The corridor stretched ahead like a throat about to swallow me whole.

I walked fast-too fast for it to be casual, too slow for it to count as panic. My boots struck the metal flooring with hollow, uneven beats, echoing against the polished walls of the Zypherian vessel like a drum marking my retreat.

My throat ached from holding it all in. Not the scream that had long since fossilized inside me. It was the silence I was choking on now. Heavy, aching silence that wrapped around my ribs like a vice.

Zypherians and humans both lingered in the hallway, some in standard-issued uniforms that made everyone look the same faceless and silent. Some turned as I passed. Their gazes stuck to me like burrs, heavy with something I didn't want to name.

I didn't meet their eyes. I couldn't.

The air filtration hummed low above my head, and beneath that, the faint thrum of the ship's core alive, pulsing like a second heartbeat.

My wrist itched. I didn't have to look to know the insignia was glowing faintly against my skin.

Thin and gold, it looked like nothing. But it burned hotter with every step. I wanted to rip it off. Tear it with my nails. Burn it until it melted into my bones. But even the thought of that-of resisting him-made my stomach clench like I'd swallowed something sharp and cruel.

I stopped in front of my door. My chest was tight, the kind of tight that made it hard to think, hard to stand upright. The sensor beside the door blinked in recognition, as if it, too, had been waiting for me to return.

I hovered my fingers over it, hand trembling slightly.

Don't break yet. Not here. Not where they can see you.

I pressed my palm against the panel.

Home.

That's what they told me it was supposed to be.

The door sealed behind me with a low click. A final one.

I didn't even make it two steps before my legs buckled.

And then I collapsed.

My back hit the metal with a dull thud, and I was nothing more than a crumpled version of myself on the floor. My breath came in jagged pieces, like my lungs were only just remembering how to work.

For a long time, I just sat there numb. I forced myself to move. Every joint felt rusted, stiff from holding too much emotion without release. I pushed myself upright and stumbled toward the basin.

The room was modest-sterile, utilitarian, like every other assigned chamber for humans aboard the Zypherian stronghold.

I turned on the faucet, splashing cold water onto my face. It hit like a slap.

I looked up. My reflection stared back, fragmented by the slightly warped Zypherian mirror, designed to prevent vanity. My own face looked alien. Lips bloodless, skin pale, eyes wide and glassy-like I'd just surfaced from drowning.

And maybe I had.

I turned away and collapsed onto the bed, not bothering to peel off the ceremonial robe still clinging to my skin like ash. I pulled the covers over my head until the world went dark.

I told myself I was just cold.

But it wasn't coldness. It was fear. The kind that didn't come with sharp teeth or loud crashes-but crept in like rot.

The kind that no amount of blankets can keep out.

My fingers brushing absently over the glowing insignia on my wrist, the mark he'd placed there.

His mark.

It pulsed faintly beneath my touch, as though it were alive. I pressed my nail against it until the skin turned white. It didn't hurt. I wanted it to hurt. I needed it to hurt.

But it was smart enough not to.

No matter how many times I imagined ripping it out of the wrist. It remained.

Permanent.

I blinked back tears. Crying wouldn't help. Crying wouldn't undo what was already done.

The truth wrapped itself around me like fog-cold, quiet, and inescapable:

I was powerless here.

I shut my eyes and willed sleep to take me. To make this all disappear.

At first, nothing came—just the hum of the ship and the ache behind my eyes.

But exhaustion has its way. Slowly, it pulled me under.

I slept.

Restless, dreamless, hollow sleep.

The kind where your body gives in, but your mind never really lets go.

...

I don’t know how long I was out.

Minutes? Hours?

Only that when I stirred, the air felt different—thicker somehow.

And I wasn’t alone.

I blinked into the low light, heart dragging itself awake before the rest of me.

I lifted my head, and my breath snagged in my throat.

He was there.

Silent. Still. Watching.

His expression unreadable.

His gaze steady...too steady.

As if he was searching for something in the rise and fall of my breathing.

As if I were some foreign thing he’d been ordered to guard but didn’t yet understand.

As if I might vanish if he looked away.

"Admiral," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper. It came out strangled, uneven, betraying the panic clawing its way up my throat. "What... what are you doing here?

He wasn't at the door. He stood at the far wall—where nothing should’ve been. Just a solid surface and shadow. His dark silhouette was outlined against the dim glow of my bedside lamp.

How long has he been there? How long has he been watching me fall apart?

"You question my presence?" he said, the question hanging in the air like a blade poised to strike.

"N-no. I just..."," I stammered quickly, shaking my head. The words died as he tilted his head, the movement too precise, too mechanical.

His gaze narrowed infinitesimally, and I felt another shiver race down my spine.

"You are marked," he said finally, his tone devoid of emotion. A statement of fact, not explanation. "Yet you resist understanding this."

"I don't-"

My voice rose and then broke.

I swallowed the panic bubbling in my throat.

Don't argue. Don't push. Don't fight.

Arguing with him wouldn't help. Defying him would only make things worse.

This wasn’t a man.

This was power, dressed in skin and eyes and silence.

And now...I belonged to this monster.

Not by choice, not by law, Not by any twisted rule of fate I could understand.

I belonged to him because he had the power to make it so, and I had no power to make it otherwise.

I was learning the most brutal lesson of survival-

Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

Everything else was just details.

"Did you..." I began again, quieter this time, "...did you just come through the wall?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, those alien eyes fixed on mine with an intensity that was overwhelming-frightening in its absolute focus.

My hands began to shake with the effort of maintaining eye contact, every nerve in my body screaming at me to look away, to submit, to acknowledge his dominance.

But I couldn't tear my gaze away. It was as if his stare had some hypnotic quality, some gravitational pull that made resistance impossible.

His lips curled, something amused dancing in the depths of his eyes. "Would you believe me if I said no?"

He took a step closer, and I instinctively shrank back until I hit the pillows. "No."

He could do things that violated the basic laws of physics, could move through solid matter as if it were nothing more than suggestion. What chance did I have against someone-something-like that?

He inclined his head, the motion measured and foreign, as if weighing the gravity of my fear. "Do you wish me gone?"

Yes, I wanted to scream.

I wanted to leap from the bed, run barefoot through the sterile corridors of this alien ship, and never look back.

But I said nothing.

My silence answered for me.

"Your pulse accelerates," he murmured, almost to himself. "But I have not harmed you."

He stepped closer again, and it was like the temperature dropped with him. Not cold, exactly. But thinner. Like the air wasn't mine anymore. "You shouldn't be afraid of me."

I laughed-bitter and small. "That's easy for you to say when you just walked through a wall."

That unnerving calm of his didn't falter. "If I intended harm," he said, "you would not still be speaking."

That should've made me feel better.

It didn't.

That should’ve brought relief.

It didn’t.

It only drove the truth in deeper—

That he commanded every breath in this room.

That my presence here existed solely because he allowed it.

That with a glance, a word, a whim…

He could erase me.