"Dr. Urle, are you sure . . . ?"

"Open the airlock," Verena said calmly.

There was a moment of silence, and then the door opened into Michal Denso's room.

The air itself seemed to shimmer, to shift. Colors flickered where nothing existed to reflect them; shapes distorted and twisted like mirages, but the room was cold.

Except around Apollonia. There was an almost visible area around her where the distortions seemed to curl back on themselves, to bend around her presence.

It wasn't a large area, her island of safety. But it was enough for Verena to stand next to her.

The doctor scanned the room, her heavy protective suit limiting her ability to turn her head. Looking down at her belt, at the device there that gave at least a sense of local krahteons, she saw that it registered nothing.

After a moment of consideration, she reached up and took her helmet off.

"Doctor-" came the cry over the comm.

"Apollonia Nor does not require a suit. I do not believe I will," Verena replied.

Apollonia said nothing and started to walk forward.

Staying by her side, they came upon the glass room box that surrounded Denso - or once had.

The glass had bloomed like a flower, splitting open in jagged lines like it had shattered apart at its top, but then folded gently towards the floor.

Apollonia stepped onto a folded petal, and though it made a grinding sound, it did not break.

Verena noted that the glass did not seem to have lost any structural integrity, and followed suit.

Denso himself was still. His eyes were closed. But there was something about the way he lay there that was different. At once his face looked withered but his presence was stronger, as if much of him that had once been visible was now unseen, yet it remained in their senses in a way that was ineffable.

"Michal," Verena said out loud.

The man did not speak, the silence lingering.

But then, his eyes opened. Slowly, like a man waking from a deep dream.

"It has been a long time since I heard a voice that wasn't filtered through glass or a mask," he said softly.

Verena stepped closer, as far forward from Apollonia as she dared.

"Are you there, Michal?"

"The chains are broken," he replied. His eyes were focused upward, half-lidded and calm. "Soon I shall be reborn."

Verena looked back to Apollonia. Her face was set in tight lines, the strain and toll visible upon her.

Verena turned back to Denso. The point where the air seemed to be safe was only a foot from him. Whatever mysterious power Apollonia possessed, it was strong enough to resist what Michal Denso was becoming.

"Michal, do you know where you are?" Verena asked.

The man blinked slowly, a hint of confusion going over his face. But it passed.

"I am on Medical Station 29," he said.

"Then you know that there are many other people here. People who are sick or injured," Verena continued.

Denso blinked again, and his answer was slower in coming. "Yes," he finally said.

"What are you going to become, Michal?" she asked.

A hint of a smile played at his lips. "No word is sufficient to describe it," he said, awe in his voice. "I wish I could. I will be . . . greater than anyone who has ever lived. I will no longer live. I will no longer die. I . . . will simply be, in the truest sense."

"Will you be a Leviathan, Michal?"

He was quiet again. "Words are useless," he finally said softly. "You can't understand. You could see, but you do not have eyes."

His head turned, slowly, his skull scraping loudly along bare metal until he was looking at Verena. He was smiling broadly now, a joyful smile with a tinge of madness.

"I would help you all gain eyes, if you would let me."

Verena found herself staring into his eyes, and she felt something curl in her stomach. A feeling that made her knees weak, made her want to turn and run.

Her hands were shaking, she realized.

Something touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see that Apollonia had stepped forward. A bead of blood ran from the woman's nose, just touching her upper lip.

"He doesn't really understand you," she said softly. "He's lost in his own universe."

Verena wondered what to make of Apollonia's words, but was disturbed by them.

She could not find words of her own to speak before Apollonia continued.

"Take my hand," she said.

Verena looked to her hand, feeling afraid to do what the woman said and yet knowing she had to. She did not know what else to do.

Taking it, Apollonia reached out and touched Michal Denso. Her touch was gentle, her fingers landing where his collarbone had once been. If it still existed under the morass of twisted flesh, Verena did not know, but part of her thought that a human form did exist somewhere in there. It was only hidden.

Apollonia's hand moved up to touch Denso's cheek.

His expression had turned to one of surprise, and Verena gained a realization that the man must not have known a gentle touch like this in years.

"Close your eyes," Apollonia said.

Verena was not sure if the woman meant her or Michal, but she closed her lids nonetheless.

And then she felt a jolt, and found herself standing in an empty room.

The walls were not truly; they were only an impression of surfaces. The space could have been infinite, even the floor did not seem to exist.

She was not alone here.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Apollonia stood there, her face calm and unfocused, and across from Verena, staring at her with just as much surprise, was a fully-human Michal Denso.

Verena stepped forward.

"Michal," she said. "Do you know who I am?"

"You're . . . Verena Urle. The doctor . . . who has taken care of me," he said softly. The words struggled to come out.

"There is little of you left, Michal," Apollonia spoke. Her voice had an ineffable quality, husky and strong without having changed tones. A fullness to her voice that soothed out the fear in her heart, even if they left her saddened.

"I'm dying," Michal said, the realization coming to him.

"You are," Apollonia said. "And you're becoming something else."

"Yes," he said earnestly in a whisper. "I'm becoming something more."

"And you're going to hurt people," Apollonia said.

The man looked stricken. "No. I'd never hurt anyone. I'm an officer of the Sapient Union, I took an oath-"

"You're going to hurt people if you are reborn," Apollonia said again.

Pain and fear went over Michal's face, and Verena felt a terrible sadness strike her. She stepped forward, her first thought to bring comfort to someone who suffered.

