The touch lasted less than a second.
It felt like forever.
The moment something beyond reality connected with the hybrid scar, every layer of existence around Sarya shattered into light.
The prison disappeared.
The Hollow disappeared.
The observing masses disappeared.
Earth disappeared.
Even her own body vanished.
There was only awareness.
And something looking back.
Not at humanity.
Not at the Nexus.
Looking At her.
The sensation was impossible to describe properly because it wasn't merely attention.
It was recognition.
The kind that comes when someone finds something they have been searching for over an unimaginable length of time.
Sarya tried to pull away.
But She couldn't.
The touch remained.
Gentle.
Patient.
And yet terrifying.
Then a thought entered her mind.
It was not words.
But she could tell it's meaning.
"There you are."
The hybrid scar erupted.
Pain ripped through her consciousness.
Around her, reality snapped back violently.
