She grins. “You think too loud.”
The words shouldn’t sting. But they do.
Because she’s not wrong. My head hasn’t been quiet since she stumbled in here. My thoughts are crawling, restless. My pulse is hammering. Both hearts are beating faster the closer she comes.
I turn away. “You should rest.”
“Rest?” She snorts. “In this haunted scrapyard full of corpses? Hard pass.”
I let the corner of my mouth twitch, just once. I hope she doesn’t see it. “You’re alive because of me.”
“Oh, Iknow.Don’t think I’m not grateful, Mr. Dramatic Entrance. But gratitude doesn’t make this less terrifying.”
She waves her uninjured hand in the air, gesturing to the walls around us—the cracked plating, the dying consoles, the web of old wiring that snakes along the ceiling like veins. The Hulk hums low beneath our feet, alive in its own ancient, wounded way.
“This place,” she says softly, almost to herself, “it feels like it’s breathing.”
“It is,” I say.
She startles again. “Wait—you meanliterally?”
I shrug. “Partially. There are systems still active. Climate regulation. Gravity stabilizers. Organic power conduits. The ship was built with a nervous system. It remembers what it was.”
She stares at me. “And you know that because…?”
“I’ve been here fifty years.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. Then opens again.
“Fifty. Five-zero. Years.”
“Yes.”
She just stares at me like she’s trying to compute that.
Finally, she mutters, “Okay. Wow. And here I was complaining about losing my luggage on Paraxis.”
I don’t understand half her references, but the way she says it makes me look at her again.
Fifty years alone. No voice but mine. No sound but the groan of the ship and the scrape of claws in corridors long empty. And now this—this flood of words, color, scent, and heat. This woman who refuses to be quiet even when she’s scared out of her mind.
The Hulk hums again. I can feel it in the soles of my feet, the way it used to hum during the War, when it was more alive than machine. I can feel it…responding.
Something’s shifting in the power grid. Conduits reactivating. Sensors blinking to life. Systems that haven’t breathed in decades stirring awake—because of her?
No. That’s impossible.
But I can’t shake the thought.
She looks at me again, eyes soft now. Curious. Not afraid anymore.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
I hesitate.
It’s been so long since anyone’s asked me that, I almost forget the sound of it.
“Garokk,” I say finally. My voice feels strange saying it aloud, like dust being shaken off an old blade.
