Chapter 2

Xavion looked up from the rock he'd been carving. Walked to her. Reached out. Touched her chest-then his.

Then opened his hand wide, fingers stretched like wings.

Connection.

She didn't understand the full meaning then. But she would.

The fall of Korr Vale hadn't just broken the world. It had torn open something older. Something buried.

And Elara, pale-skinned, red-haired, born under the illusion of safety-was no longer just a human survivor.

She was changing.

And Xavion had chosen to change with her. The world did not return to silence after the fall-it simply changed its rhythm.

Elara woke each day to a different sound. Sometimes it was the low hum of insects that shimmered in waves

across the thick grass outside their cave. Sometimes it was the haunting call of a creature that never showed

itself, echoing across canyons as if mourning something ancient. Other times, it was Xavion's chest-song, deep

and slow, like stones rolling beneath a river.

She had grown used to him-this alien thing who neither breathed like she did nor moved in predictable ways.

But his presence had become comforting. The way he always kept her in his peripheral senses. The way he

never turned his back, as if shielding her from something he hadn't yet explained.

In the quiet moments, when she forgot the collapse, forgot the mutated cities and vanished people, Elara

imagined them as something ancient and sacred-guardians of a forgotten earth, bonded not by species or

purpose, but by sheer survival. And something more.

There was a connection she couldn't explain. At night, she felt him in her dreams-not watching, but sharing. A

vision, once, of trees upside down, their roots reaching into the sky. Another time, the sense of floating in

warm liquid beneath a ceiling of stars that blinked in time with her pulse. When she'd told him about it the

next morning, he had clicked softly, gently, and touched her temple. He seemed pleased.

She began calling them shared visions.

They grew more frequent.

After weeks-maybe months, she'd stopped tracking time-Elara noticed her body changing. It started small. A scratch healed in hours. Her fingernails grew thicker, harder. One morning, when she was

trying to slice bark from a dead tree for fire starter, her hand struck a sharp stone. She winced, expecting pain,

but instead of skin splitting, something slid forward over her knuckles-translucent, chitinous.

She stared at her hand, heart pounding.

The sheath retracted slowly, folding back into the skin as if it had never been there.

Xavion had seen it. He didn't approach. He merely sat nearby, head tilted, as if waiting. She looked at him,

eyes wide, her breath short. "What's happening to me?"

He made a sound she hadn't heard before. Not a hum. Not a click. It was low and full, like a drum struck

underwater. He rose, walked to her, and placed one long finger to her sternum.

Then, he touched himself in the same place.

Connection. Again.

But this time, he moved his hand in a slow spiral, outward from his chest. Then he did the same to her.

Growing. Spreading.

It wasn't just symbolic.

She remembered when they first met-how he'd pressed his forehead to hers, the warmth that had entered her

skull. He'd changed her then. Or awakened something. Whatever it was, it was no longer dormant. They were linked.

The realization both terrified and thrilled her. Whatever this was, it went beyond infection. This was

transformation by proximity, or something even more intimate. She hadn't touched another human in months,

hadn't even heard one speak. But she had Xavion, and with every day, he felt less like an "it" and more like a

being whose inner world was as complex as her own.

They began building a routine.

Elara scavenged by day-roots, edible fungi, small game that hadn't yet mutated into nightmares. She built traps

using vines and carved spears from petrified wood. Xavion hunted further, always returning with strange meat

that tasted like a mix of chicken and ozone.

They worked together in silence, the kind that grew comfortable with time. She stopped needing to ask if he

was watching her back-he always was. He moved like wind across water, silent but certain. And she had

learned to listen-not just with ears, but with intuition. When Xavion stopped moving, so did she. When he

crouched, she followed. When he bolted, she didn't hesitate.

Trust was no longer a choice. It was survival.

One evening, as they sat beside their fire, Elara turned to him. "Did you have a name before me?"

He tilted his head.

She pressed a hand to her chest. "Elara," she said softly, then pointed to him. "Xavion. But... you had another

name. Didn't you?" He didn't respond. But he reached out, placed a hand over hers, and for the first time since they'd met, his

thoughts pressed into hers like a wave breaking against a cliff.

She gasped.

A cascade of images, fast and chaotic-organic cities, shapes coiling in slow-motion, creatures like him but

different, taller, brighter. A wordless concept: purpose. And then, loss. Deep, ancient sorrow. The sensation of

a whole species unraveling.

She pulled her hand away, breath sharp.

"You're the last," she whispered.

Xavion didn't move.

Elara's chest ached. Not with pity, but recognition. The kind that only comes from seeing a mirror where you

expected a stranger. "So am I," she said softly. "Maybe not biologically. But... I haven't seen another living

person in months."

That night, she dreamed not of stars or spires-but of bones. Endless, towering bones half-buried in sand. Some

human. Some not. All picked clean by time.

And in the dream, she stood beside Xavion as the wind howled over the grave of two worlds.

The changes accelerated.

Her bones began to ache, deep in her marrow. Her skin, usually pale, developed a shimmer under moonlight-barely visible, like a dusting of crystal. She didn't tell Xavion. She didn't have to. He knew. They developed a kind of mental tether-weak, unreliable, but growing. When he hunted far from camp, she'd

sometimes feel flashes of his experience. The smell of blood. The thrill of the chase. Once, a sudden flash of

danger that sent her ducking instinctively just as something-a hawk-like predator with six eyes-swooped past

her from the trees.