The wake didn't fade.
Riven watched it from the forward viewport as the ship continued on its course, the dark distortion lingering behind them like a scar that refused to close. It wasn't turbulence. It wasn't exhaust. It wasn't anything he could label without lying to himself.
It followed.
"Distance check," he said.
"Constant," Mara replied from navigation. "It's not gaining. It's not falling behind either."
That should have been reassuring.
It wasn't.
Riven leaned back into the command chair, fingers resting against the cold metal armrest. The bridge lights were dimmed to minimum operational levels, casting the crew in silhouettes and soft instrument glow. No one spoke unless spoken to. Not because he demanded silence, but because instinct told them that noise wouldn't help.
"Signals?" he asked.
Kade shook his head from the comms station. "Nothing outbound. Nothing inbound. Same as before."
"Try again."
"I've been trying."
Riven didn't respond. He didn't need to. The repetition wasn't about hope—it was about refusing to let silence become normal.
Behind them, the wake pulsed once. Subtle. Almost polite.
Mara noticed it too. Her jaw tightened. "That wasn't propulsion-related."
"No," Riven said. "It wasn't."
They let the moment pass without commentary. Panic required language. Observation did not.
The ship creaked softly as it adjusted to microcurrents in the route—if it could even be called a route anymore. Charts insisted this passage had once been stable. Used. Maintained.
That knowledge was becoming less useful by the minute.
"Engineering," Riven said. "Status."
Lennox's voice came back rough and delayed. "We're holding. Barely. Power fluctuations across the aft grid. Not enough to shut us down, but enough to feel… wrong."
"Wrong how?"
A pause. Tools clinked faintly in the background. "Like the ship's being nudged. Not pushed. Nudged. Repeatedly."
Riven exhaled through his nose. "Can you compensate?"
"I can guess."
"Do it."
"Copy."
The channel closed. Riven stared at the wake again.
He had crossed dangerous passages before. Everyone on this ship had. Storm routes. Dead zones. Regions where sensors lied and engines complained. Those threats were familiar because they followed rules—even when those rules were hostile.
This didn't feel hostile.
It felt curious.
"Captain," Mara said quietly. "If this is… attached to our movement, slowing down might—"
"No," Riven said.
She stopped mid-sentence, then nodded once. "Understood."
They couldn't stop. That much was already clear. Whatever trailed them wasn't reacting to speed or direction. It was reacting to presence.
To existence.
The ship's internal sensors chimed—a low alert tone. Not an alarm. Something between notification and concern.
Kade frowned. "Internal mapping discrepancy."
Riven turned. "Explain."
"I'm getting variance readings between decks three and four. Spatial alignment mismatch."
"That's not possible," Mara said. "Those decks are fixed."
"They were," Kade replied.
Riven stood. Slowly. He walked to the center console and pulled the data feed up himself. Numbers scrolled past—coordinates, reference points, relative distances.
They didn't agree with each other.
"How bad?" he asked.
Kade hesitated. "Not bad enough to be obvious. Bad enough that if we ignore it, we won't notice when it becomes fatal."
Riven studied the readout. "Seal nonessential access between those decks."
"That'll disrupt—"
"Do it."
Kade complied.
The ship groaned again, deeper this time, as if protesting the decision.
Below the bridge, crew members felt it too. A vibration through the floor, subtle but wrong, like standing on ground that remembered being liquid.
Riven keyed the internal channel. "All hands. We're experiencing spatial inconsistencies inside the hull. Nothing immediate. Stay in assigned sectors. Report anything that doesn't match your memory of the ship."
Static crackled, then acknowledgments rolled in. Short. Controlled. No questions.
Good.
The wake pulsed again.
This time, it lingered longer.
Mara swallowed. "It's closer."
Riven checked the distance himself. She was right. Not by much. Enough to matter.
"Adjust course by two degrees starboard," he said.
The ship complied. The wake followed.
No lag.
No correction.
Just… alignment.
"Captain," Kade said. "That confirms it."
"Yes," Riven said. "It does."
He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to. The confirmation wasn't technical—it was existential.
They weren't being chased.
They were being accompanied.
Minutes stretched. Then hours. The ship moved. The wake remained. Internal discrepancies stabilized—not fixed, but no longer worsening.
Until something else broke.
"Riven," Lennox said over the channel. "You need to come down here."
"I'm listening."
"No. You need to see it."
Riven hesitated only a second. "Mara, you have the bridge."
"Always."
He left without ceremony, moving through corridors that felt the same and not the same at once. Walls where he expected them. Corners where they belonged. And yet…
Distances felt inconsistent. A ten-step corridor took eleven. Then nine. His body noticed before his mind did.
Engineering was dim and crowded with open panels and exposed conduits. Lennox stood near the aft bulkhead, face pale, eyes fixed on something Riven couldn't see yet.
"What is it?" Riven asked.
Lennox stepped aside.
The wall was… deeper.
Not broken. Not open. Deeper.
Riven stared. "That's not possible."
"I know," Lennox said. "That bulkhead hasn't moved. But the scan shows additional internal volume behind it. No materials displaced. No structural failure."
Riven reached out, stopping just short of touching the surface. "Does it lead anywhere?"
"Nowhere we can measure."
Silence settled between them.
Riven straightened. "Is it growing?"
Lennox didn't answer immediately. "Slowly."
Riven nodded once. "Keep monitoring. Don't attempt entry."
"You think it wants us to?"
"I don't know," Riven said. "That's why we won't."
As he turned to leave, the ship shuddered sharply—hard enough to knock tools from their magnetic locks. Alarms flared briefly, then died.
Over comms, Mara's voice cut through. "Captain, the wake just reacted."
Riven broke into a run.
By the time he reached the bridge, the wake was no longer subtle. It twisted and coiled behind them, dark currents folding into each other, as if the space itself was being pulled inward.
"Distance?" he demanded.
"Minimal," Mara said. "If it gets any closer—"
"We don't know what happens," Kade finished.
Riven gripped the rail. "Increase output. Not speed—output."
Lennox's voice crackled in. "That'll tear something loose!"
"Then fix it while it's tearing," Riven said. "We do not stop."
The engines roared, pushing beyond safe margins. The ship screamed in protest.
For a moment—just a moment—the wake resisted.
Then it adjusted.
It compressed.
It learned.
Riven felt it then. Not fear. Not panic.
Recognition.
"This isn't a route," he said quietly.
Mara looked at him. "Captain?"
"It's a filter."
The wake surged, closer than ever.
And somewhere inside the ship, something expanded to make room.
They kept moving.
Because stopping was no longer an option.
And because whatever followed them clearly preferred that they did.