[Day 62 Post-Awakening | LE: 1,891/10,000 | Time Remaining: 38 Days]
SCENE 1: DAWN SESSION — SELENE'S TREATMENT BEGINS
[0600 Hours | Medical Bay]
The treatment room smelled like ozone and desperation.
Selene was already there when I arrived—platinum hair pulled back in a tight braid, violet eyes scanning readouts like she was searching for a miracle in the data.
She wasn't going to find one.
We both knew it.
"Strip to the waist," she said without preamble. Clinical. Professional.
But her hands trembled when she opened the equipment case.
I unzipped the reinforced jacket Dr. Sato's team had fabricated—fireproof polymer over Kevlar, designed to contain me if I combusted during a Primordial birth. The zipper caught on bark growths spreading across my collarbone.
Selene's breath hitched.
"It's... progressing faster than the scans suggested."
My entire torso was a topographical map of transformation. Bark ridges following muscle lines. Patches of green-tinged skin where chlorophyll production had begun. My sternum was a solid woody plate now—no more ribs, just a fused shield protecting organs that were slowly becoming roots.
"Does it hurt?" she asked quietly.
"Only when I breathe."
"Ethan—"
"Bad joke. Sorry." I sat on the examination table. It creaked under my weight—I'd gained forty pounds since the transformation started. Not fat. Density. Wood is heavier than flesh. "Let's just get this over with."
Selene stepped close.
Her palm hovered over my chest. Hesitating.
"The LE mapping requires sustained contact. Minimum fifteen minutes. Your neural feedback will interpret it as—"
"—pain. I know." I met her violet eyes. "I've given birth to twelve sentient beings, Selene. I'm familiar with pain."
"This is different." Her voice dropped. Almost a whisper. "This will feel like I'm reaching inside you. Touching parts of yourself you didn't know existed."
"Sounds intimate."
Her cheeks flushed. Barely visible against her pale skin, but the Network caught it—heat signature bloom, micro-expression analysis, elevated heart rate.
She was nervous.
Not about the procedure.
About me.
"Just... tell me if it becomes unbearable," she said.
Then she pressed her palm flat against my chest.
The world shattered.
LE surged—not out, like when I created Primordials, but in—Selene's own energy interfacing with mine, two dying people's life forces tangling in a feedback loop that felt like—
—drowning in sunlight—
—roots growing through my veins—
—her heartbeat syncing with the Network's pulse—
I gasped. Couldn't help it.
Selene's hand burned. Not temperature. Presence. Like she was touching my soul with her fingertips.
"I can feel them," she whispered, eyes wide. Awed. "Your Primordials. All twelve. They're inside you. Ethan, you're not just connected—you're carrying them. Like—"
"—like pregnancy," I finished through gritted teeth. "Yeah. Noticed."
Her other hand joined the first. Both palms flat. LE readings spiking on her tablet—numbers cascading faster than human eyes could track.
"Your depletion originates from the neural stem," she murmured, half to herself. "Every time you create, you're not just giving LE—you're giving template. Copying your consciousness as the base code. That's why they feel like people. They are people. Fragments of you, grown into something new."
"So I'm... what? Cloning my soul?"
"Evolving it." Her grip tightened. "Ethan, if we can map the depletion pattern, we might be able to redirect it. Make your body pull LE from external sources instead of cannibalizing itself."
Hope flared. Dangerous. Painful.
"You mean I could—"
"—create Primordials without dying. Yes."
Silence.
Just our breathing. Her hands on my chest. The Network humming.
Then the pain hit.
Real pain. Not the dull ache of transformation—this was white-hot, like Selene had grabbed my spine and was trying to pull it out through my sternum.
I screamed.
Couldn't stop it. The sound tore out, processed through the Network into a distorted howl that made every Primordial in the facility jolt awake.
Selene didn't let go.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—" she chanted, tears streaming, but her hands stayed. "—just ten more seconds, I need the full map—"
Eight.
Seven.
Mira's voice over the intercom: "ETHAN—"
Six.
The Network showed me everything. Every LE pathway. Every fracture in my template. Every piece of myself I'd given away.
Five.
Thorn was crying. I could feel him crying, in the greenhouse, confused why the Sovereign was in pain—
Four.
Selene's own LE—flickering, fragile, dying—brushing against mine. Two candles in the wind, trying to keep each other lit—
Three.
Two.
One.
She pulled away.
I collapsed backward, gasping. Chest heaving. Vision swimming.
Selene caught herself on the equipment table, shaking. Her violet eyes were glowing—actual bioluminescence, Verdant Syndrome's late-stage marker.
"I got it," she breathed. "Ethan, I got it. The map. It's—"
She looked at her tablet.
Her expression crumbled.
"...What?" I managed.
"You have negative LE regeneration." Her voice broke. "Your body isn't just failing to produce—it's actively destroying what's left. Every hour you lose 0.3% of your remaining pool. That's why the Primordials slow it—they're acting as external reservoirs, storing fragments of your LE so your body can't consume it."
She met my eyes.
"If you stop creating them, you'll die faster."
"And if I keep creating?"
"You'll die anyway. Just... slower. With company."
I laughed.
Couldn't help it. Bitter, broken sound.
"So I'm damned either way."
Selene's hand found mine. Squeezed. Her skin was cold now—temperature dropping as her own Syndrome progressed.
