Chapter 214: Questions and Hesitation

Night had fallen over Galloway, bringing with it a darkness so complete that the abandoned streets seemed to disappear entirely into shadow. The moon was barely a sliver in the sky, offering almost no illumination, and the absence of any functioning streetlights or house lights meant that the world had been reduced to varying shades of black and gray.

Everyone was supposed to be asleep by now—it was well past midnight, that dead hour when exhaustion finally overwhelmed even the most persistent anxieties and fears. The community had settled into whatever makeshift sleeping arrangements they’d established in the houses we’d claimed for temporary shelter.

Rachel and the rest of our immediate group had all bedded down in the home that Mei had attempted to claim as her personal territory. She’d made quite a show of declaring ownership over the property, citing some logic about being the first to enter it or having found the best room or whatever justification she’d constructed in her mind. Her efforts to establish dominance over the space had been cute in their determination, if ultimately doomed to failure.

Much to Mei’s dismay—and despite her increasingly desperate attempts to defend her claim—her ownership declaration had collapsed almost immediately when confronted with someone like Sydney.

The resulting standoff had been both amusing and exhausting to witness, ending with Mei retreating to her chosen room sulking while Sydney claimed victory.

But none of that mattered to me right now, because while everyone else had found sleep, I remained frustratingly, persistently awake.

My mind refused to quiet itself, racing through an endless loop of thoughts, concerns, plans, and fears that circled like vultures. Emily’s situation with Callighan. The decision to settle in Atlantic City. The territorial complications with Marlon’s community. The looming threat of the Starakians. Elena’s absence in Russia.

But there was one thought in particular that had been gnawing at me with increasing insistence for days now, demanding attention that I’d been purposefully avoiding giving it.

The alien box.

That strange, cube-shaped piece of Starakian technology that we’d been hauling around like some kind of cursed artifact. The device with three empty cavities that we’d gradually filled with energy stones harvested from the Starakian technologies: the Fire Spitter’s red stone, the Frost Walker’s icy blue crystal, and most recently, the Screamer’s silver core that I’d extracted from Jason’s chest with my own hands.

I’d retrieved the box from the camping van earlier in the evening, waiting until everyone had settled down for the night before making my move. The thing was deceptively heavy—not impossibly so given my enhanced strength, but substantial enough that carrying it any distance required effort. I’d lifted it carefully, cradling the cube against my chest, and started walking away from the cluster of houses where everyone slept.

I needed distance. Space. Privacy.

Just in case something went wrong when I finally worked up the courage to activate it.

The journey away from the residential area had taken me through several blocks of abandoned streets, each one presenting its own challenges. The darkness was almost absolute, forcing me to rely heavily on my enhanced senses to navigate around obstacles and debris. And of course, the streets weren’t completely empty—scattered Infected still shambled through the darkness, drawn by some instinct or residual memory toward areas that had once held life.

I’d had to deal with several of them along the way, dispatching them as quietly as possible to avoid drawing more attention. Each encounter was brief and brutal—a quick strike to destroy the brain, a moment to confirm the kill, then moving on before the commotion could attract others. The box made the fights more awkward than they would have been otherwise, forcing me to set it down carefully before engaging and then retrieve it afterward, but I managed.

Eventually, I’d found what looked like a suitable location—a small store that had probably sold convenience items or maybe electronics before the world ended. The front windows were shattered, the door hanging askew on broken hinges, but the interior seemed structurally sound enough for my purposes.

I stepped through the entrance carefully, using a torchlight to illuminate the space ahead. The beam of light cut through the darkness, revealing the expected chaos of a looted store—overturned shelves, scattered merchandise, broken glass crunching under my boots with every step.

After locating a relatively clear area toward the back of the store, I lowered the box down gently, setting it on what had once been a checkout counter. The surface was dusty and covered in various debris, so I spent several minutes clearing the surrounding area, sweeping broken items aside and creating a workspace that felt less cluttered and chaotic.

When I’d done all the preparation I could reasonably do, when I’d run out of excuses to delay any further, I finally stopped moving and just stood there in front of the box.

Staring down at it.

The three stones were already in place, inserted into their respective cavities in the cube’s surface. They glowed faintly even in their dormant state, each one pulsing with a subtle inner light that seemed almost alive. The Fire Spitter’s stone burned with a deep red luminescence, like embers in a dying fire. The Frost Walker’s crystal shimmered with an icy blue that reminded me of glaciers and winter skies. And the Screamer’s core gleamed with an eerie silver radiance that seemed to shift and change when viewed from different angles.

We’d actually managed to collect all three stones. Against all odds, despite the danger and death involved in acquiring each one, we’d filled every cavity in this alien device.

