—. I knew they were waiting for me. — Padman sobbed, lying on the ground. His hands clenched on the floor, wrinkling it like a fist and desperately searching for something to hold on to —. I knew it! — the echo of the sobbing resonated through the walls, breaking the silence with its harshness. The navigator was at the feet of that sinister obelisk of flesh. Slowly, the tissue swelled with a horrifying crackle, like membranes separating, and then, with a stertorous groan, it defted like a lung. Max felt his heart in his throat as the eyes of Petrescu, Hanazawa, and the rest of the victims settled upon it. It seemed like an unconscious plea to end the suffering. But they were just reflections. If any consciousness remained, it had dissolved in the Firefly Forest. —. My God. — Satoshi muttered. —. There is no God. — Angelina corrected him. —. Padman. — Max hoped to give him some comfort. But the navigator was shattered by guilt. Tears streamed down his cheeks, glistening in the dim light, and each breath was a low, guttural moan that escaped involuntarily. Then, they felt watched. From the shadows, something approached slowly. Max turned on the Psma Saw and tried to lift Padman. But they were surrounded. As the weak glow of the fireflies bathed their bodies, they spotted their pursuers. They were not monsters, but people. Naked, they dragged their feet, moving their mouths, mumbling gibberish while extending their arms. Deformed, with elongated bodies and swollen faces, they were like homunculi lunging at them, agonizing for the mere fact of existing. —. Bring them back. — one of them pleaded, as if speaking required superhuman effort —. Bring them back. — And they recognized them. One of them was Soren Petrescu himself. It seemed they had made a parody of himself, exaggerating his features into a sinister caricature. His eyes wandered in opposite directions, and a tremendous smile formed on his mouth, overflowing with drool that dripped in streams from his lips and trickled down his chin and neck. His brown hair clung to him like fuzz, and his skull was narrow. There was no soul or consciousness within his body. He was a flesh automaton, programmed to repeat the same phrase over and over again. —. Bring them back. — he asked no one in particur. And as if made of wax, he began to melt into a pink getin that swelled and spread. With a crack, his right arm colpsed. Thus, he fell apart, until all that remained of the engineer was a trembling puddle of gel that colpsed with a soapy sound. He was not the only one. Hanazawa was there too. He advanced a few meters and colpsed in the same way, along with the others. Daimonji. Murat. Cortázar were there. The captain, Naomi, and himself. A failed copy that repeated itself, malformed and grotesque, trying to crawl towards them with a single warning. —. Bring them back. — —. No, no, no. — Padman muttered. —. Naomi, are you seeing this? — Max asked in a whisper through the communicator. The white noise responded to him —. Naomi? — —. You must take charge! — Matkovich jumped out of nowhere, waving a ser scalpel in his hands. Decrepit, with a lost look, and with cybernetic impnts sprouting from his rotting flesh. His grip was like that of a steel press, and in the struggle, they fell to the ground, with the weight of a balst. Silence. Darkness. Fireflies. When Max came to, he was lying on the floor, covered in tendrils and pulsing flesh. A sour smell pierced his nostrils, with the cloying aftertaste of decomposition. Everything spun around him, and yellowish sparks fluttered around his head. The communicator crackled with white noise. —. Naomi? — he tried to call her, but there was no response —. Naomi! — then he realized he was alone. Padman, Angelina, and Satoshi had disappeared. The darkness was gradually repced by the glow of the fireflies, which remained stubborn, like remoras. Not even closing his eyes could he escape them, and every time he did, symbols appeared burning in his brain, whispering instructions. —. You must bring us back. — the voices said. Angelina's helmet was lying on the ground. It was a bad sign. He barely had time to scream her name when a Fairy appeared. It emerged from a shelf, once filled with aeroponic potatoes, now wrapped in knots and fiments of tissue. Max stumbled over himself as the creature waved its limbs and membranous wings of a putrid yellow opened with a horrifying cacophony. A still-human face clung to a maw full of fangs, from which a hellish scream erupted. With the scream caught in his throat, Max paralyzed the beast with the Reverse Field. With fear as fuel, he ignited the Psma Saw, and tracing an arc in the air, he sliced through the ethereal prison, cutting the monster into three. The buzzing ascended through his forearms to the base of his skull, and as he deactivated the net, the pieces