Chapter 8 CHAPTER 8 — FORTY SECONDS MISSING

Cold water soaked my back. My eyes snapped open to cracked concrete ceiling and the taste of blood in my mouth. I groaned and tried to sit up, muscles screaming like I’d been run over by a tank.

“Wei!” Lian’s voice came first, sharp with worry.

I blinked hard. The Gate chamber was quiet now. No pulsing violet light. No roaring Calamity. Just the soft drip of water and the heavy breathing of my squad standing over me in a loose circle.

Ren crouched closest, axe still gripped tight, his face a mix of relief and something sharper. “Boss? You back with us? You dropped like a sack of bricks the second that Gate sealed.”

I pushed myself up on one elbow, head pounding. “Sealed… yeah. It’s done. Everyone okay?”

Captain Huo stepped forward from the edge of the group, her short-cropped hair plastered to her forehead, rifle slung but finger still near the trigger. She’d joined us late for this mission. Her eyes locked on mine, steady but searching. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Captain. What the hell happened in there? One moment you were glowing like a System beacon, next you’re moving like someone else entirely. Then boom…Gate closes perfectly and you collapse.”

I rubbed my face, trying to piece it together. My hands looked older. The skin on the back of them thinner, veins prominent, knuckles more pronounced. “I… I pushed the Thread hard. Seven seconds window. Calamity started manifesting. I remember fighting it with you all. Then…”

“Nothing?” Zhao Yun asked quietly. He stood a little further back, tablet in hand, expression unreadable. “You don’t remember the last forty seconds at all?”

I froze. “Forty seconds?”

Lian knelt beside me, her hand hovering near my shoulder like she was afraid to touch me. “Wei… you were gone. Not unconscious. Just… not you. You walked straight up to the Gate while everything was still distorted. You spoke to us, but the voice wasn’t fully yours.”

Ren stood up, pacing a short line through the water. “Yeah. You told me to lower my axe. Called me by name in this soft way you never do. Then you just… fixed everything. Sealed that monster Gate like it was nothing. No explosion. No backlash. Perfect execution. But it wasn’t you doing it, boss. I know how you fight. That was different. Too clean. Too cold.”

I looked at each of them, my stomach twisting. “Captain Huo, run me through it. Exactly what you saw.”

Huo crossed her arms, voice low and professional but tight with tension. “I arrived just as gravity flipped back. You were already in control… or something was. Your movements were precise, Wei. Surgical. You pulled threads I’ve never seen you use before. The Gate responded like it knew you. Like it was waiting for instructions. Then you said ‘Let me finish this’ and it just… closed. Forty seconds of perfect synchronization. After that, you dropped. We thought we lost you for a moment.”

I tried to stand. My legs shook. The years I’d burned hit me all at once, joints stiff, back aching deeper than usual. “I don’t remember any of that. Last thing I recall is pushing the window open and seeing that thing smile at me. Then darkness. Zhao Yun, what do your numbers say?”

Zhao Yun glanced at his tablet, then back at me. His voice stayed flat, but I caught the hesitation. “For those forty seconds, your movement patterns did not match your known combat behavior at all, Captain. Not even close. Your Thread signature shifted. Efficiency increased by forty-three percent. Decision making became… optimal in ways that don’t align with your usual risk calculations. Survival probability should have been under twenty percent. Instead we walked away clean. The Gate sealed at minimal cost to the environment.”

Ren stopped pacing. “Minimal cost? Look at him, Yun! He looks like he aged another decade. His hair’s got more gray. Face is tighter. Whatever happened in those forty seconds took more from him than any fight I’ve seen.”

Lian’s eyes never left my face. She spoke softly, almost afraid. “I tried to reach you through the link. But there were two of you in there, Wei. Your pain, your determination… and then this warm, focused presence that felt like it knew exactly what to do. It protected us. But it wasn’t only you.”

Captain Huo stepped closer, crouching to my level. “Wei, I’ve served under you for four years. I knew Mei-Ling too. That wasn’t just Thread use. Something else took the wheel. You need to tell us what’s really going on. The squad’s been through too much with you to get blindsided now.”

I swallowed hard. My throat felt raw. “I… I’ve been hearing her. Mei-Ling. More clearly lately. Thought it was stress at first. But during the fight… she was there. I tried to fight for control but I hesitated. Because it was her. I knew it was her.”

The silence stretched.

Ren ran a hand through his wet hair. “Your dead wife is driving your body now? That’s what you’re saying? Boss, that’s fucked up. Even for this world.”

Zhao Yun adjusted his glasses. “This explains the divergence in my models. If an external consciousness is interfacing with your Thread, it would create exactly these patterns. Forty seconds of perfect alignment. But the cost to your biology was extreme.”

Lian touched my arm gently this time. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper, eyes glistening.

“…you didn’t feel like you.”

I looked at her, then at the rest of them staring back with that same uncertainty. Not relief that we’d survived. Not trust in their captain. Just questions. Doubt. Fear of what I was becoming.

The sealed Gate loomed behind us, silen

t now. But I could still feel something watching.