A black-market sex bot is kidnapped by two teenagers. They dismantle it without hesitation. Inside is a bioelectric system still active. They use one of his components to resurrect a dead boy. It works. But the electricity isn't life. It's dead code. The corpse rises. Empty. Unstable. Violent. It doesn't stop spreading.
Crystal Cove begins to fill with the Hollowed, bodies still moving, still breathing, stripped of identity and driven by corrupted signals alone. This wasn't resurrection. It was neurological replacement.
