The voice was intimate, vibrating against the inner walls of Elian’s consciousness like a spider walking on a web. It wasn't just in his head. It was a rhythmic, pulsing intrusion that seemed to rewrite his neural pathways in real-time. He felt his own personality. The hacker, the nomad, the man who had lost everything, being cordoned off into a narrow corner of his own mind, while the vast, dark intelligence of Aris Thorne began to annex the rest.
"Get out!" Elian roared, his voice cracking. He didn't know if he was speaking out loud or only to the entity within.
Sarah recoiled, her hands slipping from his shoulders as a shockwave of raw static erupted from Elian's body. The damp mud beneath him hissed, turning into jagged obsidian shards as the latent energy in his veins reacted to th
