Bian blinked slowly, his vision swimming as the shapes above him sharpened into the familiar lines of a face. Dican’s face.
Though bruised and bloodied, the man’s features were still achingly handsome—high cheekbones dusted with grime, a cut healing across the bridge of his nose, and his long golden hair tangled and damp, pushed behind his ears in messy strands. He looked so raw. So disheveled. So real. Bian had never seen him like this before.
And for a strange, confusing second, the sight of him stirred something... warm. Embarrassingly warm. Even now, barely conscious, his thoughts betrayed him.
A soft, amused breath escaped him. His lips twitched in a tired smile as he reached up, sluggish fingers aiming to brush Dican’s beautiful, ruined face. But then—
Nothing.
The movement didn’t register. It didn’t... happen.
His smile faded.
Bian blinked again and slowly, very slowly, shifted his eyes down—his vision crawling over his own chest, his collarbone, and then to his shoulder.
His right arm was there. But his left—
His breath hitched.
Gone.
There was only a neatly bandaged stump where his arm had once been. The shape of it was jarring—so wrong—so brutally empty. The skin around it was puffed and raw. He could feel the absence more clearly than he’d ever felt a limb before. The ghost pain surged like icy needles up through his shoulder and into his brain.
"Where is it..." he whispered, staring at the space where his arm should have been. "Where is my left arm..."
The disbelief in his voice cracked like thin ice. His eyes rose slowly to meet Dican’s.
The man looked wrecked.
Dican’s throat worked as he sat back on his knees beside him, mouth parted slightly like the words had caught. He reached forward, hand hovering as though afraid Bian might shatter. "Bian..." he began softly.
But Bian wasn’t looking at his face anymore.
Bian’s breath caught, shallow and shaky in his chest.
Then, barely above a whisper—
"...Where is it?"
Dican turned his face toward him, brows furrowed, eyes raw with guilt and sorrow. "Bian—"
"Where’s my arm?" Bian asked again, slightly louder. His voice quivered. "Dican. Where is it?"
He pushed himself up slightly, propped on his remaining elbow, his bandaged shoulder trembling with strain. "Where is it?" he repeated again, this time with a strange edge of panic. "My arm—"
"Bian, please—" Dican tried to reach for him.
"Where is my arm?!" Bian snapped, voice breaking. His lips trembled. "Where is it?! Where did you put it? Did you leave it?! Did you leave it behind?!"
"Listen to me—"
"WHERE IS MY ARM?!" he screamed, louder now, the sound splitting the silence of the small escape pod. The words burst from him, cracked and bleeding and full of disbelief.
Qungya jumped and clung to the old man tighter. Even Rhea’s distant voice on the comms went quiet.
"My arm! My arm!" Bian shouted again and again, each word sharper, more hysterical. "Why is it gone?! What did you do?! Why—why—why did you let them take it from me?!"
"Bian—Bian, stop, it wasn’t like that," Dican pleaded, trying to pull him close, trying to anchor him in the chaos. "You were bleeding out—your vitals were crashing—we had no time, no med unit, no tools—Bian, you would’ve died if I didn’t—"
But Bian wasn’t listening anymore.
His eyes were wild, mouth open in a raw, animalistic scream. Words had fled him. What spilled out of him now were guttural, anguished sounds—screams that cracked his throat, that bounced and echoed off the pod walls like the cries of a wounded beast. His body trembled violently, straining against Dican’s arms as he howled, over and over again, completely consumed by loss and disbelief.
Dican wrapped himself around him, holding him tightly, whispering his name again and again like a prayer. "Bian. Bian, it’s me. It’s Dican. I’m here. You’re alive.... You’re alive that’s all that matters."
But Bian couldn’t hear him. " Kill me... Kill me.." he wailed.
The pain drowned out everything. His rage. His shame. His grief. It swallowed him whole.
He kept screaming until his throat gave out—until the only sounds that came were hoarse, broken sobs. His nails clawed weakly at Dican’s chest, beating him with the strength of a dying flame.
Dican held him through all of it, tears in his eyes, heart breaking in silence.
"I’m sorry," he whispered over and over again. "I’m so sorry. Forgive me. Please forgive me..."
The pod was still reverberating with the echoes of Bian’s broken screams when the old man stepped forward.
Old man Lin’s face was deeply wrinkled, skin like old parchment pulled tight over frail bones, but his eyes were kind. Red-rimmed, watery, but kind. He approached slowly, his long robe brushing the floor of the cramped escape pod. His hand trembled as he reached out to Bian’s intact arm.
