After a few more hours and several failed attempts to blast that creature from existence, Norn finally woke up.

“Fuck! It took you forever!”

“Fuck you, Kai! You know how much DNA damage I had to correct?! At least you secured some samples!! By the way, why is the nest inside a digestion pool?”

I explained to her the issue with the spider nest we hit and how those creatures began invading our own nest. And then I told her about using the parasites to attack the spiders, reaching the current situation where we were blocked by a hybrid of both species.

“I think I follow the general idea. Well, give me a few more hours, and I will unlock our next path and some units.”

“We have no time… Can you use this core?!”

I moved through the nest and showed Norn the partially corrupted core. It was a crystalline structure that we secured from the corrupted spider and had a considerable energy accumulation.

“Host, that energy source is tainted and could aggravate your soul deterioration. The AI precisely choose a Norn body to hold your soul through the Tyranid’s psychic powers.”

I listen to Darwin, and what he implies is that a minor body would burn out near immediately. That would explain the energy outbursts I had a few days back. I guess that as this body grows stronger, I will be able to control better any corruption powers that might remain within me.

“Norn? What do you say? We are running out of time.”

“Sigh… I can do it, Kai. But we risk losing everything if this goes wrong.”

I frown, and the nest suddenly starts to reinforce the walls. Then, the biomass that was accumulated starts to inundate the chamber.

Following my instincts, I tried to relax and empty my mind, knowing that whatever was about to come was going to be painful.

“When you’re ready, put the core next to your chest and release all your energy into it. After the process starts, we won’t be able to stop it.”

As the chamber kept getting filled with what seems amniotic fluid, I cracked my neck and approached the core towards my body. Breathing one last time, I opened my six eyes, and psychic energy started to accumulate inside the chamber.

The core seemed to react to it immediately and soon started to release its energy, adding more and more temperature and pressure at the modified nest.

I noticed how the temperature was reaching a dangerous level, but kept releasing all my energy as Norn said. I gritted and started to growl in pain, yet kept enduring the process.

As the core emptied part of the corruption to the nest, I started to hear whispers, like old fragments of my memory, returning to me.

But one word was repeated non-stop.

... Consum ...

My eyes began to overload with psychic energy, trying to replicate what Darwin did to counteract the aura released by the corrupted octopus back in the cave.

Despite managing to control a small part of the energy, it was like trying to hold a river with my hands, totally useless. All I knew was that I was losing control of the core.

I tried to cut the energy release from my body, but it seemed like the process had linked itself with the core, and both released energy faster and faster.

“Norn?! Darwin!! Are you there?!”

I tried asking for help, but either they were keeping silent, or I was somewhat psychically isolated from our synapse mind.

That made me feel alone for a second. It was weird not to have other presences with me at all times. Wait, that was not right. Was it?

I wasn’t sure, and that voice keeps repeating over and over weird words in a language I didn’t understand. It felt strange, fluid, and changing, nearly alive. But utterly wrong.

The pressure inside the nest kept rising, as the energy accumulated turned the amniotic fluid to the point of boiling. I started screaming, yet it served nothing. All I could do was endure.

--------------

I woke up in a green field, with a starry sky.

Shaking my head, I slowly stood up, and gradually noticed that I had two legs again, and two hands, but as I tried to look at them, I couldn’t count my fingers accurately.

Some details were shifting, but I didn’t care.

When I looked up into the sky, I noticed that there was a moon. I didn’t see it before.

It was captivating, but something weird began to happen.

The moon seemed to be growing, little by little, filling me with confusion and the feeling that something was not normal.

I walked a hill upwards and noticed patches of dead trees, opened flowers, and even a few trees with icicles falling from its leafless branches.

But I kept moving upwards, and when I reached the top of the hill, I saw the moon had grown bigger, from the size of a coin to that of a ball.

The details from its surface were much more notorious. The craters, valleys, and even scars were visible at plain sight.

I then noticed some pulse or tremor. I looked left and right and saw that the trees now started to shift like shadows, and once I turned to look at the moon, its scars were even more profound and pronounced. It was gleaming with a red and purple light of its own, and it gave the forest an eerie and unnatural vibe.

The light embezzled me, and I kept standing at the top of the hill as the forest shifted, the shadows growing from the dead trees like tumors and the wood cracking as it leads open passages to dark and hidden creatures.

I could hear it, but my eyes were fixed as the moon was growing bigger, closer at each passing second. From the dark-red aura of the moon, I noticed how shadows started to move at the sides of my sight. I wanted to look at them, run from here, but couldn’t move.

My consciousness began to blur as the moon got closer and closer until all that remained was a vast, black, and red scorched moon on my sight.

The scars on the surface keep growing until they resemblance an eye, and I feel how it was looking right at me, deep into my soul. And I could feel something awakening inside me.

... Consume ...

I couldn’t close my eyes.

I had to look at that moon approaching, growing, and felt the pressure and certainty of death at every passing second.

And as I was trapped in the moon’s light, another pulse of energy shattered the illusion.

“AGHH!! Ahhh! W-what is wrong!?”

Deep inside my chest, something began to move. It was cold and alien-like. It didn’t belong to me. Yet it was moving inside my ribs, without any heartbeat, but alive.

“aH!! I-I have to take it out! I need to take it out of me!!”

I started to scratch, desperately, madly, looking to my chest as a grey and red stain that looked like a bruise started to grow. My nails scratched my skin, making me bleed, but I didn’t stop.

* Thump!!

With a tremendous noise, I felt my rib cage being hit from inside like something wanted to exit. My whole body trembled, and pain aroused like never before, like something had cracked.

As the pain grew more significant, I fell on my knees, shouting from the pain I was suffering, I looked back at the moon, and it started collapsing revealing something under its surface.

It swallowed the light, reflecting nothingness, but there was something there, moving and waiting to pass to this side. I could feel it in my soul.

Black tears began to fall from my eyes as my ribcage kept being broken, bruises, and veins were exploding and forming a bloody symbol on my chest.

The liquid burned on my skin, and whatever was lurking under my ribs didn’t like it, as it started to move more violently.

A terrible and scorching burning sensation assaulted me, and I had the urge to scratch, to rip apart my chest to take away whatever was crawling there.

But once I approached my hands to my chest, I got burned by whatever mark was being written in my flesh. It twisted and morphed, changing and adapting like a living lock to the corruption spreading from the depths of my soul.

* Thump!!

The moon pulsated once more, and I fell to the ground. My chest kept hurting and burning, as something was seeking deeply inside, and the burning pain from outside did not recede.

But I could breathe again, and each time, it made it recede, taking a fraction of the pain and cleansing me. A few minutes later, it was over.

I turned and looked at the sky and the forest. It was just a forest, with just bushes and trees.

And the moon was nothing but a little coin-sized light in the sky.

I moved my hand upright, trying to catch it, failing even to lift it properly. I sighed and rose it again, and at the second try, I noticed four shadows lurking in the shadows nearby. “Who are y-”

But then, as an unconscious act, I grabbed the moon from the sky.

I looked towards the shadows, but before I could comprehend what they were and what was happening, the dream shattered, and I woke up.