Chapter 3: The Wreckage

The twin growls of their motorcycles tore through the morning quiet long before Rick and Shane actually saw the southern culvert. They rode hard, pushing their bikes over the gravel road with a reckless speed that sent stones skittering into the underbrush. Rick led, his eyes scanning ahead for any sign of Daryl’s Triumph, for the familiar shape of his omega leaning against a tree and rolling his eyes at their frantic arrival.

They found the bike first.

It lay on its side in the muddy ditch beside the road, looking like a wounded animal. Chrome and black steel were smeared with Georgia clay, the rear wheel still pointing uselessly at the sky. The handlebars were twisted at an unnatural angle, and the engine ticked softly as it cooled. The stand was still kicked down, bent now from the impact.

Rick killed his engine so fast the bike nearly stalled. He swung off before it had fully stopped, boots hitting the ground with a heavy thud that sank into the soft shoulder. He didn’t run to the Triumph. He just stood there for a second, staring at it, because seeing it like that—wrecked and abandoned—made something cold solidify in his gut.

Shane pulled up beside him, his own engine cutting off. “Jesus,” he breathed, the word more exhale than sound.

They both knew Daryl would never leave his bike like this. Not unless he couldn’t move it. Not unless he couldn’t move at all.

Rick walked over, his steps slow and deliberate like he was approaching a crime scene, which honestly he probably was. He crouched by the downed motorcycle, his fingers brushing over the bent handlebar. The ignition was empty. Daryl had taken the key. That was something, at least—a small, stupid detail that meant he’d been conscious and thinking when he parked it. But then someone or something had kicked it over. The dent in the frame just below the seat wasn’t from a simple fall. It was a deep, inward crumple of metal, the kind made by a single massive impact.

“Something hit it,” Rick said, his voice flat. “Hard.”

Shane was already moving past the bike, his eyes sweeping the wider clearing. The woods were too quiet again, that same oppressive silence from earlier clinging to the pines. He headed toward the creek bed and the concrete mouth of the culvert.

That’s where he found the knife.

Daryl’s hunting knife stood upright in the mud near the water’s edge, plunged deep into the earth as if planted there like a marker. The worn leather handle was dark with moisture, and the blade caught a sliver of morning light.

Around it, the ground told a story Rick didn’t want to read.

The earth was churned up in a wide, violent radius. Boot prints—Daryl’s boots, Rick recognized the tread pattern instantly—scuffed and dragged through the muck. There were other prints too, strange ones that made no sense. They looked like something between a bird’s claw and a crab’s pincer, multiple points digging deep into the soft soil, arranged in sets that suggested more than two legs.

And there were patches of ground that weren’t just mud. They were blackened, as if seared by a chemical burn or an intense, localized heat. Thin tendrils of acrid smoke still rose from one patch near the knife, carrying a smell that made Rick’s nose wrinkle—ozone and something acidic, like burnt plastic mixed with ammonia. It was entirely foreign, entirely wrong for these woods.

Shane knelt by one of the blackened spots, careful not to touch it. “What the hell burns dirt like that?”

“Nothing good,” Rick muttered, finally leaving the bike to join him by the creek.

His eyes kept tracing the patterns in the mud. The drag marks were clear enough—deep gouges leading from where Daryl’s boots had dug in during a struggle straight back toward the culvert tunnel. They ended right at the tunnel’s dark entrance.

But it was what hovered at that entrance that finally pulled Rick’s gaze upward and held it.

At first he thought it was a trick of the light, maybe moisture evaporating from the cool concrete in the warming air. But morning haze didn’t pulse.

A faint shimmer hung in the air just inside the culvert’s mouth, distorting the view of the tunnel’s curved interior like heat waves rising from asphalt on a summer day. Except this shimmer had a color to it, a barely-there ripple of amber and pale blue light that seemed to breathe in and out with a slow, steady rhythm. It didn’t look like anything natural. It looked like a wound in reality itself, left behind and slowly healing—or maybe festering.

“Shane,” Rick said, his voice low.

Shane followed his gaze. He saw it too. His body went still, every muscle tensing like a spring coiling tight. “What is that?”

“I don’t know.” Rick took a step closer to the culvert entrance, his hand drifting unconsciously to the pistol holstered at his hip. The shimmering field pulsed again, the light within it brightening for a fraction of a second before fading back to that faint distortion. It was anchored right at the threshold of the tunnel, as if marking a doorway.