fell cauterized, spurting jets of pus and murky blood onto the ground. Gasping, Max surveyed the disaster, and as the severed limbs spewed forth filth in torrents, shaking in spasms. Then, vile sounds surrounded him, and when he looked up, he found himself surrounded by aberrations. Goblins. Fairies. Hounds. Entanglers, and the living sacks of the Burstlings. They approached him with nervous gestures, and horrible cracklings like giant insects. He managed to dispatch a goblin, filled with tumors and barely distinguishable as a human being. But there were too many to face. The adrenaline pumping in his blood and the survival instinct still clinging to him ordered him to run. —. Max, wait! — Naomi's voice pleaded from a distance. But when he tried to respond, the fireflies screamed at him. —. You must bring them back! — from every corner, every scream, every sound transted into that sinister order. And he had nowhere left to escape. His ankle got tangled in a protruding panel, and his face ended up hitting the ground. His consciousness completely shut down. —. Understand. This is an irreversible process, are you sure you want to do it? — warned the voice of Matías Nakamura, distant and echoing, as if they were inside a gigantic room. Max saw himself walking through a long hallway, filled with tiles and spotless white walls. A technician in a loose purple jumpsuit walked in front of him. His destination, a door, and on the other side, light. —. It is not advisable before a prolonged hypersleep period. — warned a shadowy figure behind a desk, wearing the same jumpsuit as his assistant. His figure, imposing and slender like any Martian. His face, invisible, covered by a surgical cap, sungsses, and a mask. The bluish Martian sunset backlit him as he intertwined his fingers —. Can we treat each other informally? — —. We have been talking to each other informally for a while now.. — Max heard his own voice, but it did not come from his mouth. It was like being a spectator of his own body. —. Of course. Then let's get to the point. What do you want to erase? — a chair, like those at the dentist's, was waiting for him. Next to it, the assistant, who stood obediently, inviting Max to take a seat. Cold screws held his skull while they made him bite down on a rubber. A cold, whitish light bathed his face, and the doctors around him dissolved into a nebulous stain. A needle hovered in front of his face. Sharp pain to the cerebellum. Then, nothing.When he became self-aware, he was lying down, with his head resting on a soft surface. Familiar hands were stroking his hair. When he opened his eyes, Naomi was looking at him with an inexplicable mix of tenderness and sadness. She had been crying. The tears were dry on her cheeks and her pale face. —. What happened? — then Max asked. Naomi opened her mouth to respond. He couldn't hear her. A blow brought him back to the present, along with a dull roar. He jolted upright, finding himself back in that grotesque nest. The torn torso of a fairy was spasming, oozing bright yellow blood. A crater was smoking a few meters ahead. A Bster had exploded. The screams of the beasts had transformed into a distant, incessant murmur that was impossible to escape. Groping, Max reached for the Psma Saw and turned it on without getting up. —. Naomi, can you hear me? — there was no response —. I think I'm going crazy. — a sharp pain pierced his left cornea, as if someone were drilling into his brain. Reflexively, he dropped the tool, while a torrent of symbols screamed instructions directly into his head. —. You must bring us back. — the fireflies said —. You know how. — —. To whom. — but like with Naomi, the answers refused to appear. He had to figure it out for himself. Then, as he sat up, questions battered him. —. When did I do a memory wipe? — he asked aloud, unintentionally —. What did I want to erase? — —. Max. — a familiar voice forced him to turn around, holding the Psma Saw and ready to slice. Amidst the cacophony, wet, bare footsteps were approaching slowly. The electric blue fsh of the vibrating beam outlined the contours of a slender female silhouette. The impression left Max breathless as he recognized her. It was like seeing a reflection of himself, from another dimension, from an alternate timeline where his chromosomes were XX instead of XY. A woman, who years ago was almost like two drops of water, but puberty and adulthood had taken care of differentiating. Max could recognize her among a million people. His twin sister, Lay Picard. She was naked. A silhouette of wide hips, long legs, small breasts, and an oval, delicate face. But the simirities stood out as well. A rge nose. Eyes of a greenish gray filled with nostalgia framed by thick eyebrows. Her jet-bck hair was the same shade, but hung like a sheet, with straight bangs covering her