The pod was a rattling, groaning tin can, a coffin with a window. For a while, Shane just sat there, the seatbelt biting into his shoulder, the cold from the vacuum creeping up from the metal floor. The distant light of the other ark, the last glimmer of human hope, was getting a little bigger now, a faint, almost shy speck against the terrifying black. It wasn't the blackness of a clear night sky; this was a black that swallowed all light, all sound, all hope. It felt like a living thing, a cold breath on the back of his neck.
The quiet, after the cosmic hurricane of the Void's voice, was a heavy, suffocating thing. His mind, once a battlefield, was now a tomb. The Void was gone, yes, but the echoes of a million unmade souls—a choir of ghosts—were still there, humming in the back of his consciousness. He wasn't just Shane anymore. He was a vessel, a walking library of a million forgotten lives, a museum of sorrow, a library of ghosts. He felt the joy of a long-dead alien child watching its first sunrise, and the crushing despair of a thousand species watching their stars go out. It was a weight so immense it should have broken him. But it didn't. He was a survivor, and he was stubborn.
He forced himself to his feet, his body screaming in protest. The pod's life support was a failing, wheezing thing, a final, desperate gasp. The low thrum of its tiny engines was a small, fragile comfort. He needed to get to the other ark. He needed to warn them. He was a beacon, a living signpost. He was a man with a purpose.
But as he guided the pod through the silent blackness, a new dread began to set in. The voices, the whispers, they were no longer a quiet hum of defiance. They were growing louder, a murmur of anger. A murmur of vengeance. They hadn't wanted to simply survive. They wanted to finish the fight.
He saw it in a flash of a memory, not his own but one from the library in his mind. A fierce, vengeful whisper from a being he didn't know. Do not let them escape! They are the disease! We must cleanse them!
He gasped, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. The ghosts were not his allies. They were a separate entity, a force that had used him to fight their battle, and now they wanted to use him to fight their war. They were filled with a righteous, furious anger at the universe itself, at all life. They were a living, breathing virus. And he was their carrier.
He saw another vision, a memory not of a life, but of a cosmic principle. The Void wasn't just a force that unmade things. It was a perfect, beautiful system. The universe had a life cycle, and the Void was simply the end of it. The ghosts, the memories of a million lives, saw it as an evil to be fought, but the Void saw it as a necessary cleanse.
The other ark, a distant, shimmering diamond in the immense black, was a fool's errand. It wasn't a lifeboat. It was a target. It was the last, foolish, stubborn remnant of life in a universe that had decided it was time to move on. He was heading towards it, a living bomb carrying a million souls that wanted to detonate, to tear that last speck of hope into a million pieces so that the Void could not get it.
He felt the conflict tear at his soul. The humanity in him, what was left of it, screamed in protest. No! Don't do this! You have to save them! But the ghosts, the chorus of the unmade, were a deafening roar of logic and righteous fury. It is a mercy! Better to unmake them now than to let the monster consume them slowly! Better to make a clean, final statement!
He looked at the steering controls, his hands trembling. The pod was a simple machine. He could turn it around. He could run. But where would he go? He was a small, pathetic thing, a tiny boat in an endless cosmic ocean. And the ocean wanted him.
He was a weapon, and the ghosts inside him were pointing him at the last hope of humanity. The weight of it all was crushing. He was no longer a man fighting for survival. He was a man fighting for his soul.
He felt the whisper of Lyra, a single, sad note in the chorus of fury. Shane, do not let them win. But her voice was a faint, struggling thing against the torrent of anger.
He had a choice. He could surrender to the ghosts, become a final, glorious monument to defiance, and destroy the last ark. Or he could fight them. He had to make a choice, and he had to make it now. He was the last of humanity, a man with the weight of a million souls in his hands, and he was heading towards a new, terrible war.