Elissia yanked Skye into her cell and slammed the door shut behind them. The metal bars rattled, but the lock held.

Skye stumbled, his body sluggish, as if the gas was seeping into every cell of his being. His head felt heavy, his thoughts slow and syrupy.

“It’s designed to keep us sedated at all times,” Elissia said sharply, her gaze fixed on the faint mist swirling in the corridor. “The gas won’t kill you, but you’ll never be clear. Always wandering through a fog.”

Skye clutched his head, trying to force clarity into his mind.

Jaylon needed me—or at least, he wanted to use me. Why would he send me down here just to die?

“He’ll come for us,” Skye said weakly, his voice trembling with an almost childlike hope. It sounded pathetic, even to him—like a child calling out for an absent, deadbeat father.

Elissia’s expression softened, but only slightly. “The Spaceman cares about one thing: getting off this rock. You’re just a tool to him, useful until you’re not.”

She gripped the cell door bars tightly, her knuckles white, as Skye shook his head.

No, it doesn’t make any sense.

But the gas fogged his mind, making it impossible to piece anything together. Every thought felt distant like it was slipping through his fingers.

A voice boomed from the hallway making the stone walls vibrate.

“Fresh meat…”

Skye could feel the cell shake with every monstrous footfall. Whoever, or whatever, was approaching.

Skye and Elissia backed into the corner of the cell as two glaring eyes, like smoldering embers, stared through the bars. Skye froze. The figure that loomed before them—if it had once been a man—had long since lost its humanity.

It stood over seven feet tall, a grotesque patchwork of mismatched flesh and sinew, stitched and stapled together like a nightmarish doll. Its skin stretched unevenly across bulging muscles, with jagged seams holding the grotesque creation in place.

“His eyes.” The creature’s lips pulled back into something resembling a grin, revealing uneven rows of jagged, yellow teeth. “Give them to me.”

With a sound like grinding steel, the monster wrapped its massive hands around the bars and pulled. The metal creaked, bending under its impossible strength. Dust and stone rained down from the ceiling as the door threatened to tear free from its hinges.

“I just want its eyes…” The Creature rumbled again, its voice shifting unnervingly between childlike eagerness and the rasp of the elderly.

“And what do I get in return?” Elissia’s tone shifted, cold and calculating. “He’s in my cell. That makes him mine.”

What is she doing? Skye’s thoughts were sluggish, struggling to form coherence through the gas-induced haze.

The Creature roared, the sound reverberating down the corridor as it rattled the cell doors. “Just give me its eyes!”

“You know that’s not how this works,” Elissia said, her voice stern but unsettlingly calm.

The Creature grunted, bending low to the ground. From a filthy sack slung over its shoulder, it produced a small green vial. The liquid inside shimmered faintly, casting an eerie light across the cell. Elissia’s eyes flicked to the vial, and for the first time, there was a glint of something close to interest.

“Just his eyes?” she asked, her voice soft, almost curious.

The Creature Nodded.

What is she talking about? It sounds like she’s trying to make a deal. The thought burned in Skye’s mind, desperate and panicked. Elissia turned toward him, her expression shifting into something monstrous, her features twisted with dark intent.

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“I told you, you would suffer,” she said simply.

Before Skye could react, she moved with inhuman speed, her hand darting out and gripping him by the nape of his neck. Her strength was terrifying, her hold unyielding. Skye struggled, but it was like fighting against iron chains. Elissia moved them closer, and with a flick of her knife, she opened the lock before quickly retreating. She moved around with Skye like he was some marionette puppet.

The Creature opened the cell with an ease that made Skye’s stomach drop. It placed the green vial delicately in the corner of the room. Elissia gave it a slight nod, signaling it to approach.

“What are you doing?” Skye’s voice cracked as he fought to twist out of her grip. “Stop! Let me go!”

But Elissia didn’t flinch. Her cold eyes bore into him.

The Creature stepped forward, its patchwork face contorting with excitement. “Your eyes…” it whispered, the pitch of its voice shifting erratically. “So… pretty.”

Skye thrashed, panic giving way to a rising wave of rage. He had been foolish to trust Jaylon, to follow his instructions blindly, to step into this nightmare without fully grasping its dangers. But it was the gas, he thought bitterly. The damn gas clouded his mind, dulling his instincts.

