[POV: Silas (Back to Present: Void Hub)]
I'm one step closer to home.
The silence stretched.
Silas lay on the slab, staring at something that wasn't quite a ceiling. The white surface glowed with its own soft luminescence, featureless and perfect as fresh bone. No cracks. No stains. No cobwebs. No watermarks from leaky pipes or soot trails from bad ventilation. Nothing to count, nothing to memorize. His brain kept reaching for landmarks and finding only smooth, endless white.
The material beneath him was warm—warmed to blood-heat without any pulse behind it. It contoured to his spine without being asked, cradling him like a hand that knew exactly where to press.
His side throbbed in time with his pulse. The bandages were still there, wrapped tight around his ribs, their edges crusted with something that had dried brown. Through the fabric, he could feel the swelling—the hot, tight wrongness of tissue that wasn't healing fast enough. The Hawk-crest officer's blade had left its mark days ago. It was still collecting interest.
At the edge of his vision, a faint blue glow waited. Patient. Insistent. The Citadel's interface hovering like a restaurant bill no one had asked for—the kind that arrives before the food does and somehow knows exactly what you owe before you've finished eating.
I could lie here. Pretend none of it happened.
The thought curled up and died. Pretending didn't change numbers. Pretending didn't make the dead less dead or contracts less binding. He'd learned that lesson in Seattle, and in Thaloria.
Seattle.
The word reminded him of his original world. When did he last think about Seattle? About the apartment with the leak in the ceiling, about the gym nearby where nobody knew his name, about the city where he'd been nobody for years?
Am I going back? Can I go back? The Citadel pushed me into Thaloria and pulled me back here—what if this is it? What if I'm stuck in this place forever?
For a moment, panic clawed at his chest. The white room felt smaller. The silence felt heavier. His fingers curled against the slab, knuckles going white.
Then the Citadel's interface pulsed—as if reading his thoughts and answering a question he hadn't asked aloud.
[Void Hub Stay: 3 Days Remaining.]
[After 3 days, Contractor will be returned to origin world: Earth.]
The tension bled out of his shoulders. Three days. Not forever. The Citadel wasn't a prison—at least, not a permanent one. He'd go back to Seattle. He'd have time to think, to plan, to figure out what the hell he was supposed to be doing.
Three days here. Then home. Then... what? Wait for the next summons?
One problem at a time.
Better to know what I'm working with.
Silas reached toward the glow. His fingers brushed air—no resistance, no texture, just a faint electrical tingle that made his fingertips itch—and the interface unfolded its pending messages.
[Mission 1 Summary: Thaloria (Stoneveil City)]
[Trial Difficulty: Rank 3 (Inferno Tier)]
[World Source Gained: 5%]
[Main Objective: Assassinate Regent Varis Calder — COMPLETE]
[Side Objective: Rescue Taren Rihl — COMPLETE]
[Side Objective: Support Sparkweave Succession — COMPLETE]
The remarks looked almost cheerful.
Side objectives. I never accepted those. Never saw a prompt, never clicked "confirm."
The Citadel tracked what I did anyway. Counted actions I never formally agreed to.
I went ahead and changed two regimes; that of Stoneveil & that of the resistance. That's what they'll call it.
The Crown auditor who helped changed a dying city.
He thought of Varis's body on the cobblestones—arms hacked away by his daughter, stoned by the mob, blood pooling in the cracks between stones that had seen over a hundred executions.
He thought of Caia raising her bloody sword to claim the throne she'd helped her father build, her face a mask of something that wasn't quite grief and wasn't quite triumph. He thought of Voss killed in his office by his niece.
Not "helped a woman kill her father." Not "watched a city tear itself apart."
Five percent. The Citadel's cut of a revolution.
The next section scrolled into view with a deeper chime—this one almost congratulatory, the Citadel's version of a supervisor nodding approval over quarterly numbers.
[Performance Rating: S-]
[Calculating Rewards...]
[Base Reward: 1000 Void Coins]
[S- Rating Bonus: +1000 Void Coins]
[World Source Bonus: +500 Void Coins]
[Devourer Talent FAP (Mission): 3]
[Settlement FAP (S- × First-time Enforcer Bonus): 8]
[Total Free Attribute Points: 11]
[Total Rewards: 2500 Void Coins, 11 Free Attribute Points]
Silas stared at the numbers. His hands were steady on his chest—he checked, flexing his fingers against his sternum just to make sure. He'd expected them to shake. They didn't.
