And something strange was happening. Humans were being taken—or leaving voluntarily. Moving off Earth to places with names she couldn't pronounce, for reasons she couldn't fathom.Some came back. Some didn't. The reports were vague, the details scarce, but the pattern was undeniable.
People were leaving.
And now she was about to be a part of it all, too.
Crazy.
She lay back on the bed, still dressed, and stared at the ceiling until the light outside shifted from black to grey to pale gold.
She didn't sleep.
The driveback to San Diego took just over two hours.
Serafina pulled into the hospital parking lot with gritty eyes and a caffeine headache, running on nothing but adrenaline and the stubborn refusal to collapse before she saw her sister's face.
Angelo was already there when she arrived, slumped in the chair beside Aria's bed, his reading glasses crooked on his nose, a paperback open and forgotten in his lap. He looked up when Serafina walked in, and something in his expression shifted—relief, maybe, or just the exhaustion of a man who had spent too many nights in hospital waiting rooms.
"She woke up about an hour ago," he said quietly. "Doctor said everything looks good. No complications."
Serafina let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
She moved to the bed and looked down at her sister.
Aria looked small against the white sheets, her dark hair disheveled and fanned out across the pillow in tangled waves. A hospital gown hung loosely on her thin frame, the pale blue fabric washing out her already pallid skin. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, bruise-purple and deep, the kind that came from days of pain and fitful sleep. A white bandage wrapped around her throat, stark and clinical, covering the incision where Dr. Rao had cut into her to remove the goitre that had been slowly strangling her. Monitoring leads snaked out frombeneath her gown, connecting to machines that beeped softly in steady rhythm. An IV line ran into the back of her hand, the tape holding it in place already peeling at the edges.
But her eyes were open—tired and confused, butopen.
Serafina felt something loosen in her chest, a knot she hadn't known she was carrying. Relief flooded through her, and for a moment, the weight of the past few days slid off her shoulders.
She let out a slow, shuddering breath. Aria was fine. The mass around her neck—the thing that had been constricting her like a python, slowly strangling her for months—was gone.
Life could go on.
"Hey," Aria said, her voice rough and barely above a whisper, strained from the trauma to her throat. "You look like shit."
Serafina laughed—a short, broken sound that caught in her throat. "You're one to talk."
Angelo shifted in his chair, setting the paperback aside. "Doctor did her rounds earlier this morning," he said. "Recovery's looking good. Blood tests came back normal, voice is fine—" He nodded toward Aria. "A little scratchy, but that's expected. Everything's going to be fine."
He paused, and something in his expression softened—relief breaking through the exhaustion.
"Pathology came back, too," he added. "Nothing sinister. Dr. Rao doesn't think it'll come back."
Serafina felt her knees go weak. She gripped the rail of the hospital bed to steady herself.
Nothing sinister. It won't come back.
For a moment, she couldn't speak. The weight of the last few days—the fire, the bills, the impossible interview, the aliens behind the glass—all of it pressed down on her, and this single piece of good news cut through it like light through smoke.
Her sister was going to be okay.
Whatever else happened, whatever insane path Serafina was about to walk down, at least this one thing was certain.
Aria was going to be okay.
Aria shifted against the pillows,wincing slightly at the movement. "Sera," she said, her voice still rough. "The bills. I heard the nurses talking. The surgery, the ICU... it's going to be?—"
"Don't worry about that right now," Serafina said.