Skye’s chest heaved, his breaths shallow and uneven. And then—something shifted.

A memory flashed through his mind: Jaylon’s fury, his cold, calculated hatred of this planet and everything on it. Skye felt the weight of that anger. He understood it. Everyone on Gehanna—everything—was a monstrosity. A parasite undeserving of life.

Even The Structure, the sanctuary they had fought so hard to protect, was only a temporary reprieve. How long before someone—something—tore down its walls and massacred the people within?

No. Skye’s vision began to darken at the edges, his heart pounding like a war drum. He felt the cell’s oppressive atmosphere shift, his rage bubbling just beneath the surface, threatening to spill over.

But it was too late.

The Creature’s gnarled fingers, grotesquely long and segmented like an insect’s legs, reached for Skye’s face. He thrashed, pulling and yanking with every ounce of strength he had, but Elissia’s grip was iron.

“None of our races survived Gehanna. We’re the last of our kind. Too brutal even for this hellhole, so they locked us here.” she hissed as her fingernails dug deeper into his shoulders, anchoring him in place, her words dripping venom.

When will I learn…

Rage boiled inside Skye once again. It wasn’t directed at Elissia, nor Jaylon, but at himself.

When will I learn… He thought again.

He’d seen the horrors of this world, layers upon layers of this living hell, each worse than the last. Before Skye could form another thought. The Creature’s jagged fingernail pierced his left eye.

He screamed, his voice raw and animalistic as agony tore through him. The Creature plucked the eye from its socket with a sickening precision, holding it aloft as if hoisting a trophy. Blood streamed down Skye’s cheek, hot and blinding.

“Pretty eyes…” it rasped, its voice a grotesque symphony of childlike glee and malice.

Skye collapsed to a knee, his entire body trembling. Pain swallowed him whole, but Elissia hauled him back to his feet, her grip unrelenting. His thoughts drifted to Bryn, Dorian, and Myka. To The Structure. To safety. He was building a mind fortress in his head, as he’d been trained to do to withstand the pain from torture. As he retreated into his mind, he heard a voice as clear as day.

You mustn’t give up so easily.

Do not disappoint me.

It was Reikner — but how?

His mentor’s voice cut through everything else, sharp and cold.

Was all our training for nothing? Did you learn anything? You are destined to protect The Structure. Your people. You aren’t this weak.

Skye tried to lift his head, to search for the source of the voice, but Elissia wrenched it forward, holding him steady. The Creature’s grotesque hand loomed closer, its clawed fingers angling for his remaining eye.

When will you finally use your Brilliance? When it’s too late? When everyone you care for is gone? When there’s no one left to save?

“I don’t know how,” Skye muttered, barely audible.

“What did you say, boy?” Elissia snapped, yanking his head back so hard his neck burned. “Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll take your tongue too.”

You’re so worried about learning to control it when all you need to do is unleash it. There is no one to save here. No one to protect. This place deserves only destruction. Destroy it. Destroy them. Kill them all.

Skye’s breath hitched, the words lodging in his throat.

“Kill them all…” he whispered, the words escaping before he could stop them.

Elissia’s eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?” She yanked his head back further, wrenching his gaze away from the Creature. She pulled a small blade from her belt.

“I told you to keep quiet,” she snarled, forcing the blade between his teeth. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

The Creature froze mid-reach, its grotesque features twisting in confusion. The gas thickened, the oppressive fog swirling faster.

Skye’s remaining eye burned, his veins alight with searing heat. The edges of his vision darkened, the room itself dimming as if the light were being consumed.

You don’t need control. All you need is rage.

The knife in Elissia’s hand wavered as her expression shifted to unease. She felt it. She could sense it.

“Stop this,” she commanded, her voice faltering. The blade in her hand darted toward Skye’s neck, a single slice aimed at ending his life.

Almost unconsciously, his training reflexes kicked in, Skye flung his forearm up, protecting his neck as the blade dug deeply into his arm.

You hate them. You hate them all. Destroy them.

The darkness spread, the cell consumed by shadow, and Skye’s breath steadied. The pain in his missing eye faded into the background, overtaken by a wave of clarity and something primal, something furious.

The Creature stumbled and took a solitary step backward in retreat and Elissia’s grip loosened for the first time.

And then, Skye moved.