You gotta understand… none of us came here thinking grand schemes. None of us! There was…. there was just this urge, y'know? So we followed it, only to step into a world remaking itself. The Light just thrashing away at the Darkness. Pounding away! Mountains sloshing into seas like sugar in the rain. A Hive throne world remade. On a whim!

I'm not what you'd call a believer, not after the Red War. Not after the Tangled Shore. Not after a lifetime of never mattering just 'cause I wasn't half of someone else's whole. But that… that made me feel again.

And then I saw him—what was left of him—lying there. Just this corpse, dead maybe, oh, a hundred years. It's my Knight. I look, and I KNOW he's mine. Like hearing a song the first time, and it's already stuck in your head. And in that moment, I think something… something good in me died.

And Twenny-Two and Kemmasi and Marseille, they're all raising their partners—Hive Lightbearers, every last one. You'd think it'd be impossible, but sure enough, all standing there. Eee-Ie, Quasit, Hatcher—everyone's finding their purpose. There's Hive to the left of me, Hive to the right… I'm buried in 'em. And the whole time, every Ghost I ever knew is shouting, telling me, "This is the Traveler's plan! Who are you to question it?"

And I thought… maybe they're right? I mean, I could see the Light scouring a whole world right in front of me. Maybe this was some kinda turning point for the Hive. Knowing your creator chose you to remake an entire species… oh, you'd make bad choices too.

So I shared my Light. Who wouldn't? A couple hundred of your closest friends bearing down on you, and a Hive Shredder waiting if you say no? I shared. I reached into him. Touched something deep.

And what he offered back, it wasn't Light or Dark. It was cold. It was wrong. And I knew it would fill up whatever empty cracks in me the Light left behind. And… I chose to make it a part of me. To be half of his whole.

I chose to share my soul with a monster.

And the thing is… you can't just be part monster.