The scrapyard was silent. Too silent. Lin Da'is lay sprawled on the cracked concrete, trembling, his hands still slick with the black, metallic residue of the Milestars Core. His chest heaved with ragged breaths, each inhale tasting like metal and ozone. Every nerve screamed warnings his mind struggled to comprehend.
He forced himself up, though his legs wobbled as if they belonged to someone else. The Core, now invisible under his skin, pulsed faintly, an erratic heartbeat he could feel only internally. It was alive. Not merely alive—it was watching, aware, adjusting, learning.
And the voice in his mind had not disappeared.
HOST DETECTED. OBSERVATION CONTINUES.
Lin swallowed hard. Observation continues? He was human, and humans shouldn't be objects of study. He should be dead, flattened by the satellite, scorched by heat, vaporized by the strange energy that had flooded the scrapyard. Yet here he was. Yet he lived.
His fingers trembled as he brushed a strand of sweat from his forehead. What am I becoming?
Before he could dwell, a low hum reverberated through the air. Not from any machine. Not from his suit or tools. Something external, alive—or at least something pretending to be alive—vibrated at a frequency that made the metal on his workbench quiver.
Then, the shadows moved.
Not like ordinary shadows cast by streetlights or overhead lamps. These shadows slid, stretching, folding over themselves as if they had weight and will. Lin froze. His heartbeat was erratic, not from fear alone, but because the Core pulsed stronger now, almost synchronizing with the creeping darkness.
"Who's there?" His voice was hoarse, but he forced it to carry over the unnatural hum. Nothing answered. The only sound was the hum itself, and the faint hiss of escaping air through broken piping.
And then it spoke.
Not in words, not in sound, not in any human language.
It was a thought. A command.
Observe.
Lin staggered backward. His entire field of vision seemed wrong. Shapes moved where they shouldn't, bending corners that didn't exist. He blinked, but the shapes didn't vanish. Instead, the scrapyard folded in on itself, like a paper model twisted in invisible hands. Walls stretched. Metal beams melted and reformed in the blink of an eye.
This is… impossible.
A voice—or the idea of a voice—filled his skull.
DO NOT STRUGGLE. IT WILL ONLY MAKE IT WORSE.
Lin gritted his teeth. "I… I'm not… going to—"
A flash of memory, or a projection, struck him. He saw the satellite falling, but not from his perspective. From above. From inside it. The Core in the satellite's center expanded into an infinity of overlapping shapes, wires, and pulses, all converging into a point that was him. His body. His mind. His blood.
The world shivered. And then collapsed, just for a fraction of a second.
Lin stumbled, gripping the edge of the workbench. The air smelled of burnt ozone and something he couldn't name—something alien, ancient, and aware. The Core pulsed stronger, and this time the voice in his head added a new layer.
INITIATING HOST ADAPTATION. SURVIVAL PARAMETERS OVERRIDE.
He didn't understand. He shouldn't understand. But he felt his body responding. Muscles tightened. Reflexes sharpened. Vision sharpened. Even his breathing became mechanically precise, calibrated by a system he could not see. He could hear the metallic heartbeat of the scrapyard itself—every loose panel, every pipe, every drone corpse had a resonance he could detect.
And then, a movement.
At first, it was subtle—a flicker in the corner of his vision. Then, unmistakable. A shape emerged from the shadows. It was humanoid, yes, but wrong. Limbs that bent in impossible angles. Skin that didn't reflect light, but absorbed it. No features. Just… blankness. And it moved like a predator stalking a cornered prey, its speed almost imperceptible, yet he could feel its intent.
Lin's body reacted before he thought. He ducked, and the creature's arm smashed the concrete wall behind him, chipping chunks of it into the air. A vibration traveled through the floor, directly into his feet.
ENGAGE DEFENSE PROTOCOL.
The Core pulsed. Lin felt a rush of energy, not electric, not chemical, not human. Something older. Deeper. His muscles tensed, his nerves fired faster than thought itself.
He struck—not a punch, but a release of force. The air around him shivered. The creature staggered as if hit by invisible weight. It didn't recoil in pain—it couldn't—but its movement faltered.
Lin stumbled backward. His mind screamed. This isn't human. None of this is human.
The Core pulsed again, and a wave of energy shot outward. Not visible, not audible, but felt. The creature was knocked back. Its form fractured, briefly, into multiple copies, like a corrupted hologram.
ACTIVATE SECONDARY SYSTEM.
Lin didn't know he had a secondary system. Or any system. He just reacted. The Core inside him responded, unbidden, and something in his body rewrote itself in real time. His veins glowed faintly, lines like circuitry appearing beneath his skin. His fingers extended slightly, as if reshaped by invisible tools.
The creature lunged again. Lin moved before it even struck. The Core predicted, simulated, executed. His body was no longer just his own—it was the Core's.
The creature's arm collided with empty air. Its body twisted mid-lunge, missing him by centimeters. But this time, it shrieked. Not a scream. A resonance. It sounded like a million metal sheets tearing simultaneously. Lin's teeth ached from the vibrations.
He didn't know how he did it. He only knew he survived.
And then the voice spoke again.
HOST STABILIZED. LEVEL ONE CONTROL ACQUIRED.
Lin sank to his knees, gasping. The scrapyard slowly returned to normal—or what passed for normal. Shadows recoiled. The metallic resonance faded. Dust settled.
But the creature was gone.
For now.
Lin tried to process. Control? Level one? Survival parameters? What does this mean?
He touched his arm. The faint glow under his skin pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. He flexed his fingers. Felt his muscles not just tense, but aware of potential motion, potential attack, potential escape.
He shivered.
"This… this is real," he whispered.
And the Core replied.
YES. REAL. AND ONLY BEGINNING.
Lin's ears picked up a distant sound—the whir of drones, engines, a voice perhaps human, perhaps not. Someone—or something—had noticed.
He couldn't stay here. Not anymore.
He rose slowly, each movement calibrated by the Core. He left the scrapyard through a service corridor, climbing over debris, ducking under collapsed metal scaffolds. Outside, the city had not noticed anything abnormal. Yet the Core vibrated faintly.
DANGER NEARBY. TARGET ACQUIRED.
Lin paused. He scanned the horizon. Nothing moved. No lights flickered. Yet instinct screamed. The Void had begun watching.
And this time, it would not wait.
He adjusted the jacket over his shoulders, feeling it tighten unnaturally. Every thread, every fiber, almost alive. Almost sentient. Almost… aware of what had just happened.
He needed information. Knowledge. Allies. Or at least someone who knew what he had become.
His mind raced, faster than his own perception. The city streets became a blur. Not because of speed, but because time itself seemed wrong around him. Every reflection, every shadow, every signal in his augmented senses screamed—something had followed. Something still followed.
A drone fell from the sky nearby, sparks scattering. Its programming scrambled, frozen. Lin felt it as a pulse in the Core. Someone—or something—had triggered it remotely.
CONFIRM THREAT.
He didn't know if the Core detected it or the Void. He didn't care. He ran.
And in the distance, between twisted shadows and collapsing buildings, he glimpsed the first of what the voice had called the "Observers."
Tall. Featureless. Silent. Waiting. Watching.
Lin's chest tightened. The Core pulsed stronger, faster. Learn. Adapt. Survive.
He whispered to himself, voice trembling, "What… am I supposed to do?"
And the answer came, clear, metallic, infinite:
You are Milestars. And the Void has begun.
---
Lin Da'is ran into the night. He didn't know where. He didn't know why. He didn't know how long he could survive.
But he knew one thing:
The world had changed.
And so had he.