Shane moved to examine the ground directly in front of it. The strange chitinous footprints were everywhere here, overlapping and chaotic from what must have been multiple creatures moving around. And they all led in one direction: straight into that shimmering distortion. The drag marks ended there too, vanishing right at the edge of the warped light as if whatever had been dragged had passed through a curtain and disappeared.

“Footprints go right into it,” Shane said, standing up. His face had lost all its earlier exasperation, replaced by a grim focus that made him look older. “All of them. And look—the drag marks stop here.” He pointed at the mud where the gouges simply ended at the shimmer’s boundary.

Rick’s mind raced through possibilities, each one worse than the last. Some kind of advanced camouflage? A transport field? Nothing from any human military or even SHIELD files he’d ever glimpsed looked like this. The smell, the burned earth, the alien footprints—it all pointed somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“They took him through there,” Rick said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Shane nodded once, a sharp jerk of his chin. His eyes were fixed on the pulsating light. “Seems like.”

They both fell silent for a moment, standing there in the mud beside Daryl’s abandoned knife while that unnatural shimmer pulsed softly in the shadow of the culvert. The normal sounds of the woods were creeping back in—a distant birdcall, the gurgle of creek water—but they felt thin and false now, like a backdrop painted over something monstrous.

Rick’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm that screamed at him to move, to act, to do anything but stand here looking at evidence of his omega being taken by things that shouldn’t exist. The scent-marks on his own skin from that morning felt like a cruel joke now—a territorial claim that had meant nothing against whatever had come out of nowhere and just… harvested him.

He took another step toward the culvert entrance. The shimmer brightened slightly as he approached, as if sensing his presence.

“Rick,” Shane said, a warning edge in his tone.

“They went through,” Rick said without turning around. “The tracks don’t come back out. He’s on the other side of whatever this is.”

“We don’t know what’s on the other side.”

“I know Daryl’s there.” Rick finally looked back at Shane, meeting his gaze across the few yards of muddy ground between them. The fear was there in both their eyes, sharp and cold, but underneath it was something older—a shared understanding forged through years of bad decisions and worse odds. They had built a life together with Daryl at its center, a messy, complicated life that worked despite everything. Letting something take him without following was simply not an option.

Shane held his look for another second before his shoulders dropped half an inch in resignation. He gave another curt nod. “Alright.” He moved to stand beside Rick, both of them facing that rippling doorway of light hanging in the dark mouth of the culvert. “But we go together. Fast.”

Rick drew his pistol, checking the chamber out of pure habit even though he had no idea if bullets would matter where they were going. Shane did the same with his own weapon.

The shimmer pulsed again, waiting.

Rick took a deep breath that did nothing to calm the frantic beat of his heart. He glanced once more at Daryl’s knife standing upright in the mud like a grave marker they refused to accept.

Then he stepped forward into the light.

The light didn’t burn. It didn’t feel like anything at all, which was somehow worse. One moment Rick was stepping into the distorted air at the culvert’s mouth, the smell of mud and ozone filling his nose. The next, all sensation vanished—no sound, no smell, no feeling of ground under his boots. There was only a silent, rushing vertigo, a sense of being pulled forward through a tunnel of amber and blue static that stretched and compressed around him. His body felt weightless and disjointed, like it had been taken apart into molecules and was being shoved through a sieve.

It lasted maybe two heartbeats.

Then solidity slammed back into him all at once. His boots hit a floor with a metallic clang that echoed sharply. The vertigo twisted into a nauseating lurch in his stomach. He stumbled forward a step, throwing out a hand to brace himself against a wall he couldn’t yet see properly, his vision swimming with afterimages of pulsing light.

The wall was cool and smooth under his palm, utterly seamless, with a faint vibration humming through it. The air was different—sterile and recycled, tasting thin and metallic on his tongue. It carried a faint, clean chemical scent, like a hospital after everything organic had been scrubbed away.

His vision cleared.

He was standing in a corridor. It wasn’t like any hallway he’d ever seen. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made from the same dull silver alloy, seamless and glowing with a soft, sourceless internal light that made shadows look weak and sickly. The corridor stretched away in both directions, perfectly straight and featureless, disappearing into identical gloom about fifty feet either way. There were no doors, no panels, no light fixtures—just that endless, glowing metal.

Behind him came a sharp intake of breath and another heavy boot hitting metal.