eyebrows. As she approached, Max turned off the Psma Saw and hesitantly walked towards her. The words couldn't come out of his mouth, and instead, a sob erupted from his throat, along with tears that spilled uncontrolbly. Without questioning whether she was an illusion, he pulled her against his body, giving her a hug. She remained motionless, staring into nothingness. —. Oh God, Lay! — he managed to articute —. You were supposed to be on Mars. What are you doing here? How did you get... — she responded with a drowsy voice, as if she hadn't paid attention to his question. —. Little brother. — she whispered nguidly, and then finally her eyes met Max's. A mix of sorrow, fear, and uncertainty filtered into her expression —. Why did you open the hatch? — her voice began to distort —. Why did you want to forget me...? — and before he could understand what was happening, she melted. In seconds, her body liquefied into a getinous mass that spilled between Max's arms. He screamed in horror, watching the broth that had once been his sister. Futilely, he tried to hold it in his hands and shape it, as if he could bring her back. With a pained soul, he fell to his knees, his cries transforming into a heart-wrenching roar. —. You must bring them back. — the fireflies insisted, as if they were rejoicing. —. Why? — Max screamed hoarsely —. Why must I bring them back? — —. Because the Farmers will help you with her. With everyone. — but it made no sense. Lay was no longer part of the crew. She was on Mars, far from that nightmare. It was nothing but a vile deception. His ment turned into rage. But it sted little, for Lay was watching him from a corner. As in his nightmares, she was once again a child. Her gaze was filled with fear and expectation, wrapped in that dirty, bulky orange spacesuit, with her face smeared. —. You must bring them back. — the murmurs insisted. The light of the fireflies ended up swallowing everything in its path, and then Max realized he was in that forest. Symbols began to appear on the trunks, on the walls, and on his own suit. This time he would reach her, and then nothing would separate them again. But the chase ceased even before it began. The boot of his suit had stuck to a viscous surface. As he stepped back, a huge lump emerged from the fleshy ground. The interface of his RED detected something. Another RED, and it belonged to Doctor Gabrie Cortázar. She y amidst the slimy remains of bones, discarded tissues, and torn uniforms. —. Security Request Retrieved. — announced the voice of his suit. When it pyed, screams erupted, as if he had been transported to the ninth circle of hell. The screams of agony mingled with the howls of the beasts and terrifying crunches, like stalks being broken. —. This is Cortázar. — said the voice of a woman, pained and tired —. Zhang has set a trap for us. She was the one who altered EREBUS. She brought us here and has fed us to the fireflies. — Max felt as if a bucket of cold water had been thrown on his back —. The Daimonji team is dead. The st refuge too. We have no way to resist. It's over. If anyone finds this, please destroy the ship. I repeat, destroy the ship. There is nothing we can do... — the account ended abruptly, as a horrifying howl merged with the screams of the Doctor being devoured. The RED slipped from his fingers. Max was left breathless, trying to make sense of it. How was it possible? Angelina was the creator of EREBUS. She was trying to help them. Why would she betray them? Why would she side with the fireflies? Max couldn't warn the others. Lay was in front of Max, taking Cortázar's RED in her hands to return it to him. When Max reached out, a prison materialized around him. —. I'm sorry, Max. I can't go on with this. — Angelina mented behind him. It was the third time they had captured him with an Reverse Field. The first was when he sneaked into Engineering. The second, during the Officer Purge. The third, with the betrayal. He wanted to turn around, but the ethereal net of nanites was as hard as diamond, pressing against every inch of his body, as if he had been shoved inside a wall. Even breathing hurt, and closing his eyes was impossible. He was just there, at the mercy of his captor, with rage and helplessness burning inside him. —. Why? — he wanted to ask —. Why did you do it? — —. I've seen how the fireflies fry the heads of the entire crew, Max. Let me tell you, there is no escape. — she recounted as she walked beside him, holding the net with the glove —. Many wondered what the first contact would really be like. Children, especially, who fantasized about space travel. I, at that age, had been abducted and transformed into the sexual sve of a crew of Nightflyers . I had no time to think about that, only how to escape. Then I discovered I was aboard a spaceship, and when I finally managed