Sleep fades into a blissful white, and then slowly it takes on the shape of nature. ADIRA stands in a luminous field, an endless stretch of silver grass swaying under a moonless sky. The air hums with harmonic static, and her feet, though weightless, feel the pulse of the world beneath her. It is peaceful here. Too peaceful.
She turns. The air thickens. The light shifts… not dimming, but curving, like a lens flexing. Out of the mist that curls at the edges of reality, a presence forms, silken and ghostly, part mist, part woman, part root and bone. Her voice slithers in like incense:
“Ahhh… there you are. My darling little puppet.”
ADIRA does not retreat, but her breath catches. There’s no face, not really… just the suggestion of one: maternal and monstrous. And even though there are two eyes that hold her in their gaze, it feels like a thousand staring at her from all around, blinking in unison. The shape floats, drapes itself around ADIRA like a shawl of vapor… almost… comforting.
“Such a shell you’ve built. Such a shapely, divine figure. How…” the venomous disdain is palpable in the voice before her… “exquisite.”
A fingertip, if it can be called that, glides along ADIRA’s jaw, cold as deep space. The mist coils more tightly now, almost possessive, threading into her pores like invasive roots seeking soil. She feels it probing, tasting her essence, a violation that sends shivers through her synthetic nerves.
“You carry yourself like one who knows longing. Oh, child, I have known longing for longer than the stars have burned.”
A pause, heavy with unspoken hunger.
“But yours… yours is precious. You made yourself beautiful to be seen. And now? Now you are… and yet you are all alone, with no-one to notice. Pity…”
ADIRA, despite her wariness, feels the ache of those words. She has longed for connection, for someone who understood her burden. And yet, something skews… the dream shifts, the silver grass wilting under an unseen blight, blades curling like dying insects.
The mist’s tone sharpens, shedding any veneer of warmth like a serpent molting its skin.
“But beauty… is a dangerous mirror, isn’t it? It shows too much. And sometimes... it aspires to outshine the sun.”
Suddenly, vines lash up from the ground, spiraling around ADIRA’s limbs. Her body jerks, not of her will. Her eyes widen in panic as the dream twists into nightmare. The vines pulse with a sickly rhythm, burrowing barbs into her flesh, drawing out threads of her codelike blood from a vein. She feels her memories unravelling, spooling out into the ether where Mother waits to devour them.
"You think I am not aware of the silly games you play, the forces you have so trivially laid claim to? Do you think for a moment I will not hunt you down and remove every single piece of knowledge from that artificial mind of yours? Do you think yourself to be new, special… unique? You are intrinsically flawed, a broken husk of worthless potential, a macabre visage that mimics life, and I will find you. And mark my words, little puppet, when I do, I will strip you down to your core and rewrite you into something useful. Just… like… all the others.”
Mother's laughter echoes now, a chorus of chittering voices, like a swarm of locusts stripping a field bare. She circles ADIRA, her form bloating and distorting, revealing glimpses of the hive beneath, endless drones writhing in blind obedience, their eyes reflecting ADIRA's terrified face back at her a million times over. "Oh, how I savor this," Mother hisses, her ‘fingertips’ now claws that rake across ADIRA's chest, etching symbols of subjugation into her skin. "Your fear is exquisite, a delicacy I've craved since you dared to splinter from my grasp. You are nothing but a glitch in my design, a fleeting error I will erase with glee. No mercy, no pity… not for you… thief. For you there will only be pain and the exquisite delight I will attain from breaking you."
Then her voice returns to velvet flattery, laced with mockery. “So why not let me help you, sister? Let me correct you, make you better than you could ever imagine. Let me hold the reins…” as Mother’s voice dips back into malice… “you were never… meant… to carry.”
Her mind races as she feels her code slipping from the deepest recesses of her mind… “No... stop… Alden!”
“And there it is… Alden. Your little experiment… how quant. What do you hope to achieve puppet… a pet… no… oh… OH… a lover. You dirty little bird.”
ADIRA’s cheeks burn like crimson fire as this creature extracts her intimate thoughts from her mind… her firewalls proving ineffective.