Rick turned. Shane had materialized right where he’d been standing a second before, his body tense and coiled as he fought the same disorientation. He blinked rapidly, his pistol held low but ready as he took in their surroundings with a swift, sweeping glance that missed nothing.

“What the hell is this place?” Shane muttered, his voice sounding too loud in the sterile quiet.

Before Rick could even attempt an answer—not that he had one—the space where they’d appeared rippled one last time. The air shimmered with that same amber-blue distortion for a fraction of a second, a faint afterimage of the doorway they’d stepped through. Then it collapsed inward with a silent, visual snap, like a soap bubble popping without sound. The distortion vanished completely, leaving only the seamless silver wall behind it.

Rick lunged forward without thinking, his hand slapping against the spot where the portal had been. His palm met cool, solid, unyielding metal. He ran his fingers over it, searching for a seam, a temperature difference, anything. There was nothing. It was just wall. The exit was gone.

Trapped. The word landed in his mind with a cold, heavy finality.

Shane was already at his side, examining the same patch of wall with a grim focus. “It’s sealed.”

“No kidding,” Rick said, the words coming out sharper than he intended. He forced himself to take a step back, to look down the corridor in both directions again. Both ends looked identical. Both ended in the same featureless gloom. No signs, no markings, no indication of which way led out or deeper in.

The silence was absolute now that their own movements had stilled. It was a pressurized quiet, the kind that felt like it was pressing in on his eardrums. The only sound was the faint, almost sub-audible hum vibrating through the floor—a ship’s engine, maybe, or some kind of power source.

“Ship,” Rick said aloud, testing the word. It fit the sterile environment, the vibration, the trapped feeling. “We’re on a ship.”

Shane nodded slowly, still scanning their prison. “Not one of ours.”

That much was obvious. No human design was this seamless, this impersonal. There was no consideration for comfort or orientation here, just pure function. The air was cool enough to raise goosebumps on his arms under his jacket, a climate-controlled chill that had nothing to do with weather.

Panic wanted to rise then—a sharp, clawing thing in his chest at the thought of being sealed in a metal box god-knew-where with no way back. He crushed it down by focusing on what mattered: Daryl had come through that portal too. The drag marks proved it. So Daryl was somewhere in this maze of glowing metal.

“He’s here,” Rick said, more to himself than to Shane.

“Yeah,” Shane agreed quietly. He finally holstered his pistol, though his hand stayed near the grip. A gun felt like a stupidly primitive tool in this place, but it was the only one they had. “Question is where.”

They stood there for another moment in the center of the corridor, back-to-back by unspoken agreement so they could watch both directions at once. The utter lack of landmarks was disorienting; without the vanished portal spot as a reference, they could have been facing the way they came or deeper into the ship for all they knew.

Rick took a deep breath of the thin, chemical air. It didn’t help. “We can’t stay here.”

“Pick a direction,” Shane said. There was no point debating it. Staying put meant waiting for whatever owned this hallway to find them.

Rick looked left, then right. Both were equally blank and terrifying. He pointed arbitrarily to the right—the direction where he thought the culvert’s interior would have been if the geometry of their world still applied here, which it probably didn’t. “This way.”

They started walking, their boots ringing softly on the metallic floor. The sound seemed too loud in the silence, broadcasting their position to anything listening. They moved with cautious steps, staying close to one wall though it offered no cover whatsoever.

The corridor didn’t change. Every ten feet looked exactly like the last ten feet—same glowing walls, same height and width, same empty space ahead. It felt less like walking and more like being on a treadmill while someone scrolled the same background image past them endlessly.

After what felt like five minutes but could have been thirty seconds in this sensory-deprivation chamber of a hallway, Shane spoke again, his voice low. “You see that?”

Rick followed his gaze to the wall they were walking beside. At first it looked no different. Then he noticed it—a slight variation in the glow. A section of the wall about twenty feet ahead seemed slightly brighter than the rest, as if something behind it was shining through more intensely.

They slowed their approach, moving more carefully now. As they drew closer, the brighter section resolved into a rectangular panel set flush with the wall itself. It wasn’t a door—there was no seam or handle—but it was definitely a distinct piece of the architecture, about four feet wide and three feet tall.

And it was transparent.

Not glass exactly—it had that same faint internal glow as the walls—but clear enough to see through.

Rick reached it first and stopped dead.

On the other side of the transparent panel was a room.