Twenty-five hundred coins. Eleven points—three from the kills, eight from the rating.
Twenty-five hundred coins. No idea what that buys yet. But for a first run? For walking into a city I'd never seen and walking out with a dead tyrant?
For one instant, he felt like he'd passed an exam. The satisfaction was chemical—a pulse of something warm in his chest that had nothing to do with the wound. Then the feeling curdled, souring like milk left in the sun.
I caused a riot, killed openly, got plenty killed, and still got S-. The Citadel doesn't care about methods. It cares about results.
I'm might not be a person to it. I'm probably an investment with a good ROI.
Silas nodded to himself.
"War chest. That's the word. I've got a war chest now."
New lines appeared below the rewards, and the interface scrolled to accommodate fresh data.
[Title: Enforcer]
[Rank 1 Permissions: Unlocked.]
Rank 1. He didn't know what that unlocked yet. Didn't know what "permissions" the Citadel had just handed him, or what he'd find when he walked out that door.
When I wake up. Those are problems for when I wake up.
I'll be an Enforcer. I'll spend the coins and allocate the points and figure out what any of this means.
But not now.
Silas swiped his hand through the air—a gesture that already felt natural. The interface collapsed, folding back into that patient blue glow, leaving only the white luminescence of the ceiling.
He exhaled. The air tasted of nothing—no copper, no rot, no lantern oil or cheap tallow or the ever-present mustiness of a city built on wet stone or covered in smog. Just... clean. The kind of clean that felt manufactured.
When I wake up.
He was about to lie back when the interface bloomed again—uninvited, and unprompted.
This notification was different. Not congratulations. Not a receipt. A notice.
[Injury Detected. Restoration Available.]
Of course it knows I'm hurt. It probably knew that since that moment I came here.
Probably ran a full-body diagnostic the moment I materialized. Maybe counted every bruise, every micro-tear, every cell that wasn't doing its job properly.
The Citadel seems to know everything. Except my thoughts. Maybe. Hopefully...
The diagnostic unfolded: a translucent blue wireframe of his torso, rotating slowly in the air above him. The wound site glowed red—angry, insistent, a small sun of damage nestled between his seventh and eighth ribs. Neat text appeared beside it.
[Wound, penetrating, lateral thorax. Severity: Moderate.]
[Natural Recovery: 5-7 days. Mobility impaired. Combat effectiveness reduced.]
[Instant Restoration: 50 Void Coins.]
[Confirm?]
Silas pressed a hand to his side. Through the stiff fabric of the bandages, he felt what the past few days had done—the swelling that pushed back against his palm, the heat that radiated through the layers, the deep wrongness of tissue that had been trying to heal while he walked in a city covered in smog.
Fifty coins. About two percent of what I just earned.
A week of limping, or two percent of a war chest.
The choice is so obvious, I'll feel like an idiot for refusing.
He considered refusing. Letting the wound heal naturally. Proving he didn't need its shortcuts, efficiency, and sterile charity that came with a price tag attached.
And limp into this Void Hub like fresh meat? Favor my right side every time I move? Advertise to every threat in this place that I'm wounded, that I'm weak, that I'm an easy mark?
Smart. Real smart.
He confirmed. Not a gesture this time—just the thought, pushed toward the YES option with the same intention he'd use to move a finger. The word sank into the interface like a coin dropped into a slot, disappearing without ceremony.
[Processing... 50 Void Coins deducted.]
[Balance: 2,660 Void Coins.]
[Restoration in progress...]
Warmth bloomed through his side.
Not the feverish heat of infection, not the sharp burn of alcohol on an open cut. This was something cleaner—clinical warmth, the temperature of a precisely calibrated medical instrument doing exactly what it was designed to do.
A hum vibrated through his ribs, low and steady, like electricity running through tissue. He could feel the edges of the wound knitting together, layer by layer. Could feel the swelling draining away like water through sand. Could feel the pain—that constant, grinding companion of the last few days—simply... departing.
Three seconds. Maybe less.
[Restoration Complete.]
The notification vanished. No fanfare. No "you're welcome." No cheerful jingle to mark the occasion. Just done.
