The ship did not like what it was becoming.
Riven felt it before the instruments confirmed it—through the deck beneath his boots, through the faint vibration that no longer followed a predictable rhythm. The vessel had always spoken in pressure and sound. This was different. This was hesitation.
"How long?" he asked.
Mara didn't look up from the navigation console. "We crossed the threshold twelve minutes ago."
"Twelve minutes since what?"
"Since the wake stopped behaving like an echo."
Riven's eyes flicked to the rear display.
The distortion behind them no longer stretched thin. It had compressed, thickened, folding in on itself like something being forced through a narrowing channel. The wake wasn't spreading anymore.
It was holding shape.
"Status," Riven said.
"Structural stress is rising," Lennox replied over comms. "Not enough to break us. Enough that the hull is… remembering."
"Remembering what?" Mara asked.
Lennox hesitated. "Where it shouldn't be."
Riven exhaled slowly. "Keep monitoring. Don't interpret. Just report."
"Copy."
The bridge fell quiet again, the kind of silence that wasn't empty but restrained. No one wanted to speak the obvious truth forming between them: whatever this place was, it wasn't just space they were passing through.
It was deciding whether to let them continue.
A low chime sounded—internal mapping update.
Kade frowned. "Captain. We've got another discrepancy."
Riven didn't turn. "Worse or different?"
"Different," Kade said. "Deck five is reporting consistent dimensions again."
"That's good," Mara said automatically.
"No," Kade replied. "It was inconsistent before. Now it's… corrected."
Riven turned slowly. "Corrected to what?"
Kade swallowed. "To something that doesn't match our original schematics."
The silence returned, heavier now.
"Show me," Riven said.
The display shifted. Deck five's internal grid overlaid with a ghosted version of the ship's original blueprint. The two did not align. Corridors bent slightly. Storage compartments sat a fraction deeper than they should. Nothing dramatic.
Nothing accidental.
"How long has it been like this?" Riven asked.
"Since we increased output," Kade said. "Since the wake compressed."
"So the filter adjusted," Mara said quietly.
Riven didn't correct her choice of word.
"That deck is crew space," she added. "Bunks. Mess."
"Any reports?" Riven asked.
"Not yet."
"Send a check-in," he said. "Non-alarming. Routine."
Kade complied, his voice steady over internal comms. "Deck five, bridge. Status check."
A few seconds passed.
Then: "Deck five here. All normal."
Riven watched the display. "Ask them to walk the length of the central corridor."
Another pause. Footsteps echoed faintly over the channel.
"…Captain," the voice said. "The corridor feels longer."
"How much longer?" Riven asked.
"…I don't know. Enough to notice."
Riven closed his eyes briefly.
"Thank you," he said. "Return to your station."
He cut the channel before questions could follow.
"They're inside it now," Mara said.
"Yes," Riven replied. "We all are."
The ship shuddered again—not violently, but decisively, as if a decision had been finalized. Warning indicators flared and settled. Power stabilized. Stress readings plateaued.
"It's holding us," Lennox said over comms. "Not crushing. Not releasing."
"Like a valve," Mara said.
Riven nodded once. "A filter."
No one argued.
Because the evidence was everywhere.
Movement had consequences here. Not impact, not damage—selection. The route wasn't killing ships indiscriminately. It was allowing some shapes to pass while rejecting others.
And right now, it was deciding what shape they were allowed to be.
"Captain," Kade said. "External signal spike."
Riven turned sharply. "From where?"
"Behind us," Kade replied. "From inside the wake."
The rear display flickered. A pulse rippled through the distortion—faint, irregular, almost hesitant.
"It's not a broadcast," Kade continued. "More like… residue."
"Define residue," Riven said.
"It's what's left after something passes through and fails to maintain form."
Mara swallowed. "Failed ships."
Riven didn't answer immediately.
He studied the signal pattern, the way it stuttered and collapsed before reassembling. It wasn't calling. It wasn't warning.
It was decaying.
"Can we record it?" he asked.
"Yes," Kade said. "But it won't last. It's degrading fast."
"Record anyway."
The pulse flickered again, weaker this time.
"They didn't turn back," Mara said quietly.
"No," Riven agreed. "They couldn't."
The realization settled over the bridge like dust after an impact.
This place did not punish recklessness. It punished incompatibility.
And the punishment wasn't instant.
It was erasure by delay.
"Captain," Lennox said. "Engineering update."
Riven keyed the channel. "Go."
"The additional internal volume behind the aft bulkhead?" Lennox said. "It stabilized."
"That's good," Mara said again, less convincingly.
"It stabilized because the ship adapted," Lennox continued. "Material density shifted. We lost redundancy in three noncritical systems."
Riven's jaw tightened. "Lost how?"
"They're still there," Lennox said. "But they don't function independently anymore. They've… merged."
Riven stared at the floor.
The ship wasn't breaking.
It was being edited.
"Casualties?" he asked.
"None," Lennox said. "Not yet."
Riven nodded. "Keep logging everything. No hero fixes."
"Understood."
The wake pulsed again, fainter now. The signal residue thinned, unraveling into nothing.
Mara looked at the rear display. "It's letting us go."
"No," Riven said. "It's finished with what it needed."
She turned to him. "Which is?"
"To see if we would hold shape."
The ship lurched gently, like a breath being released. Stress readings dipped. Internal discrepancies stopped worsening. Not resolved—just paused.
They had passed a test.
That did not mean they were safe.
"Captain," Kade said. "Forward space is changing."
Riven looked ahead.
The corridor beyond the wake was different. Not narrower. Not distorted.
Simpler.
Fewer readings. Less variance. Like space stripped down to something more fundamental.
Mara frowned. "Navigation markers are gone."
"Can you plot a path?" Riven asked.
"I can choose a direction," she said. "But I can't promise it's meaningful."
"That's fine," Riven replied. "Meaning isn't required. Movement is."
She adjusted the helm.
The ship moved forward, leaving the wake behind at last. The distortion collapsed in on itself, the last remnants of signal flickering out like embers.
Silence followed.
Not the earlier oppressive quiet, but something thinner. Expectant.
Riven sat back in his chair.
"How much did we lose?" he asked.
Mara checked the systems. "Hard to quantify. Redundancies. Margins. Options."
Riven nodded. "And what did we gain?"
She hesitated. "Compatibility."
He almost smiled. Almost.
"Log this," he said. "The route is not hostile. It is selective."
Kade typed silently.
Riven stared forward into the simplified darkness ahead.
They had not escaped the unknown.
They had been accepted by it.
Which was, in some ways, worse.
Because now the question was no longer whether the journey would kill them.
It was what it would require them to become before it was done.