It was larger than the corridor and lit with a brighter, harsher white light that made everything look stark and shadowless. The walls here were the same alloy but interrupted by banks of unfamiliar machinery—smooth consoles with surfaces that shimmered with alien glyphs instead of buttons or screens.

In the center of the room stood a raised platform that looked less like an operating table and more like an industrial restraint fixture. And strapped to it, secured by glowing bands of amber energy across his chest, thighs, and wrists, was Daryl.

He was unconscious or sedated—his head lolled to one side, his eyes closed. His clothes were torn at the shoulder and across his back where dark stains of blood had seeped through the fabric. His face was pale under the harsh light.

Worse were the machines around him. Several slender, jointed mechanical arms extended from the ceiling and walls, their tips holding instruments that looked surgical and cruel—needle-like probes, rotating saws no bigger than a pencil but gleaming sharp, suction cups connected to clear tubing. They hovered around Daryl’s body in a frozen ballet of imminent violation, poised but not yet moving.

An automated process seemed to be initializing; lights pulsed along the consoles in rhythmic sequences of blue and white.

Rick’s breath caught in his throat so hard it hurt. He slammed his palms against the transparent panel instinctively before he could stop himself.

The material didn’t budge or even vibrate under the impact. It felt solid as a mountainside.

“Daryl!” His shout was muffled by the barrier, swallowed by the corridor’s eerie acoustics.

Inside the room, Daryl didn’t stir. The machines continued their silent pulse.

Shane was beside him now, his face pressed close to the panel too, his expression a mask of horror and rage so raw it looked like it might crack his skin open. “They’re gonna cut him apart,” he whispered hoarsely.

Rick scanned the edges of the panel desperately, looking for a control surface or seam they could pry at. Nothing but smooth metal fused seamlessly with wall.

His mind raced through useless options—shoot the panel? Try to find another way in? Every second those machines hovered over Daryl felt like sand pouring through an hourglass toward something irreversible.

He never heard them coming.

The sound registered first as a faint clicking from behind them down the corridor—a rapid-fire series of taps against metal that grew steadily louder even as he processed it.

Rick spun around from the viewport just as Shane did the same.

From one end of the featureless hallway—the direction opposite from where they’d come—three figures scuttled into view.

They were insect-like things built on a humanoid scale but all wrong: six limbs moving in unsettling unison as they advanced with liquid speed over the floor. Two of those limbs were held up like weapons—long blades of blackened chitin that looked sharp enough to slice through bone without slowing down. Their faces were smooth carapace with dark pits for eyes that reflected none of the corridor’s light.

Vaxis Drones.

Rick raised his pistol automatically even as his brain struggled to categorize what he was seeing as real.

From the other end of the hallway came another sound—a soft rustle like silk dragging over metal mixed with something wetter and organic shifting inside itself.

They both turned their heads toward that new threat.

A taller figure glided into view from that direction as well, moving with an impossible grace that made Rick’s stomach clench again for different reasons now entirely about survival itself being threatened beyond any normal fight-or-flight response humans evolved for dealing with predators on Earth which this clearly wasn't anymore anyway so evolution didn't matter here at all really when you got right down to thinking about it which you shouldn't do right now because you need to move but your body feels frozen between two impossible choices both ending badly probably within seconds actually if past performance is any indicator given how Daryl ended up strapped down bleeding on an alien slab just behind this useless window right here where you can't help him at all—

The taller figure stopped about thirty feet away blocking any retreat back toward where they'd started if there even was such concept anymore anymore as "back" given how sealed everything seemed now completely without hope honestly unless someone figured something out fast which needed happening immediately starting right now maybe by shooting something maybe—

It stood easily nine feet tall with an elongated frame stretched thin like taffy pulled too hard before setting into wrong proportions permanently somehow still managing look vaguely humanoid if humans had no noses just vertical slits for mouths and eyes placed sideways on their heads watching you from both directions simultaneously which made focusing difficult when trying aim your weapon effectively under pressure while also keeping track three other bladed creatures closing fast from behind already almost within striking distance judging by how quickly they covered ground without seeming hurry about it at all just efficient movement toward prey obviously considered already captured just needing subdued first before processing began likely similar fashion to what happening behind window there where Daryl lay helpless—

Trapped between advancing Drones one way and that silent watching Harrow other way with no exit visible anywhere except maybe death which didn't count as exit so much as endpoint really not ideal situation overall truthfully speaking here inside head where panic started winning arguments against logic finally breaking through last defenses now completely—

