"AFTER THE TAKING"
Emergency crews moved through the ruined halls like white-clad ghosts.
Their boots made careful sounds on fractured flooring, as if volume alone might wake something that had not finished feeding. Stretchers glided past warped walls, their anti-grav fields humming softly, the air still warm where force had bent structure beyond tolerance. Medics spoke in clipped fragments—numbers, names, confirmations—kept low and precise.
Thane and Dr. Nina Elias followed the flow inward.
They met the group coming the other way.
Weaver walked close, one hand hovering near the stretcher without touching it, as though proximity alone could still help. Jax bore the weight at the front with two soldiers, jaw set. Rose stayed near Allium's head, eyes tracking shadows that no longer moved. Cassidy walked beside them, present only by motion.
Thane stopped short when he saw Allium.
"Dear gods," he breathed, moving in beside Jax. "What happened?"
Jax didn't slow.
"Allium managed to push it out," he said. "Through a blast-shield door."
Thane looked at him, then at the stretcher as medics slid it seamlessly into their formation, reinforcing the frame for transport. Allium didn't stir. His glow was dim—there, but thinned.
They carried him on.
Dust continued to drift from the ceiling in lazy arcs as reality flexed back toward itself. The distortions above healed slowly, like skin deciding whether to scar.
Jax peeled away from the stretcher and fell in beside Cassidy. She stared straight ahead, unblinking.
"Cassidy," he said gently.
She turned to him as if through water.
"I know that scared you," Jax continued, keeping his voice even. "But we need power back. Generators are down. Can you do this?"
Cassidy didn't speak.
She nodded once.
She turned and walked toward the back corridors where the generators screamed and smoked, their housings split and aching. She moved slowly, each step deliberate, like distance mattered.
Jax watched her go.
Then he and Thane moved on.
They passed bodies.
Not torn.
Not burned.
Empty.
Men and women lay where they had fallen, eyes open or closed by chance, faces untouched. Something had taken what mattered and left the rest behind. Jax shook his head as they stepped over another still form.
They reached the offices—doors half open, papers scattered, chairs overturned where people had tried to leave and failed.
Jax stopped at one doorway.
"Lyra," he said quietly, and motioned.
They opened the door together.
Lyra sat at her desk, posture unchanged, hands folded where they always were. Her eyes stared forward. Whatever she had been in the moment before—focused, tired, alive—was gone.
Soulless.
Dead.
Jax struck the wall with his palm, the sound sharp in the quiet.
"Damn it."
Thane drew in a breath that shook before he let it out.
"That fucking thing is going to pay."
Jax straightened. The commander returned in pieces.
"Move the dead to the gardens," he ordered the soldiers behind them. "Have a count. Get people back in here—safe."
They nodded and went to work, body bags opening with practiced efficiency, each one a final courtesy.
Jax and Thane turned back toward medical.
Power roared to life in uneven surges.
In the generator room, Cassidy sat on the floor beside the main housing, arms wrapped around her knees. The machines screamed in pain, lights flickering as current forced its way through damaged pathways.
Cassidy's breathing was fast and shallow. Her eyes stared into nothing.
Jax and Thane stopped at the threshold.
They didn't speak.
They stepped in and sat down beside her—one on either side—close enough to be felt, not close enough to crowd.
No orders.
No reassurance.
Just presence.
Medical was brighter.
Weaver stood at the foot of Allium's bed, eyes tracking every monitor flicker, every line of data. He hadn't moved since they brought him in.
Rose stood watch beside him, sword leaned against the wall within reach. Her shoulders were tight. Cold bled into the floor around her boots, a thin rim of ice spreading without her noticing.
Weaver laid a hand lightly on her arm.
"Your cold is seeping," he said. "Breathe."
Rose looked down.
Ice had crept farther than she meant it to.
She forced a breath. Then another. The frost retreated.
"Will he be okay?" she asked, not looking up.
Weaver's threads shifted uneasily.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I've never seen him hurt this badly."
Rose stepped closer to the bed, eyes on Allium's still face.
"If the stories about him are true," she said softly, "he'll be okay."
Weaver nodded once.
"The stories," he echoed. "Of him awakening… then going to sleep…"
Rose turned and studied him. Guilt sat on him wrong, like a coat that didn't fit.
"Are you okay?"
Weaver straightened.
"I am fine."
The lie passed without challenge.
Dr. Nina entered with a datapad held close to her chest. She paused, eyes flicking from Allium to Weaver.
"Weaver. A word?"
He followed her a few steps away.
"Yes?"
She turned the screen toward him. Readouts scrolled—organ strain, neural overload, systems failing faster than they could compensate.
"His internal organs are failing," Nina said quietly. "His nerves are completely fired. I don't know exactly what he is… but to me, he seems like he's dying."
Weaver's brow tightened.
"Is there anything you could try?"
Nina hesitated.
In that moment she didn't look like a doctor facing an anomaly. She looked like a woman standing beside a man who might lose his son.
"I don't know," she said honestly. "But I will do everything I possibly can to get him back on his feet."
Weaver nodded, the motion small.
"Thank you, Doctor."
He returned to the bedside immediately.
Allium lay still, breath shallow but steady. In sleep, his features softened.
If you looked closely, it almost seemed like he was smiling.
END EPISODE 14 — "AFTER THE TAKING"