“Sun's almost up.” I stand, testing my balance. My legs work. That's all that matters.
“Portal won't open until noon.” He uncoils slowly, giving me space to move.
“I know.” I climb to the platform edge, pause. “Need to see it happen. The whole thing.”
“Need breakfast first.” He's already moving toward our food storage.
“No.” The word comes out sharper than intended. “No food. Clear head.”
He stops but doesn't argue. We both know eating will make me comfortable, and comfortable might cloud judgment. My stomach is already tight with anxiety—food would just come back up anyway.
“Water at least.” He hands me the gourd we share, fingers brushing mine.
I drink because dehydration would be stupid. The water tastes like this place now—slightly metallic, tinged with phosphorescence. When did that become normal? When did Earth water start seeming wrong in memory?
“I'm going.” I hand the gourd back, wipe my mouth.
“Female knows the way.”
“Female has walked it in her head all night.”
He doesn't respond to that. Doesn't need to. We both laid awake pretending to sleep, feeling each other's breathing change with thought. Neither of us discussing what happens in six hours.
I climb down from our shelter—my shelter—the shelter. Don't look back. Can't look back. If I see him watching me leave, I might not be able to go at all.
The beacon gets brighter as I approach, shifting from blue-white to something that hurts to perceive directly. Like looking at a piece of another reality forcing itself into this one.
I stop at the clearing's edge, maybe thirty feet from where the light touches ground. Close enough to see everything. Far enough to run if I need to. Though run where? This is it. The only exit.
The ground beneath the beacon has started to crack. Not breaking—warping. Reality bending like heated plastic. I find a rock to sit on and watch the slow transformation while the sun climbs.
My pussy clenches with morning need. The proto-eggs from yesterday have dissolved, creating the familiar ache. But I didn'tbreed this morning. Didn't want that affecting my choice. My body protests this decision with increasing urgency as the hours pass.
By mid-morning, other creatures have gathered at the clearing's edges. Local wildlife drawn by the wrongness, watching from safe distances. Nothing comes close to where I sit. They can smell the apex predator on me—Vhaz's scent soaked into my skin, marking me as claimed.
The beacon starts to spin around eleven. Slow at first, then faster, creating a vortex of light. The crack in reality widens with each rotation. Through the growing tear, I catch glimpses of elsewhere. Gray sky. Rain. Concrete.
Earth.
My chest tightens. Not homesickness exactly. Recognition maybe. That was my world. Those gray walls held my life for twenty-eight years. Everything I knew, everyone I loved, existed in that monochrome space.
Tommy exists there.
The thought makes me stand, move closer to the spinning light. My baby brother. Safe now—his death sentence commuted the moment I entered the portal. But still there. Still in that gray world, probably wondering if I'm dead or bred or something in between.
Which I suppose I am. Something in between.
The portal tears open with a sound like silk ripping.
The beacon collapses inward, inverts, becomes a perfect circle of home. Through it, I can see Cleveland—the intake facility where this started thirty days ago. Same gray walls. Same industrial bleakness. Even the same fucking Forever 21 sign barely visible under industrial paint.
I stand slowly, legs unsteady. Thirty feet. That's all. Thirty feet and I'm home.
My feet move without conscious thought. Ten feet. Twenty. Twenty-five.
I stop at the threshold.
This close, I can smell Earth through the portal. Exhaust fumes. Processed air. That particular mix of humanity and desperation that cities wear like perfume. My eyes water—not from emotion but from pollution I'd forgotten existed.