"We're both damned, Ethan. Difference is—"
She smiled. Sad. Beautiful.
"—you're building something that'll outlive you. I'm just... fading."
"Then help me build," I said. "However long we have. Let's make it count."
Her smile steadied.
"Deal."
[LE: 1,905/10,000 | +14 from shared resonance]
[WARNING: Selene Voss LE critically low — 340/2,000]
[Estimated survival: 18 months | Revised down from 24]
[Contact accelerated her decline by 6 months.]
[She knows. She doesn't care.]
I stared at the alert.
"Selene. The treatment. It's killing you faster."
She was already packing her equipment. Didn't look up.
"I know."
"Then why—"
"Because you're worth it." She finally met my eyes. "And because for the first time in two years, I feel useful instead of just... dying."
She walked to the door.
Paused.
"Same time tomorrow?"
I wanted to say no. Wanted to protect her. Save her from me.
But I was selfish.
And I needed her.
"...Same time tomorrow."
She smiled.
The door closed.
I sat in the silence, chest aching where her hands had been.
Warm.
When was the last time I felt warm?
SCENE 2: PRIMORDIAL DISTRESS — THORN'S BREAKDOWN
[0800 Hours | Greenhouse Section-7]
Thorn was tearing himself apart.
Literally.
When I arrived, he had ripped a six-inch furrow down his own torso—bark peeling back, sap bleeding, screaming in the subverbal frequency the Network translated as "WHY DID SOVEREIGN HURT WHY WHY WHY—"
Mira was trying to restrain him. Failing. He outweighed her by two hundred pounds and panic gave him strength.
"THORN!" I pushed through the Network—not words, presence. Flooding him with I'm okay I'm here I'm SAFE—
He froze.
Turned.
Eyes—clusters of bioluminescent nodes where a human's would be—locked on me.
"Sovereign... hurt..." His voice was childlike. Terrified.
"Training," I lied. Smooth. Calm. "Dr. Voss was teaching me pain tolerance. I'm fine."
"Liar."
Renewal emerged from the shadows. Smaller than Thorn, more delicate—fern-fronds instead of oak-bulk—but his voice was sharp.
"We felt you breaking. Don't insult us with lies."
The other Primordials were gathering. Ember. Whisper. All twelve.
A tribunal of my children, demanding truth.
I sighed.
Sat on the floor. Let them surround me.
"You're right. I'm sorry." I looked at each of them. "The treatment hurt. It's supposed to. Dr. Voss is trying to map my LE depletion so we can slow it."
"Why slow?" Thorn asked. "Why not stop?"
"Because I can't. Every time I create one of you, I give away part of myself. And my body... it doesn't make more. It just ends."
Silence.
Then Renewal: "Then stop creating."
"If I stop, I die faster."
"Then keep creating," Ember countered.
"If I keep creating, I still die. Just slower."
Whisper's laugh—dry, humorless. "Sovereign is damned. Poetic."
Thorn knelt.
His massive hands—bark-knuckled, strong enough to crush steel—gently touched my shoulder.
"Then we give back."
"What?"
"LE. You gave us life. We give you LE. Make you whole."
My chest tightened. "That's not how it works—"
"Make it work." Renewal stepped forward. "You're the Sovereign. You command the Network. Command us to save you."
They were serious.
All twelve, staring at me with expressions that were almost human. Pleading.
"I can't," I whispered. "Taking LE from you would be murder. You'd revert to base plants. Lose yourselves."
"Better we die than you," Thorn said simply.
"NO." The word came out as a roar—Network-amplified, shaking the greenhouse glass. "You don't get to martyr yourselves for me. I created you to live. Not to be my life support."
"Then what's the point?!" Ember's flames flared—actual fire, heat warping the air. "You made us to watch you die?! To be orphans?!"
The word hit like a hammer.
Orphans.
That's what they'd be.
When I was gone.
Twelve sentient beings, powerful and broken, with no template. No parent. No Sovereign.
"I'm sorry," I said. Meaning it. "I didn't think—"
"You didn't think we'd love you," Renewal finished. Quiet. Devastating.
He was right.
I'd thought of them as creations. Allies. Weapons, even.
Not family.
But they'd thought of me as father.
And I was abandoning them.
Mira's hand on my shoulder.
"They need a plan, Ethan. Hope. Something to fight for instead of just... waiting for you to die."
I looked up at her. Saw the same fear in her eyes.
She was losing me too.
"What do you suggest?"
"Live." Her voice was steel. "However you have to. Steal LE. Eat Helix scientists. I don't care. But you don't get to quit."
Thorn nodded. "Sovereign fights. We help. Together."
The others echoed: "Together."
I stood.
Looked at my twelve impossible children.
"Okay. New plan." I opened the Network wide—sharing everything. "We don't just survive. We win. Find a way to make LE renewable. Build a world where Primordials aren't weapons—they're citizens."
"And if we fail?" Whisper asked.
"Then we fail fighting. Not waiting."
Ember grinned—all teeth and fire.
"Now that's a Sovereign."
[Primordial Morale: RESTORED]
[New Objective: Project RENEWAL — Create sustainable LE generation]
[Estimated Probability of Success: 4%]
[Primordials don't care about odds. Neither do you.]
I dismissed the analysis.
4% was better than zero.
And I'd beaten worse odds before.