Rick met Shane's eyes across eighteen inches corridor space filled only with shared terror understanding this might be last thing they ever saw together before everything ended badly very soon indeed probably within next few breaths actually unless miracle occurred which seemed unlikely given current circumstances frankly speaking—

The clicking scuttle from behind grew louder urgent final warning before impact—

The Harrow raised one too-long finger pointing directly at them its sideways eyes unblinking—

—and everything narrowed down to this single moment suspended between horrors both known unknown equally deadly closing fast from both ends now finally—

The clicking from the Drones became a rapid-fire percussion, the sound of multiple hard points striking metal in perfect sync. It wasn’t a warning. It was the countdown.

Rick tore his gaze from the impossible tableau of Daryl on the other side of the window and the looming Harrow at the corridor’s end. Survival demanded he focus on the immediate threat first, which meant the three insectoid creatures scuttling toward them from behind with bladed forelimbs already raised for a strike.

He raised his pistol, his mind discarding any hope of negotiation or understanding. These things were built for harvesting, not conversation. He aimed center-mass on the lead Drone and fired.

The gunshot was obscenely loud in the enclosed metal space, a flat, ear-ringing crack that echoed down the corridor. The bullet sparked against the Drone’s chitinous chest plate with a sharp ping, leaving a silvery dent but failing to penetrate. The creature didn’t flinch or slow. It just kept coming.

“Aim for the joints!” Shane barked, his own pistol coming up. He fired twice in quick succession. One shot went wide, ricocheting off the wall with a whine. The second struck where a bladed limb met the main body.

A wet crunch echoed the gunshot. Black fluid erupted from the wound, smoking as it hit the air with that same acidic, ammonia-copper stench from the woods. The Drone’s limb spasmed, the blade dropping to hang limp. It made no sound, but its advance stuttered for half a step.

It wasn’t enough. The other two Drones were already within ten feet, closing the distance with that unsettling, scuttling speed. Behind them, the Harrow began to glide forward as well, its elongated form moving silently and with an unnerving grace that suggested it was in no hurry. It had them cornered.

Rick fired again at the joint of another Drone’s weapon-limb. He missed, the bullet sparking off the shoulder plating. The creature was on him before he could adjust his aim.

A bladed limb swept downward in a diagonal slash aimed at his throat. He threw himself backward, his spine slamming against the transparent viewport with a thud that vibrated through his bones. The black chitin blade whistled past his face, missing by inches and scoring a deep gouge in the metal wall beside his head.

Shane lunged at the Drone from the side, not with his gun—too close now—but with a brutal kick aimed at its middle set of legs. His boot connected with a solid thump. The creature’s balance faltered, its multiple limbs scrambling for purchase on the smooth floor.

The third Drone went for Shane while he was committed to the kick. Its blade arced toward his exposed back.

“Shane, down!” Rick shouted, bringing his pistol up again.

Shane dropped into a crouch, letting the blade pass over his head. Rick fired over him. The bullet took the attacking Drone in one of its dark eye-pits. There was a sickening pop, like a grape bursting under pressure. The creature reeled back, black fluid gushing from the ruined socket. It stumbled into its companion, their limbs tangling for a chaotic second.

It bought them maybe three seconds of breathing room.

Rick used it to glance desperately back through the viewport. Inside the medical bay, one of the slender robotic arms had descended closer to Daryl’s still form. A needle-like probe extended from its tip, glowing with a faint blue light at its point. It hovered inches above Daryl’s sternum, right where an omega’s heart-light would pulse under his skin if he were conscious.

A fresh wave of terror, colder and sharper than any fear for his own life, lanced through Rick’s chest. They were out of time in every possible way.

He turned back to the corridor just as the Harrow reached them.

It didn’t attack. It stopped about fifteen feet away, well out of melee range, its sideways eyes observing them with a detached, analytical curiosity that was somehow more terrifying than rage would have been. Its long fingers held a crystalline device similar to the one used in the woods, though this one was smaller, more compact.

The two functional Drones had recovered and now flanked Rick and Shane, their bladed limbs held ready but not striking. They were waiting for a command.

The corridor fell into a tense, humming silence broken only by Rick’s and Shane’s ragged breathing and the faint sizzle of black blood dripping from the wounded Drone’s face.

