly when bronze light caught them just right.

  He formed a funnel—wide entrance, narrow kill zone. The Hollowjaw would follow his blood. And when it did, the threads would do the rest.

  Blood dripped freely from his shoulder.

  That was the bait.

  The Hollowjaw had followed blood before. It would do so again.

  Michael dragged his feet deliberately at times, letting branches snap. Letting his breathing grow loud. He let the forest hear him.

  "Kevin," Michael whispered, vision swimming, "I'm losing focus. Track the threads I place wrong—if I anchor one off-angle, tell me."

  {You're in no condition to—}

  "Just do it."

  Michael climbed, muscles screaming as gravity dragged at him. He crouched among the branches, chest heaving, vision pulsing at the edges.

  His heart hammered.

  His hands trembled.

  But this wasn’t the time to be afraid.

  From above, he saw it.

  The Hollowjaw Stalker prowled through the clearing below, head low, movements deliberate. One side of its face was burned black, feathers charred and peeling. Nathan's work, Michael realized. The creature had fought him—and fled. But Nathan hadn't finished it.

  Michael will be the one.

  The hollowjaw stalker's claws flexed as it tested the ground, listening.

  Learning.

  It wasn’t charging.

  It was stalking.

  Michael held his breath.

  The creature paused beneath him, hollow jaw opening slightly.

  “Michael…” Emma’s voice whispered from its throat.

  His stomach twisted.

  He dropped.

  He hit the ground running.

  He let it see him.

  The Hollowjaw reacted instantly. A blur of motion. A claw scythed toward his foot—

  Michael twisted.

  Threads snapped taut.

  The Hollowjaw shrieked as its left claw severed mid-swing, black bone crashing into the dirt. Blood sprayed thick and dark, dragged downward by the planet’s crushing gravity.

  The creature staggered back, shrieking—not in panic, but fury.

  Michael didn’t wait.

  He vaulted into the trees again, heart slamming.

  The trap had worked.

  Once.

  The Hollowjaw didn’t chase blindly this time.

  It circled.

  Branches cracked—not where Michael stood, but where he would have gone.

  It was learning.

  Michael shifted positions slowly, carefully, watching the way its head tilted. How it tested the air. How it stopped mimicking voices now.

  It had learned that too.

  A standoff.

  Hunter and prey—both bleeding. Both thinking.

  Then the forest erupted.

  Trees fell like matchsticks as the Hollowjaw rampaged, claws tearing through trunks, forcing Michael to leap from branch to branch as his hiding places vanished.

  {JUMP. NOW.}

  Michael leapt just as the tree beneath him split apart.

  He landed hard, rolling, breath knocked from his lungs.

  Footsteps.

  Too many.

  “Michael!” Sarah’s voice echoed.

  Relief flared—then died.

  Wrong direction.

  Wrong distance.

  The Hollowjaw struck.

  A claw scythed toward him—

  Someone slammed into Michael from the side, yanking him down.

  They hit the ground together.

  "Jason?! What are you—"

  "Saving your dumb ass," Jason panted, hands glowing faintly. "You're not the only one who can fight."

  The Hollowjaw reared—

  BOOM.

  The explosion rocked the clearing as a grenade detonated against the creature’s face. Feathers burned. The stalker shrieked, stumbling back.

  Gunfire erupted. Reinhardt's voice roared orders.

  The survivors burst from the trees—following the sounds of the fight, Michael realized. His screams. The creature's shrieks. They'd tracked the battle.

  The Hollowjaw hesitated.

  Then it turned to flee.

  Michael didn’t let it.

  He hurled his thickest threads, wrapping them around the creature’s legs. The strands bit deep, tightening as the Hollowjaw thrashed, collapsing under its own weight.

  The Dream Source arm flickered violently.

  Michael approached anyway.

  Michael formed a sword—jagged, unstable, barely holding shape. His Dream Source arm flickered, energy bleeding away.

  He stabbed down.

  "For Emma."

  The blade punched through feathers, into flesh. Black blood sprayed.

  He pulled it free. Stabbed again.

  "For Jessica."

  The Hollowjaw twitched, hollow jaw opening soundlessly.

  Again.

  "For Nathan."

  Ribs cracked. The creature's breathing turned wet.

  Again.

  "And for my fucking arm."

  The Dream Source arm shattered mid-strike, dissolving into mist. Michael didn't stop. He used the stump, hammering the dagger down with his real hand until the blade broke, until his knuckles bled, until the creature stopped moving.

  The Hollowjaw stopped moving.

  Michael collapsed beside it.

  One-handed. Empty.

  “It’s over,” he murmured. “It’s finally over.”

  Hands lifted him. Voices blurred.

  Reinhardt stared at him. “What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” Michael said weakly. “But it killed Emma. Jessica. Nathan.”

  Sarah stiffened.

  “Nathan?” she asked quietly.

  Michael’s blood ran cold.

  "Where's Nathan?"

  Reinhardt and Sarah exchanged a look.

  "We don't know," Sarah said quietly. "After you left, something... happened. Screaming. Light. When we went to check—"

  A roar split the air.

  Not human. Not animal. Something caught between.

  Orange light flickered through the trees—fire, Michael realized. The camp was burning.

  Another roar. Closer now.

  Sarah's face went pale. "Michael... what is that?"

  Michael's blood ran cold.

  He already knew.