Silas peeled back the bandage. His fingers were steady. The material was stiff with dried blood and whatever antiseptic paste Jessa had smeared on it days ago. It came away slowly, tugging at the fine hairs on his skin.
Underneath, he found smooth skin. Pink and new-looking, slightly paler than the rest of him, but whole. Not even a scar. The wound that had been grinding him down—that had made every breath and step a calculated risk, that had burned and ached and leaked through bandages at the worst possible moments—erased like it had never existed.
He pressed the healed area with two fingers. Firm. Painless. The muscle beneath responded normally, flexing when he twisted his torso experimentally. Like the injury had happened to someone else.
The Citadel didn't leave marks.
Fifty coins gone. I didn't even feel them leave. Just—gone.
Three seconds. That's what a week of healing is worth. Three seconds and two percent of my war chest.
He dropped the bandage on the slab beside him; the stiff fabric landed with a dry sound. Then he lay back, and the material contoured perfectly to his spine, adjusting to his new posture without being asked.
The light dimmed automatically, responding to something in his biometrics. Heart rate, probably. Brainwave patterns. Some metric of exhaustion that the Citadel had already quantified and filed away.
For the first time in seven days, the air didn't smell like dust.
For the first time in seven days, he didn't check the exits.
For the first time in seven days, his body didn't protest when he closed his eyes.
Two thousand six hundred sixty coins. Eleven points to spend. No wound. No debt except the one I already carry.
Tomorrow, I figure out what an Enforcer actually does.
Tonight, I sleep.
The white room held him like a hand that knew exactly where to press, and the silence wrapped around him like a shroud.
He slept.
Rain fell in silver threads. The alley. The guards. Blood pooling on wet concrete.
Silas lay on his back, staring up at that crooked slice of sky between the hotel and the parking deck. The Riverstone was heavy in his palm. His calf burned. His shoulder throbbed. But the guards weren't moving anymore.
I won. They're down. I'm bleeding, but I won.
Why is it so quiet?
The rain made no sound when it hit the concrete. No sirens. No city noise. Just silence pressing against his eardrums like cotton.
This isn't how it happened.
The sky was wrong. Pure black—no blown-out windows, no pale face calling 911, no stars. Just void.
Wait—
Wet footsteps behind his head. Slow. Deliberate.
He tried to turn. His body wouldn't respond. Limbs locked. Neck frozen. Paralysis gripping him like a fist.
No. I shot him. They drove him away.
Turn. Turn!
I can't move.
A shadow grew in his peripheral vision. Legs. Shoes. Blood dripping onto the concrete beside his ear.
Dread sank into his gut like cold iron. He didn't want to see the face. He already knew.
Evan Royce stepped into view—upside-down from where Silas lay. Hoodie soaked red. Entry wound still weeping just left of the sternum. But he was standing. Smiling.
The smile was wrong. Too wide. Too many teeth. Blood leaked from his gums like he'd been chewing glass.
"Stay down, asshole."
The stocky guard's words. Evan's voice.
A gun muzzle pressed against Silas's forehead, cold and impossibly real.
He's dead. He has to be dead.
I shot him!
Then why is he—
The muzzle flash seared white.
The roar of a gunshot in a silent world—deafening, impossible, tearing through his skull. He felt it. Bone cracking. Brain compressing. A sensation that shouldn't be possible to feel.
no
Then nothing.
Silas gasped awake.
His heart slammed against his ribs. Sweat soaked the gray clothes, plastering the fabric to his chest. The slab beneath him was warm. The ceiling glowed soft and white and featureless.
The Hub. His personal room. Safe.
Dream. Just a dream.
Then why can I still feel it?
He sat up slowly, pressing a palm to his forehead. It was intact. No blood. No bullet hole. Just sweat and the phantom echo of something that hadn't happened.
The Citadel's interface waited at the edge of his vision, patient as always. It didn't ask if he was okay. It didn't offer comfort. It just... waited.
He ran a hand through damp hair. His pulse was still too fast. His breath was still too shallow.
Evan. I shot him in the chest. I watched him drop.
But... I didn't watch him die.
I don't know what's waiting for me when I go back.
Three days. Then I find out.
The white room held its silence, and Silas sat in the dark of his own making, waiting for his heart to slow down.