Chapter 24: The First Bite

The core in Jax's hand pulsed like a dying star, its unstable energy searing through his gloves and burning his flesh. He could feel its hunger - a living thing gnawing at the edges of his sanity. The countdown in his vision flickered erratically, numbers bleeding into each other as reality itself began to waver.

**00:00:05**

Gamma-7 stood transfigured beside him, her armored shell barely containing the raw power within. Cracks spiderwebbed across her form, revealing glimpses of something vast and terrible beneath the surface. Her voice, when she spoke, resonated in Jax's bones rather than his ears.

"Do it now," she commanded, the words vibrating through the crumbling tower. "Before it's too late."

With a cry that tore at his throat, Jax hurled the core into the heart of the maelstrom.

The explosion didn't come with fire or fury.

It came with silence.

A silence so complete it felt like the world had been unmade.

Jax watched in frozen horror as the shockwave moved in reverse, every expanding ring of destruction collapsing back toward the Spiral's gaping maw. The air itself stretched and tore, reality bending like taffy around the epicenter. The vortex convulsed violently, its edges blackening and curling like burning parchment.

For one terrible, hopeful moment -

The Spiral struck back.

A whip-like tendril lashed out faster than thought, its barbed tip punching through Gamma-7's radiant chest with a sound like shattering crystal. Her luminous form arched backward, mouth open in a silent scream as the Spiral began its feast.

It wasn't just consuming her energy.

It was devouring her very essence.

The soldier she'd been.

The weapon she'd become.

The woman she might have been.

All unraveling into the void.

Jax tried to move, to help, but his body refused to obey. The air had turned to molasses, his every motion slowed to agonizing increments. He could only watch as Gamma-7's blazing form dimmed, her light being siphoned into the endless hunger.

Her helmet had shattered completely now, revealing a face that flickered between countless possibilities. Her glowing eyes found Jax's.

"The child," she gasped, each word a struggle against the devouring dark. "Find her... before they do..."

With a final pulse of searing light, her form shattered like stained glass, the fragments dissolving into the hungry vortex.

The last thing Jax saw before unconsciousness claimed him was the Spiral's maw twisting in terrible satisfaction.

---

Consciousness returned with the taste of copper and the smell of burning ozone.

The chamber had been remade in the Spiral's image. Walls melted and reformed in impossible geometries, their surfaces crawling with spiraling patterns that hurt to look upon. Of Gamma-7 - no trace remained. Only a scorched wound on reality marked where the vortex had been, its edges still smoking with unnatural energy.

His wrist-console sparked weakly to life:

**[System Alert: Convergence Event Interrupted]**

**[Warning: Localized Reality Instability Detected]**

**[Casualty Report: 97% Echo Harvest Successful]**

A wet, rattling cough drew his attention.

Lira lay pinned beneath twisted metal, her lower body crushed beyond recognition. Blood flecked her lips as she laughed weakly, the sound more air than voice.

"One battle," she gasped, her fingers twitching toward the dying scar in reality. "Lost the war... The Spiral... took its first taste..." A shudder wracked her broken form. "Now it will... always hunger..."

Jax crawled to her side, though he knew it was futile. Her eyes had taken on a glassy sheen, pupils dilated unnaturally wide. When she spoke again, her voice carried strange harmonics - an echo of Gamma-7's final words.

"They're coming," she whispered. "Not just for the city... for her. The child is the key." Her back arched in a final spasm. "Run... while you still... can..."

Then the light left her eyes for good.

---

The Broadcast Tower groaned like a living thing as Jax staggered toward the surface. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of ozone and something darker beneath. His boots crunched over broken glass and... other things. Strange growths pulsed between the cracks in the floor, their veined surfaces glistening wetly in the dying light.

Dawn should have come.

Instead, the sky hung heavy and purple, the light diffuse and directionless. Veridia Prime's skyline twisted in the distance like a reflection in disturbed water - buildings bent at impossible angles, their surfaces crawling with those same spiraling patterns.

The child from Sector 9 stood waiting at the shattered entrance, her bare feet leaving no prints in the dust. The hem of her ragged dress fluttered in a wind Jax couldn't feel.

"The Quiet Man says to run," she whispered, though her lips didn't move. Her eyes glowed faintly blue in the unnatural twilight.

Jax opened his mouth to respond when the first mutation struck.

A nearby Cleaner unit convulsed violently, its polished armor blackening and bubbling. The visor cracked open like an eggshell, revealing not circuitry or flesh, but a single enormous eye that rolled wildly before fixing on Jax. Its mouth stretched far too wide, the jaw unhinging with a wet pop as it emitted a sound that was nothing like a siren and everything like a scream.

More joined the chorus. Dozens. Hundreds. The very air vibrated with their cries.

The child's small hand slipped into Jax's. Her skin burned with unnatural heat.

"Run," she said again.

This time, he listened.