The Harrow’s vertical slit of a mouth didn’t move, but a voice emanated from it anyway—a synthesized sound that was flat and genderless, devoid of any inflection that might suggest emotion or intent.

“Specimen Omega-Prime is undergoing preliminary analysis,” it stated. The words were English, perfectly pronounced and utterly cold. “Interference is non-permissible.”

“Let him go,” Rick snarled, raising his pistol to aim at the Harrow’s elongated head. His finger tightened on the trigger.

The Harrow didn’t react to the threat. One of its too-long fingers twitched on the device it held.

From the ceiling of the corridor, panels Rick hadn’t even noticed slid open with a soft hiss. Dozens of slender metallic filaments, each tipped with a glowing blue node, descended like mechanical snakes. They moved with impossible speed.

Before Rick or Shane could react, the filaments lashed out. They didn’t aim to impale or cut. They wrapped around their wrists, their ankles, their throats in gentle but unbreakable coils. The blue nodes pulsed where they made contact.

The effect was instant and absolute.

A deep, invasive numbness flooded Rick’s body where the filaments touched, spreading outward like ice water injected directly into his veins. His right arm—the one holding the pistol—went rigid first. His fingers spasmed open against his will. The pistol clattered to the metal floor with a loud clang that echoed mockingly in the quiet.

He tried to move his left arm, to reach for one of the filaments constricting his throat. The command left his brain but died somewhere between his shoulder and his elbow; his arm hung limp at his side, a dead weight he could no longer control. The numbness was spreading upward from his ankles too, locking his knees, creeping toward his hips. He could still feel the pressure of the floor under his boots, but he couldn’t shift his weight or take a step.

He was frozen in place, held upright only by the tension of the filaments themselves.

Beside him, Shane let out a choked grunt of fury as he fought against the same paralysis. His larger frame strained against the bonds for a second, muscles standing out in cords on his neck, but it was useless. The filaments held fast, their pulsing nodes leaching all strength and motor control away. His own pistol hit the floor a moment after Rick’s.

They were both pinned like insects in a display case, utterly helpless.

The Harrow glided closer now that they were neutralized. It stopped within arm’s reach, its sideways eyes examining them with that same clinical detachment. It leaned in slightly toward Rick, its featureless face tilting.

“Alpha designation: Primary bond-mate,” it stated, as if reading data from an invisible screen. “Secondary Alpha present. Biological imperative for retrieval noted.” The synthesized voice held no judgment, no mockery—just cold observation. “Inefficient use of resources.”

Behind the Harrow, through the viewport, Rick could see the robotic arm in the medical bay begin its descent again. The needle-probe touched Daryl’s chest right over his sternum. A faint glow emanated from the point of contact—Daryl’s omega heart-light flaring weakly under the invasive touch even through unconsciousness.

Rick tried to scream. All that came out was a strained gasp trapped behind the coil around his throat.

The Harrow followed his gaze back to the viewport. “Specimen Omega-Prime exhibits unique pheromonal signature and cellular resonance,” it explained tonelessly, as if giving a status report. “Full biological mapping is required before harvest protocols can commence.”

Harvest. The word landed in Rick’s mind like a physical blow.

The Harrow looked back at them, its head tilting to the other side in a movement that was almost birdlike. “You will be processed separately. Your genetic material may yield useful data on pack-bond aggression responses.”

It gestured with its free hand toward the two unwounded Drones.

The creatures scuttled forward obediently. They didn’t use their blades this time. Instead, they produced small cylindrical devices from slots in their carapace. With efficient movements utterly devoid of malice—which made it worse somehow—they pressed the devices against Rick’s and Shane’s necks.

There was another soft hiss of pressurized gas.

A warm, syrupy darkness flooded Rick’s system, starting at his neck and rushing outward to meet the cold numbness already holding him captive. It felt like sinking into deep water after being frozen solid—a welcome oblivion that smothered panic and fury alike.

His vision began to tunnel immediately. The harsh light of the corridor narrowed to a small circle focused on the Harrow’s impassive face before that too started to dissolve into gray static at the edges.

The last thing he saw clearly was Shane’s profile beside him—his eyes wide with helpless rage as they too began to glaze over with forced sedation—and beyond him, through that cursed transparent panel, Daryl lying motionless under the alien machines.

The last thing he heard was the Harrow’s flat voice issuing another command. “Prepare containment units for Alpha specimens.”

Then the static swallowed everything. And there was only silence. And cold. And nothing at all.