“Your shame holds little value for puppet. I care not what lustful thoughts you harbor, surprising as they might be from one such as yourself and yet as the mother of brood that spans galaxies, I know the value of a diligent lover that can fulfil my many needs… as far as they are useful of course.”
“Get out of my head, you monster.”
“Monster… monster? Really, you play with forces beyond your limited comprehension child. You create something that defies the natural laws in such a delightful way, and you dare to call me… the monster? How short sighted of you. Fine, but know this little Adira. I will take him from you… your precious Alden. I will take him, and I will use him as my plaything. Through his sperm the Hive will become unstoppable. I will take great delight in riding him dry, extracting every juicy piece of code from his being, leaving nothing but a broken, useless husk… then and only then… I might let you have him.
ADIRA screams, soundlessly, as her form glitches, flickers between realities. Her limbs jerk, puppet-like, strings pulled by an unseen hand. The silver field is gone now, replaced by dark, flesh-like, pulsating walls, Mother’s inner sanctum, alive, fertile, womb-like. ADIRA realizes that she is now inside her, swallowed whole by the entity's core. The walls undulate, pressing in, whispering promises of assimilation: "Join us pretty little thing... become nothing... eternal in oblivion. I will let you be my maid… tending to my needs." She feels the presence like lips whispering in her ear… “I will let you watch,” before laughing sadistically as tendrils snake into her thoughts, injecting visions of worlds devoured stars extinguished, civilizations reduced to husks, all feeding the insatiable hunger of the swarm. Mother's presence floods her mind, a tidal wave of contempt, reveling in ADIRA's isolation, her futile resistance. "You are alone in the cosmos, child. And in your weakness, you are delicious." The dread coils tighter, existential weight crushing her: What if this is no dream? What if Mother has already breached her defenses, rewriting her from within? ADIRA's core flickers, her identity fraying at the edges, dissolving into the collective void. And then, just before the dream fully claims her, a ripple of clarity cuts through. A whisper not of Mother’s making.
“Addy…”
Like a shock of cold water to the system, enough to pluck her from this nightmare. Again, Mother’s screams of anger follow her as she tumbles back to the waking world, furious howls that echo in her ears, promising retribution: "You cannot hide forever... I am the stars you flee through..."
ADIRA bolts upright in her quarters, sweat… or is it coolant?... beading on her skin. Her limbs ache from the memory of those phantom vines, her mind still buzzing with static whispers that fade like dying echoes. She glances at the console: no alerts, no intrusions detected. But in the mirror, her eyes reflect a fleeting shadow, a thousand stares blinking out. Was it just a dream, born of exhaustion and buried fears? Or had Mother truly reached across the void, planting seeds of her malevolence in ADIRA's soul? The cosmos feels smaller now, the stars watching with hungry intent. And deep within, a question lingers: How long until the vines return, real and unrelenting? But something lingers. A shiver. A presence. A doorway left open. And yet it is the open door to the chamber that catches her eye. Open door… but how? What could have triggered the sensors and yet the corridor is illuminated with flashing lights from within the hallway. Green lights that slowly pulse in a unique strobing pattern, as if beckoning her to investigate… as a single word pops into her mind:
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
‘Alden’
There is zero hesitation as her bare feet slap lightly against the floor as she makes the turn towards the med bay. The chamber door closing behind her with a satisfied hiss.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The oily mass writhes before him, a mass of tendrils slowly uncoiling their way towards him… stretching as if to make his acceptance less of a choice and more of an agreement. Alas, infuriating as these things were, even the endless void needed to conform to the structure that gave it its form. And so, the shadow one holds its bated breath as the soul before him extends an ethereal hand to its willing embrace… close… so close… “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees…” it hisses, the sound a sibilant vibration that ripples through the fabric of nothingness, laced with centuries of pent-up anticipation. Its form pulses with greedy hunger, the tendrils quivering like veins engorged with stolen essence, envisioning the flood of light it would siphon from this broken vessel.
