Ex-load Leech -

Kael’s knees hit the muck. He lay down in the soft, rotting vegetation. The Leech pulsed gently, a rhythmic suction he could feel in his bones. He watched his own hands turn transparent at the edges. In minutes, he would be a perfect, empty shell. The kind they found in the tank. The kind that still smiled because there was no one left inside to frown.

He had already died once.

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. ex-load leech

The smell of rain on asphalt. Erased.