[POV: Sofia Lanka]

"Does it always feel this heavy, Sofia? The air... it feels like I’m breathing in crushed velvet and iron. My skin is prickling, and I can hear my own blood rushing in my ears like a distant, angry tide. Is this what you’ve been feeling all this time? This constant, sensory assault of simply being alive?"

Caelum’s voice was no longer a cold, synthesized broadcast; it was a fragile, human rasp that cracked under the weight of his new reality. He sat slumped against the shimmering, curved hull of the infiltration craft, his hands trembling as he stared at his own palms. The interior of the ship...