Within the Organism Above

Kael’s first breath inside the organism felt like inhaling molten honey.The air was dense, vibrating, almost alive. Each molecule seemed to carry a taste of memory — dust storms from long-dead deserts, the metallic tang of space, and a sweetness that made his teeth ache.
The walls pulsed with translucent flesh threaded by veins of black luminescence. Every beat of that light was in time with his own pulse.

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The Living Core
He wasn’t alone.Shapes moved in the walls — humanoid silhouettes half-formed in muscle and membrane. Their faces were blurred, but their eyes burned with a dim copper glow. They weren’t prisoners. They were echoes — fragments of minds the organism had absorbed over centuries.
A voice rose from all directions, deep and resonant:
> You are within the Wombship. You carry the incomplete seed.


The mark on Kael’s wrist seared. The walls contracted around him like a heartbeat.

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A Seed of the Void Nest
Images erupted in his head — vast shapes drifting through interstellar dark, woven from dark matter filaments, consuming planets not for resources but for patterns.
The Wombship was one of them, a living probe sent by the Void Nest to seed worlds with hybrid organisms. It had birthed both the Overspore and the first Myrminian queens, each a piece of the larger plan.
Kael’s presence was no accident. He had been engineered to complete what earlier seeds had failed to finish.
> We made you from two dying species, the voice said. We will make more.



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The Copper Engine
In the center of the chamber, a spire of crystallized chitin rose from a pool of viscous fluid. The pool swirled with stars — not reflections, but real miniature constellations suspended in the liquid.
“That’s…” Kael whispered. “A star map.”
> Not a map. A schedule.


The stars shifted, showing dozens of worlds marked for seeding. Earth was one of them — crossed out.
Another mark pulsed faintly: a planet Kael didn’t recognize, bathed in green light.

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A Familiar Voice
Through the organism’s hum, a faint thought brushed against Kael’s mind.Kael…
Lume’s voice.It was coming from deeper inside, faint but urgent. She was here.
Kael stepped toward the spiral opening that led deeper into the Wombship.The organism’s voice grew sharper, more commanding:
> Do not go to her. She has chosen integration.


Kael didn’t stop.If she was still speaking, she hadn’t chosen anything .