The reef doesn't take you violently. It makes surrender feel like love.

Investigator Nerys Caine thought she was being careful. One neural bridge. Three seconds to verify her partner's feelings. Just to be certain.

The certainty wasn't hers. The pharmaceutical whispered it. The system planted it. And when she acted on it, she murdered everything Caelan Thorne was.

Now Caelan is transforming, opaline traceries spreading like crystalline roots, human memory dissolving, the reef offering belonging at the cost of self. They can't remember love. But they can choose to refuse.

Sentenced to two years of witnessed accountability, Nerys must teach a city how consent dies: in small moments of certainty, in optimized care that becomes consumption, in systems that make violation feel like rescue.

In Nyxos, harmony synchronizes minds. Chaos keeps people free. Wrong bells save lives.

But the architect is still out there, and the reef is learning to hunt in patterns. Next time, it will push harder.

Body horror.
Unflinching ethics.
Permanent consequences.
The work never stops.

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