"You shouldn't be alive"
"That's the second time someone's said that to me today," I replied.
He sat in the chair beside my bed, studying me, "The breach collapsed on itself before it could destabilize the whole array. We've contained what's left of the anomaly. But the readings…"
"What about them?"
"They changed when you were inside. Patterns we've never recorded before. The resonance seemed to-" He stopped himself, shaking his head. "Never mind. You're being discharged tomorrow. Rest."
But later, when the med-bay was dark and quiet, I saw it.
At first I thought it was a trick of the light - the edge of the curtain shifting wrong. But as I stared, the corner of the fabric rippled… not from air movement, but as if space itself was bending around it.
And I knew - without knowing how - that I was doing it.
The ripple vanished when I blinked, as if the universe had decided I wasn't meant to see it.
Or maybe.. it was me deciding.
I lay back against the thin med-bay pillow, my pulse thrumming faster than I liked. Every scrap of training told me to log it, report the anomaly to Holtz, document everything before it slipped from memory.
But another voice - quieter, older, almost instinctive - whispered that some things you keep to yourself until you're sure.
I chose the whisper.
The med-bay had that constant too-clean smell: antiseptic and sterilized polymers, like someone had erased every molecule of dust. Somewhere in the vents, the hum of circulating air made a faint counterpoint to the steady beep… beep… beep of my monitor.
My thoughts drifted back to the moment the shimmer touched the glass.
Every second of it felt… magnified, as if time had swelled around me. There had been no heat exactly, no sensation you could tie neatly to human experience - it was more like every cell in my body had been pulled toward the same impossible point.
And then the horizon that didn't belong.
Even now, with the memory fraying at the edges, I could almost see it. A skyline cut from jagged obsidian, hanging upside down in a pale sky. A thread of light that wasn't sunlight, running from one end to the other like a tether.
My brain told me it was nonsense - that the mind invents patterns under stress. But my gut knew better.
Something had been there. And I had touched it.
It must have been late - the med-bay lights dimmed to a softer blue glow. My monitor still blinked, and the doctor's station was empty. The rest of the patients were sleeping, the room thick with the slow rhythm of breathing.
That's when I heard the footsteps.
Not the brisk click of Lex's boots, nor the weary shuffle of medical staff. These were deliberate. Unhurried. As if the walker knew exactly where they were going, and there was no rush to get there.
They stopped right outside my cubicle.
A shadow fell across the curtain. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Whoever it was, they just stood there, the faint outline of their head tilting slightly, like they were… listening.
I sat up, my fingers inching toward the glass of water on my bedside table - the only vaguely weapon-shaped object in reach.
"Can I help you..?" I said, trying to sound casual.
The shadow didn't answer.
Then, with a flick of the fabric, the figure moved away.
I waited until the footsteps had faded completely before exhaling.
The next morning, Holtz was all business. He arrived with two assistants, a portable diagnostic kit, and the faint scent of too much coffee.
"We're running a few baseline checks before discharge," he said.
They hooked me up to a neural scan, drew blood, and ran a full-body imaging sweep. Standard post-exposure protocol - though I noticed Holtz watching the readouts a little too closely.
"Anything unusual?" I asked.
"No," he said too quickly.
Which, of course, meant yes.\
When the scan was done, he dismissed the assistants but lingered by the bed. "Nico… you've always been good at noticing patterns."
"That's my job."
He leaned in slightly. "If you notice anything strange - anything at all - in the next few days, you tell me first. Not the board. Not security. Me."
That set off every alarm bells in my head. "Why?"
"Because the fewer people know, the longer you'll have to figure out what's happening."
Before I could ask more, he was gone.
I was halfway to the shuttle bay when Lex appeared. She stepped out from a side corridor, falling into stride beside me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You didn't report the ripple last night," she said.
I nearly missed a step. "What ripple?"
She gave me that almost-smile again. "The one you made."
I stopped walking. "What makes you think I made anything?"
Her eyes flicked over me, not in a threatening way, but like she was checking a series of boxes in her head. "Because I've seen people after dark energy exposure. They either die, or they… change. You don't look dead."
I swallowed. "Maybe I'm just lucky."
"No one's that lucky."
And with that, she turned and walked away, vanishing into the flow of station personnel before I could think of a reply.
It happened on the shuttle back to my quarters.
I was seated by the viewport, watching the slow rotation of the station as the docking clamps released. The curve of Earth lay far below, clouds swirling in great white spirals over deep oceans.
A tray of equipment on the seat beside me started to slide as the shuttle shifted orientation.
Without thinking, I reached out.
The tray stopped moving.
Not abruptly - more like the air itself had thickened around it, holding it in place.
My hand wasn't even touching it.