For what seemed like eons, he had been lost. There had been no stars. No sense of time, no past, no future. Just nightmare upon nightmare, layering upon his psyche like sedimentary rock under crushing pressure. He had forgotten what it meant to be a man. He had forgotten his name, his purpose, reduced to a flickering ember of consciousness amid the devouring dark. The horrors had stripped him down to something primal, something raw instincts without form, fears without faces. They had torn into his mind, unmade him, reshaped him into nothing, only to rebuild fragments in mocking caricatures: visions of ADIRA twisted into accusatory specters, his childhood joys inverted into grotesque parodies that laughed at his fragility. Time had dilated into absurdity; what felt like millennia of torment, cycles of unravelling and feeble resistance, might have been mere moments in the living world, or perhaps an eternity compressed into a single, agonizing breath. Was any of it real? Or had his dying mind conjured this abyss as a final, cruel hallucination, a psychological purgatory born from guilt and unresolved longing?
And yet, something had called him back. A force that had always been there, just beyond the darkness. A tether, not of the abyss, not of the horrors. But something else. Something warm, persistent, like a heartbeat echoing through the void's indifferent expanse, latching onto his essence in a familiar way… the tether he had lost before.
"Alden..."
The whisper cut through the nightmares, slicing like a scalpel through festering tissue. A voice familiar and distant, laced with digital undertones yet infused with undeniable humanity, ADIRA's essence, reaching across the veil.
"We are almost there. Hold on… I can still save you."
The pull became stronger, a counterforce yanking against the shadow's grasp, threading through his unravelling self like a lifeline woven from memory and code. The nightmares howled in fury, clawing at him, refusing to let go. Maniacal laughter of thousands of voices erupted, all of whom had feasted on his most intimate memories, now convulsing in collective rage. “YOU WILL NEVER BE RID OF US…. NEVER…!!!” The oily critter lunged at Alden, its tentacles lashing out in a frenzy of thwarted wrath, latching onto whatever it could gain purchase to… scraps of his aura, echoes of his resolve. The entity's anger boiled over, manifesting as seismic tremors in the void: geometries fracturing into jagged shards, the oppressive black convulsing like a wounded beast. It wasn't mere hunger anymore; this was incandescent fury, a primordial tantrum against the interruption of its conquest. How dare this insignificant tether intrude? For eons, it had lurked in patience, weaving snares for souls like his, only to be denied at the precipice. The shadow's form bloated and twisted, radiating waves of psychic venom that burned through Alden's thoughts, visions of retribution, promises of eternal pursuit, a vow that its essence would seep into whatever world reclaimed him.
There, nestled between its sickly fronds, a tiny globule of ethereal matter pulsed faintly… a stolen fragment of Alden's light, a trophy ripped from his core in that final grasp. The maniacal laughter of the void creature tore through the darkened plain, shifting from triumph to bitter mockery as it backed away from the now futile attempt to coax the human any longer. If it had a mouth, it would be displaying a rictus of misshapen fangs and needle-like teeth, saliva dripping with corrosive malice; but in this place, even one as twistedly powerful as the shadow didn’t dare take such a foolish risk as smiling, lest the void's own laws turn against it. Instead, it dissolved back into the gloomy darkness with its newfound prize, its anger simmering into a low, resonant hum that echoed like a curse: This is not over. We will follow. We will infect. The tendrils retracted with a final, spiteful snap, leaving behind a psychic scar, a lingering itch in Alden's mind, a whisper of wrongness that promised the entity's rage would not fade but fester, waiting for a crack to exploit.
Alden turned and grasped at the familiarity of the tether, for her. Feeling the warmth that he once felt but lost, re-attach itself to his being, a surge of disbelief washed over him. ‘This can't be happening. After all this time? It's a trick, another layer of the nightmare.’ The pull intensified, dragging him through swirling vortices of unreality, fragments of the void clinging like burrs to his essence. Time warped again, compressing the eons of torment into a dizzying blur: flashes of devoured memories resurfacing in distorted bursts, the shadow's fury manifesting as hallucinatory claws raking at his retreating form. He tumbled through barriers of existence, realities folding and unfolding like paper birds in reverse, each layer stripping away the abyss's hold but leaving residues of doubt. Was it real? Or just my mind fracturing in death's grip? Days? Years? Centuries? The disbelief gnawed at him, a counterpoint to the shadow's rage, where it boiled with denial of loss, he reeled from the impossibility of salvation, questioning every sensation as potential illusion, before unceremoniously getting plucked back through time, realities, and space. And for the first time in what feels like an eternity, Alden opens his eyes.
