“Did youknowhim?”
I freeze.
I feel her watching me — a five-year-old with claws and questions.
“No,” I lie. “He’s just a patient.”
She doesn’t push.
But she doesn’t believe me either.
Later,after she’s eaten and done her nightly stomp-stomp-growl routine through our bedtime story (this week’s pick:The Silver Claw Saves the Moon), she finally collapses into bed. I tuck her in beneath the weighted blanket we stitched together from spare medbay material and old cargo cloth. It’s ugly as sin, but she loves it. Says it smells like safety.
I sit on the edge of her cot, smoothing the blanket over her curled-up form. She’s smaller in sleep. Softer. But I can still see the faint shimmer of scales along her hairline, the iridescent edge catching the room light.
Her mutation’s accelerating.
I don’t know if it’s the environment, the age, or just time.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to hide it much longer.
She stirs. “Mama?”
I brush her hair back. “Yeah, love?”
“Promise you’ll stay?”
That one hits me sideways.
Hard.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
She nods, eyes drifting closed.
I sit there long after she’s out, listening to her breath even out.
It’s the only sound I trust in the whole damn universe.
In the kitchen nook,I pour myself the dregs of recycled caf and stare out the porthole into the rust-orange night. Corven-7’s sky never really gets dark. The industrial haze keeps a constant dim glow, like the planet itself refuses to sleep.
I don’t sleep either.
How can I?
Vael’s presence is a black hole — pulling everything back in.
I can’t stop seeing him on that table — broken, bandaged, eyes burning straight into me like no time had passed at all.
And gods, I can’t stopfeeling.
That twist in my chest when he said my name. The pain in his voice. The question buried in every breath.
I lied to him. Again.
Told him this was a coincidence. That he’s just another patient. That his being here doesn’t mean a damn thing.
He’ll see through it.