The fact that I hadn’t immediately tried to activate it after obtaining the Screamer’s stone from Jason should have told me something about my own hesitation and fear. That had been four days ago now—four days during which we’d fled Jackson Township, dealt with the aftermath of that disaster, traveled to Atlantic City, and established temporary shelter here in Galloway.

There had been multiple opportunities during that time to attempt activation. Several stretches of downtime when we’d paused to rest or plan or simply recover from whatever crisis we’d just survived. Moments when I could have taken the box somewhere private and tried to figure out what it did, how it worked, what purpose it served.

But each time such an opportunity presented itself, I’d found myself doing exactly what I was doing now—standing in front of the box like an idiot, staring at it with a mixture of curiosity and dread, hesitating endlessly until I ultimately chose to do nothing at all.

The pattern had become almost ritualistic. Retrieve the box, find a private location, stare at it while my mind spun through worst-case scenarios, then carefully put it away again without ever actually triggering whatever mechanism would bring it to life.

All because I was terrified of what it might do. What its true purpose might be.

From what we’d been able to piece together—from observations, from things Wanda had mentioned, from the context of how and where we’d found it—the device seemed designed to track Symbiote hosts. People like me who carried the Dullahan parasite within their bodies. It was apparently some kind of detection or scanning technology meant to locate and identify those who’d been infected with the alien organism.

But what was its use beyond simple detection? What happened after it identified a host? Did it just provide information, or did it do something more active—and potentially more dangerous?

Worse still, what if activating it somehow sent out a signal? What if using this Starakian technology acted like a beacon, calling out to other Starakian forces and pinpointing our exact location? The device was their creation, after all, built with their science and for their purposes. It would be dangerously naive to assume they hadn’t built in some kind of communication protocol or tracking feature.

After everything we’d been through—the attack on Jackson Township, the devastating loss of life, the narrow escapes and close calls—I had very good reasons to fear attracting more Starakian attention. The idea of accidentally calling down another assault, of bringing that kind of destruction to Margaret’s community or putting everyone I cared about in the crosshairs again, was almost paralyzing.

So was this really the right time to experiment with alien technology we didn’t understand? Was it wise to take this risk when we were already in such a precarious situation—homeless, vulnerable, still establishing basic security?

One part of my mind screamed that the answer was obviously no. We were in a difficult predicament, barely keeping our heads above water, and this was exactly the wrong moment to gamble with unknown variables. We should wait until we were more stable, more secure, better prepared to handle whatever consequences might follow.

But another part of my mind—the part that had been growing louder over the past few days—argued the exact opposite. It whispered that precisely because we were in such a desperate predicament, precisely because we lacked a secure home or solid defensive position, we needed every possible advantage we could get. And this box, this piece of advanced alien technology, might represent exactly the kind of edge that could make the difference between survival and destruction.

More importantly, it might be the only real weapon we had against the Starakians themselves.

Unfortunately, precisely because this was Starakian technology, I couldn’t bring myself to trust it fully.

There was no convenient instruction manual, no helpful guide explaining its purpose or operation. No warnings about potential side effects or dangers. Just this inscrutable cube with three glowing stones and an almost magnetic pull toward activation that I couldn’t entirely explain.

To awaken the device, I assumed I would need to place my hand directly on the glowing surface at the top of the cube—the area where all three stone cavities converged in a triangular pattern. The surface seemed to pulse faintly with light, as if breathing, and I felt an inexplicable pull toward touching it. The sensation was strange and more than a little frightening, like standing at the edge of a cliff and feeling the irrational urge to jump.

I reached out my hand, moving with extreme hesitation. My fingers trembled slightly as they approached the surface, hovering mere inches above the pulsing light.

This was definitely going to hurt. Probably significantly more than the pain I’d experienced when initially inserting the stones into their empty cavities, which had been unpleasant enough. That had just been establishing a connection—this would be full activation, drawing on whatever energy the stones contained and channeling it through my body to power the device.

I harbored no illusions that any ordinary human could survive the kind of energy assault that activation would likely trigger. The voltage or radiation or whatever alien force the box would unleash would probably kill a normal person instantly, frying their nervous system or stopping their heart or causing catastrophic cellular damage.

Thankfully, I wasn’t remotely an ordinary human anymore. My enhanced physiology, courtesy of the Dullahan Symbiotic living inside me, should provide enough resilience to survive the process. Should being the operative word—there were no guarantees when dealing with technology I didn’t understand.

"Knew it."

The voice from behind me made me flinch violently. I jerked my hand back from the cube’s surface as if burned and spun around.

Sydney stood there, leaning casually against the broken entrance door of the store with her arms crossed over her chest. The faint glow from my torchlight, which I’d propped on a nearby shelf, cast dramatic shadows across her face, making her expression difficult to read.