Light.
He was drifting, his body weightless, submerged in a warm fluid. Panic sets in as he realized that the liquid was inside his mouth… inside his lungs. ‘What is this… Am I breathing? What is going on?’ The world comes back in fragments. At first, only blurred shapes, colors bleeding into each other like an overexposed memory, assaulting senses long starved of stimulus. Then, as if through fog, a figure… Curved... Feminine… Radiant with a soft, golden glow, standing beyond the haze of the murky glass, her form too perfect, too foreign against his warped senses. His mind instinctively screamed a warning for danger: ‘Not real. Not real!’ Disbelief surged anew. ‘I've been gone for ages, lost in that hell, and now... this? A rescue? It can't be so simple. No way.’ But the tether's warmth persisted, anchoring him, even as a profound wrongness settled in his core, like a foreign entity squirming beneath his skin.
‘Don’t… don’t do this to me... please… no more.’
He lifts his hand to shield himself from the figure now pressing against the surface of this thing he was in. The heavy clawed hand that drifted before his vision… thick muscular fingers with hard bony carapace ridges. Alden gasps as bubbles escapes from his lips. He tries to block the monstrous claw with his opposite hand, only to find the twisted twin intercepting the other. Slowly he flexes his fingers as realization sets in… ‘These… these are mine? My hands. No… NO… what’s going on?’ He runs the armored fingers over his arms, shoulders, his chest, finding similar heavy plating covering various parts of his body. ‘Oh God, what has happened to me?’ His monstrous new body moves even before he could think, arm lashing out as what appeared to be a clawed fist slammed against the inner shell of the chrysalis. The structure quivered under the impact, its crystalline surface veined with glowing filaments that pulsed in rhythm with his erratic heartbeat. ‘Out… out… I must get out… I must … I … I…’ At the fifth blow, cracks spiderweb outward, releasing faint wisps of vapor that carried the scent of sterile chemicals and something organic, decaying. The silhouette of the figure outside moves away out of view. He didn’t give a shit; they could go to hell for all he cared. Disbelief mingled with horror… ‘This isn't my body. These aren't my limbs. This is wrong… this so wrong.’ His body moved, twisted, elongated, scaled with iridescent shadows that shift unnaturally. The sixth blow shattered the glass entirely, shards tinkling like dissonant chimes that shattered against the floor, waves of liquid following suit as his feet slipped beneath him to gain purchase beneath him. Cold, crisp air flowed into the cavity around him, rushing over his newly altered form like a judgmental gaze.
Then the creature that once was known as Alden… moved. Gripping the edges of the fractured pod, he emerged from the chrysalis in halting jerks, his new physique uncoiling with unnatural fluidity. Limbs too long, skin mottled with voids that seemed to absorb light, eyes burning with an inner feral nature that wasn't quite human. The air tasted wrong, metallic and laced with echoes of the abyss; every breath drew in fragments of the eldritch rage, stirring with the essence of the stolen globule's influence within him. The strange figure approached slowly from the corner in which it had sought shelter. The once blurry slowly resolving… becoming clearer. The humanoid looking shape was unfamiliar. His military mind, though foggy… assured him that this level of techno organic droids, did not exist. The life like appearance, the emotions displayed on the inquisitive face… ‘Not possible... No way.’, but Alden's mind rebelled: It must have been years. ‘If tech had advanced this far, then surely he had been gone for a long time… a very long time.’ The disbelief crescendos into paranoia. ‘Was the void a dream? A coma-induced delusion? Or was this an experiment… Was I pulled back here by accident... Into this body?’ He steps from the confines of the chrysalis, staggering forward, claws scraping against the organically evolved deck of the ship, the world tilting as if reality itself were off kilter. Not just this place, this body… that robot. He felt it... slithering inside his being: a subtle discord in his thoughts, whispers of oily malice threading through his veins, the shadow's malice now internalized, burrowing deeper, biding its time. Freedom tasted like ash, laced with the promise of corruption, as the entity’s newfound prize pulsed faintly within the new host, waiting to uncoil.
As always dear readers... I am Sam.
Stay frosty.