to escape, my family was dead and the home I left behind no longer existed. —Angelina also seemed to be able to see Lay. She surrounded her and stroked her hair before taking Cortázar's RED in her hands. Just to shatter it. With the crack, the illusion shattered into pieces. She was never there, just an obelisk of twisted and lumpy flesh, still having a vestigial arm, fused to a network of fleshy stems. —. I wondered for years how, with so much technological advancement, we still allow misery, wars, and hunger to exist. I ended up wandering in a Trionist shelter, and I tried to take refuge in God. He didn’t help me. He wouldn’t allow us to take the path we are on, straight to our destruction. He wouldn’t have allowed depraved people to steal my childhood and innocence. So every time I heard that God is love, and that everything is part of His pn, I hated Him. A waste of energy, because ter I realized that God does not exist. It’s a harsh truth, isn’t it? That’s the worst of all. We want to bme someone for our misfortune; however, we have caused it ourselves. — Max wanted to get out of the Reverse Field and y his hands on her. But an invisible force held him back. Still free from the bonds of that invisible prison, what would he do? He didn’t have the courage to kill her. She had been the closest thing to a mother he had on board the Chronos. Capture her? Maybe, but Angelina seemed willing to fight to the st consequences. Her expression was one of sadness and resignation. But a sinister determination invaded her. The fireflies had burned her mind. —. You might wonder, what’s the point of all this? — she inquired, moving closer to the prison surrounding Max. He hadn’t managed to move a single centimeter. She wanted to caress his face, but the net of nanites prevented her. Angelina’s image looked distorted, vibrating like choppy frames —. I had resigned myself to the idea that human goodness is a myth; how can I believe in it if I’ve seen the worst of ourselves? There is no god to prevent it, so our greatest hope was our own destruction. The legacy of humanity would be oblivion. That was until we discovered the fireflies. — Angelina could see a fsh of fear through Max. Unable to speak, unable to move. —. EREBUS had access to the colony's conversations and the contagion. I quickly realized they were a hive mind, even more than that, self-aware. If no one stopped them from spreading, they could create an organism the size of a gaxy, and why not, the universe, which, in a moment, would be self-aware. Tell me, wouldn’t that be the closest thing to God? — Max felt a void forming in his chest and a knot in his stomach. —. God does not exist, but we can create THEM. The Farmers did it by accident. It depended on me to bring THEM BACK. EREBUS would try to prevent it, but altering it was easy. It was enough to convince him that the assimited humans were still human. An instruction of 150 lines, which only I can alter. You would have to kill me to nullify it, and since I am determined to finish this task, it won’t happen. — He wanted to scream at her, grab her by the shoulders, and ask her why. But he was sure she wouldn’t answer. Angelina dropped her shoulders, and a couple of tears welled up in her eyes. —. I know you hate me right now. But I do this for your own good, Max. You were the closest thing to a son for me. With Harding, you almost made me believe that goodness actually exists. — but her expression quickly changed, as if she had pressed a button, wiping away the tears —. It was just an illusion. Tell me, between a horrible reality and an indulgent illusion, what do you prefer? Don’t lie; we know you would choose the tter. Any of us would. That’s why the fireflies gained ground so easily, because we cannot bear our own reality. We are born to suffer, and then die. But it doesn’t have to be that way forever. We can put an end to that cycle. That’s why I brought you all here. The suffering would end, although I never thought Padman could escape. — a lump began to throb behind Angelina. She jumped, and clutching her chest, began to backtrack —. Wouldn’t you like to stop suffering, Max? To see your loved ones again and have nothing separate you? The fireflies are offering you that, and it’s what I’m offering you too. So please. Don’t be afraid of what will happen. It will be quick, as long as you don’t resist. — That tumor, amidst wet and horrifying cracks, began to ooze like a volcano. Angelina turned on her heel and ran. The Reverse Field faded in an instant, and Max fell to his knees as he gasped for breath. With a violent crack, and a torrent of pus, a horrendous and enormous creature began to emerge from that sack of putrefaction. With a chorus of tormented screams, it announced its arrival to the world. The Psma Saw was behind that thing, and Max had no way to reach it.