"Sydney..." I managed to get out once my racing heartbeat had slowed to something approaching normal. "What are you doing here? How did you—"

"Well, I knew you were planning another one of your solo missions," she interrupted with a smile. "So I followed you. Can’t really trust you to be sensible about these things on your own, can I?"

"I was just trying to understand it," I said, gesturing toward the box. "Figure out how it works, what it does. Research."

"And you didn’t think to mention this little research project to any of the others?" Sydney asked, pushing off from the doorframe and walking toward me with slow steps. "Oh, wait—let me guess. You were absolutely going to tell me you thought it was too dangerous to involve anyone else, so you preferred to do it alone ’just in case’ something went wrong? Does that about sum it up?"

My mouth had opened to deliver almost exactly that explanation, but her accurate prediction rendered me speechless. I closed it again without saying anything, feeling caught and more than a little embarrassed at being so transparent.

"I know you far too well by now, Ryan," she said with a wry smile, beginning to circle slowly around the alien box. "And so does everyone else in our group, honestly. You’re incredibly easy to read once someone figures out your patterns. You always take the martyrdom route, always try to shoulder the burden alone, always assume you’re the only one who should bear the risk."

She paused in her circuit to look at the three glowing stones, her expression growing more serious. "I actually think this might be the right moment to finally use this device. I had a conversation with some of the others about it in your absence and they were mostly against attempting activation. Rachel especially was very vocal about her opposition."

"Is that so..." I said quietly not really surprised actually.

"Yeah," Sydney confirmed. "But after we talked it through for a while, she made a point that actually convinced me. She said that if we’re going to do this—if we’re going to risk activating alien technology we don’t fully understand—then we need to do it together as a group decision. And more importantly, we should wait until Margaret’s community is safe and stable first."

Sydney met my eyes with unusual seriousness. "Don’t you think we owe them at least that much? I mean, I know Wanda is the main reason the Starakians focused their attention on Jackson Township in the first place. But we also played a significant role in what happened there—in the destruction, in drawing their forces, in escalating the conflict. We bear some responsibility for those deaths."

I felt a small smile tugging at my lips by Sydney’s unexpected display of accountability and emotional maturity. "I never thought I’d hear you voluntarily taking blame for something," I admitted. "That’s... that’s actually really growth, Sydney."

"Hey!" She protested immediately, her face flushing slightly. "I’m not some kind of emotional monster, you know! I have feelings and a conscience! And besides, how do you expect me to win any argument against Miss Perfect Goody-Two-Shoes Rachel? She has this way of making me feel guilty about absolutely everything, even things that aren’t remotely my fault!"

Her indignant tone made me chuckle. "Well, that’s Rachel for you. It’s a gift she has."

Now that Sydney had explicitly told me that Rachel was against attempting activation right now, I felt my already-wavering determination crumble completely. The reluctance I’d been fighting transformed into something closer to certainty—I absolutely should not try anything with this box at this moment. I didn’t want to hurt Rachel’s feelings or make her upset by going against her expressed wishes.

"I know that expression," Sydney said, interrupting my spiral of guilty thoughts. "The mere mention of angelic Rachel and her opinions, and you’ve already completely given up on your original plan, haven’t you? God, I’m way too jealous of the influence she has over you."

"Considering she’s consistently the most reasonable and level-headed person among all of us, there’s really nothing for you to be jealous about," I replied. "She just makes good points that are hard to argue against."

"You’re really far too dense, Ryan," Sydney said, shaking her head in exasperation. "Don’t you understand why I’m actually jealous? It’s not about her being reasonable."

I raised my gaze from the box to look directly at Sydney, meeting those distinctive blue eyes that seemed to glow with their own internal light even in the darkness. Under the dim illumination provided only by my torchlight, which had been placed haphazardly on the payment desk and was now casting strange shadows throughout the small store, her eyes appeared almost luminescent—quite beautiful in an otherworldly way.

"You’re jealous of Rachel’s persuasive abilities and—" I started to say.

I stopped mid-sentence, the words dying in my throat, when I saw Sydney suddenly reach out her hand toward the device’s activation surface. Without thinking, operating purely on protective instinct, I immediately grasped her wrist and pulled her hand back.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Why did you stop me?" She asked.

"Because it’s dangerous," I said. "It will be painful, potentially seriously harmful. I’ll activate it myself when the time is right, when we’re properly prepared, but I can’t let you—"

Crash!

Before I could finish articulating my objection, Sydney moved with her enhanced speed. She pushed me strongly backward, using enough force that I stumbled and my back collided with the payment desk. The impact sent my light rolling across the surface, its beam sweeping wildly across the walls and ceiling before settling at a new angle that cast half the room into deeper shadow.

I opened my mouth to protest, to ask what she thought she was doing, but Sydney closed the distance between us in a blur of motion and pressed her lips against mine, silencing any words I might have spoken.