Kael didn't look away. He owed them that much.
The Leech didn't pop. It imploded , collapsing into a black pinprick of nothing, sucked into the void-fragment that lived in his sternum. For a single, glorious second, Kael felt full—not with light or hope, but with a cold, satisfying absence . The kind that didn't need to feed because it had nowhere left to fall. ex-load leech
But Kael Voss had one thing the other soldiers didn't. Kael didn't look away
Memories began to bleach.
Ten years ago, in a different war, on a different mud-ball planet, a shard of shrapnel had shredded his heart. He’d flatlined for ninety-seven seconds. The medics had dragged him back, but something had come with him—a splinter of the void. A little pocket of nothing that lived behind his ribs, patient and cold. Most days, he ignored it. But the Leech, in its ravenous feeding, found it. It imploded , collapsing into a black pinprick
The parasite convulsed. Its filaments retracted, recoiling from the abyss inside Kael’s chest. It tried to detach, but Kael’s hand—slow, but now with a flicker of his own dark purpose—clamped over it. He felt its panic like a tiny, wet scream.