"Bian..." he whispered gently, voice barely louder than a breath. "It’s okay... Time... time will help you. You’ll heal. We’re here. I’m here."
He tried to take Bian’s hand in his own, thin fingers curling with tentative care.
But the boy flinched.
And then, with a sudden violent jerk, he shoved Lin away.
"You think time will help?!" Bian shrieked, voice raw, face contorted with pain and fury. "Can time bring back my arm?!"
Lin stumbled back, catching himself against the wall, eyes wide.
Bian’s chest heaved. His face was flushed a deep crimson, tear-streaked and wild. "Can you cut off your own arm and tell me how it feels, huh?!" he screamed, spit flying from his lips. "Can you feel this?! Can you even imagine what it’s like to wake up mangled, broken, to feel like your body is no longer yours?!"
Dican moved forward again, arms out, but Bian shoved him too—harder.
"Don’t touch me!" he shouted. "Don’t touch me!!"
Dican froze, his hands midair, helpless.
"I know this is him! It’s Jian! This is what he wanted, isn’t it?! He’s behind this—he always has been!" Bian’s eyes darted wildly, glistening with rage and confusion. "You’re helping him! You’re all helping him!"
He rounded on Lin again, voice trembling and venomous. "Are you even my grandfather?! Or are you just another pawn for that leech who stole my life?!"
Lin’s lips parted, but no words came out.
"You stood there and watched as jian stole my life!!!! YOU LET HIM!!" Bian’s voice broke, cracking into pieces as he screamed at him. "YOU’RE NO FAMILY OF MINE!!"
And then the curses began—filthy, ugly, cruel words that poured out of him with every ounce of bitterness he’d ever held. He spat them like venom, one after another, until Lin shrank back, flinching as if each word were a physical blow.
Dican stepped forward again, slower this time.
"Bian—"
But Bian spun toward him too, his voice ragged and desperate. "You too! I trusted you, and you—you let this happen to me! You were supposed to protect me!"
"I did!" Dican choked. "I did everything I could—I—Bian, you would’ve died!"
"I wish I had!!" Bian screamed.
Silence. Heavy. Final.
Everyone in the pod went still.
Qungya clung to Lin’s sleeve now, sobbing softly, too scared to speak. The comms were dead quiet. Rhea hadn’t spoken again since Bian first woke.
Dican looked like someone had struck him. His lips parted slightly, but no words came out. His hands dropped to his sides.
Bian’s shoulders shook, his face twisted, teeth clenched in fury and grief. He looked around the ship, at the faces staring at him, and suddenly he curled up—tight, small, wounded.
He turned his back to them all and sat in the corner of the pod, hugging his knees with his remaining arm, his broken breathing the only sound left.
And for the first time since he’d been born, Bian wished no one had ever found him at all.
Bian’s breath grew shallow, his lips trembling as his fingers clutched the edge of the thermal blanket. The fire in his eyes, which had flared and burned through grief and rage only moments ago, dimmed suddenly—too suddenly.
"Bian?" Dican’s voice was low, alert.
The boy’s head lulled slightly, shoulders slackening. His eyelids fluttered, his skin a pallid sheen of cold sweat. He swayed forward.
"Bian!" Dican was on his feet in an instant.
Before he could catch him, Bian’s body gave out completely—collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. He slumped sideways, his head narrowly missing the edge of a storage panel as Dican caught him in his arms just in time.
"I’ve got you.... I’ve got you Bian!" Dican pulled Bian close, gently laying him back against the makeshift cot they had arranged earlier. His heart pounded in his chest, but his hands were steady as he quickly assessed Bian’s pulse.
Too fast.
His skin—cold.
And his remaining arm trembled faintly in unconscious reflex.
"Shock," Dican muttered. "It’s all catching up to him."
He reached over for the emergency med-pack, fingers moving with practiced precision. A quick scan with the pulse monitor confirmed what he feared: the fever was creeping back, and the strain on Bian’s body had worsened after the emotional outburst.
"I need to stabilize him before his body shuts down further," Dican said aloud, more to keep himself grounded than to inform anyone.
Qungya whimpered. "Is he dying?"
"No," Dican replied, firmly. "He’s not. I won’t let that happen."
He injected a stabilizer into Bian’s neck—one of the few remaining doses they had left. The boy’s breathing began to slow, his expression easing slightly into a slack, pained rest. But his body still twitched every so often, as if reliving something that wouldn’t let him go, even in unconsciousness.