It wasn't a physical impact. It was a mental drowning. I felt a billion lives crash into my mind at once. I felt the grief of a dying sun. The rage of a betrayed soldier. The fear of a child in the dark.
My vision went white. I couldn't feel Dax. I couldn't feel the Origin-Code. I was being overwritten by the sheer volume of the Nullity's sorrow.
Give in, the voices whispered. Become the static.
I felt myself drifting. It would be so easy to just... stop. To become a face in the pillar. To sleep.
Then, I felt a hand.
It was rough. Calloused. Warm. It cut through the cold static like a torch.
"Mia!" Dax’s voice roared in my mind, not a whisper, but a command. "Don't you dare leave me here with these ghosts!"
I opened my eyes.
Dax was holding my hand, his phased form glowing with a f
