The colony pretended nothing had happened.
That was the first rule of survival on Virex-9.
If something couldn't be explained, it was ignored. If something couldn't be controlled, it was buried. And if something threatened the illusion of order, it was erased quietly, efficiently, and without witnesses.
By the next cycle, the silence was already being rewritten.
System fluctuation.
Localized grid failure.
Temporary signal distortion.
Three different explanations, none of them true.
Kael heard all of them before midday.
He sat in the corner of the ration hall, untouched food cooling in front of him, listening to workers talk in low voices that pretended to be casual.
"Just a blackout," one man muttered.
"Yeah, happens sometimes," another replied quickly.
"Upper sectors rerouted power. That's all."
No one sounded convinced.
But everyone sounded desperate to believe it.
Kael stared down at the metal table, fingers loosely curled around a cup he hadn't touched. The faint hum of the hall's overhead lights vibrated through the surface, a constant reminder that the machines were alive again.
That the world was moving.
That everything was "normal."
Except it wasn't.
Because the silence hadn't left him.
It lingered in the spaces between sounds.
In the pauses between heartbeats.
In the quiet moments when he stopped pretending everything was fine.
And the worst part?
It was getting clearer.
Not stronger.
Closer.
Like something slowly adjusting its focus.
A chair scraped loudly across the floor.
Kael flinched before he could stop himself.
"Easy," Vera said softly as she dropped into the seat across from him.
He hadn't seen her approach.
Her sharp eyes scanned his face instantly, reading more than he wanted her to.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Thanks," he muttered.
"I'm serious."
"I know."
She leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice. "You felt it too, didn't you?"
Kael's stomach tightened.
For a moment, he considered lying.
Denying everything. Laughing it off. Pretending he was just tired.
But the memory of that silence—vast, endless, alive—crushed the words before they formed.
He nodded once.
Vera exhaled slowly, tension leaving her shoulders in a way that wasn't relief.
More like confirmation.
"I thought I imagined it," she admitted. "When everything stopped… it felt like the world was holding its breath."
Kael swallowed hard.
"That's not all," he said quietly.
Her gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?"
He hesitated.
This was the line.
The moment where things became irreversible.
Because once he said it out loud…
It would be real.
Still, the words forced their way out.
"It's still here."
Vera didn't blink.
"Here?" she asked carefully.
He tapped his chest weakly.
"With me."
Silence settled between them—not the impossible silence from the mines, but something smaller, human, and heavy with fear.
Vera leaned back slowly, processing.
"You're saying…" she began, then stopped. "No. That's not possible."
"I know," he whispered. "I know."
But they both understood the truth hanging between them.
Impossible things had already happened.
Denying the next one wouldn't make it disappear.
Across the hall, a wall-mounted screen flickered to life with a sharp burst of static.
Both of them looked up instinctively.
The screen usually displayed shift rotations or maintenance alerts. Nothing important. Nothing urgent.
But this time—
The symbol on the display wasn't local.
A sharp, geometric insignia burned onto the screen in cold white light.
A circle divided by three vertical lines.
Vera's face drained of color.
"No," she breathed.
Kael frowned. "What is that?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Didn't look away from the screen.
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
"Dominion."
The word hit Kael like a physical blow.
Everyone knew the Dominion.
Not because they had seen it.
Because they hadn't.
The Dominion didn't live in colonies like Virex-9. It existed above them. Around them. Beyond them. A vast governing force that controlled the outer systems without ever showing its face.
You didn't meet the Dominion.
You survived under it.
The screen crackled again, lines of encrypted text scrolling rapidly beneath the symbol.
The room grew quieter as people noticed.
Something was wrong.
"Attention," a synthetic voice finally announced, calm and emotionless. "Unscheduled system audit in progress. All colony networks are under review. Remain at assigned stations."
A murmur rippled through the hall.
Audits weren't common.
Unscheduled audits were almost unheard of.
Kael felt cold.
Deep in his bones.
"They know," he whispered.
Vera didn't argue.
Because she was thinking the same thing.
Somewhere far above Virex-9, beyond the polluted skies and mining scaffolds…
Something had noticed the silence.
And now it was looking down.
The whisper inside Kael stirred faintly.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Awareness.
Like a distant star turning its gaze toward something it had always expected to find.
Kael's hands began to tremble.
Not because of the Dominion.
Not because of the silence.
But because of the terrible realization forming in his mind.
This wasn't just about survival anymore.
The machines had stopped.
The silence had spoken.
And now the most powerful force in human space was watching.
The fracture had begun.
And there was no sealing it again.