"Michal," she said gently. "I'm sorry, but it's true. We . . . we can't move you. I don't know if we could even help you die at this point. But you are becoming something that we cannot withstand. And even if we wanted to, we could not escape from you in time."

Anguish went over the man's face.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

"I do," Apollonia told him. "You have to let go. Your continued will to live is the anchor that holds what you are becoming tethered to reality. Without you . . . it will never be."

"I . . . I don't want to hurt anyone!"

"I know, Michal," Verena said. Carefully, she reached out, and put a hand on his shoulder.

The man's knees seemed to give way, and he fell into Verena.

She caught him, and held him, as his anguish gave way to sobs that wracked his whole body.

Verena put her arms around him. It was the only thing that she could do.

"Please, how do I stop this?" he asked, "How do I . . . let go?"

Apollonia was silent. "I don't know," she admitted. "But we can figure this out, Denso. We just have to try . . ."

Her words faded, but she looked uncertain.

"If he wished to die, to prevent this, he would have done so already," a cold voice spoke.

Verena felt a stab of fear at that voice, looking towards it. It was not Apollonia, and she, too, spun to see.

There were no longer just they three in the room. Across the space, near them in spirit if not physically, was Kell.

In this space his body was not right, not human. His form shifted, changing. His clothing itself had eyes that opened, peered, and closed, to reappear elsewhere.

His face itself slithered and slid between an open snarl on an oily hide to the calm features he showed to the world.

And a power radiated from the being, a terrifying power that bespoke the deepest time, an age that had seen mountains rise and wither, oceans boil off and return in rains lasting a million years.

Like what Denso wished to be, a thing beyond life and death.

Denso looked at the Shoggoth, and shuddered.

"I hurt you before," he whispered.

"Because you are not ready to go," Kell said.

"No," Denso finally said, his voice the merest sound. "I'm scared."

Apollonia seemed to shrink back from Kell, as his presence came closer. He did not walk, did not move, yet he was nearer all the same.

Verena felt a primordial fear rising in her, but she clung to Michal still.

"He is my patient," she snapped. "You can't take him!"

Kell stopped, and his face calmed, settling in his human shape. A hint of regret went across it.

"There is no other choice."

Apollonia screamed, and dove onto Verena. Denso was pulled like he was on chains, his voice breaking as he was brought closer to Kell.

And the Shoggoth's human form began to leave it.

Verena saw only a glimpse of something massive, a heaving shape of muscle with a surface that glistened like oil, before Apollonia covered her eyes.

"You shouldn't see this," the woman whispered fiercely.

And Verena did not struggle as she heard Michal Denso let out a final, protracted scream, accompanied by the sounds of death.

*******

Verena's eyes opened, and she realized she was in a hospital bed.

It had been seven years since she had lain in one, but she remembered this view of the ceiling, and how it had grown so tiresome. If she'd been capable of it anymore, she surmised she might have even hated it.

It was disconcerting to be laying like this again, and for several terrible moments she wondered if the last several years had been a dream, if she had never left that bed. If she was still just a patient at Medical Station 29, one with no hope of anything close to normality ever again.

The memories came flooding back to her then; of Michal Denso, of Apollonia Nor, and of . . . how it had ended.

She sat up quickly.

She had felt terror. Not going in and seeing Denso, risking her life. Not in confronting that, no. She had felt it at the end, when Ambassador Kell had . . .

Emotions. She had actually felt them again. The bizarre feelings she'd had during that whole encounter, she realized now, had been feelings returning to her.

But only for a time.

Already, the feel of emotions was fading. That terror she had felt, perhaps the strongest of all, was just a hollow shell of its former self. She could poke and prod at the memory, try to elicit the same response, any response from herself.

But she could not bring it back.

It was not her, she could only guess. It had been whatever form of contact she had made with Apollonia. Perhaps . . . they were not even her feelings. Through whatever strange power that woman had, perhaps her emotions had bled over, into her.

It was a simple explanation. In some ways, perhaps easier than thinking she had herself, for at least a moment, been a whole person again.

Dr. Genson came in. The man's face was a profusion of emotions, and at the moment she was so tired that she could not even make herself begin to decipher them.

"What has happened?" she asked.

The man was pale, sweating, and stumbled over his words as he spoke.

"You collapsed and Apollonia Nor brought you out - with the help of Commander Jaya. Um . . . Michal Denso . . . is dead. He's no longer exhibiting any unusual behaviour - no krahteons, even his mass seems to have turned into . . . well, what we would expect for a man his size."

Idly, she thought that she'd have to start searching for Genson's replacement soon. Even besides his betrayal, he was getting too worn down by this job. It happened to everyone, eventually. Any species, of any make-up, no one could work on The Chain forever.

Almost no one, perhaps.

"I see," she said. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"Three hours, ma'am," Genson replied. "Director Freeman arrived an hour ago, and he is . . . livid is an understatement. He said that he is going to push for your dismissal, though I don't see how as you didn't actually do anything to Denso in there . . ."

"Where is Apollonia Nor?" she asked.

"Ma'am, um, don't you care about the Director . . . ?"

She did not answer him, merely staring at him in silence until his own discomfort prompted him to speak again.

"She's returned to the Craton. She was . . . bleeding from her eyes, nose, and ears, but she refused our medical attention and said she only trusted the ship's doctor . . ."

Verena nodded, taking it all in.

Denso was dead. It was finished. And Nor had gone.

"What about Ambassador Kell?"

"Ma'am?"

"Was the Ambassador ever on the station?"

"Not . . . as far as I'm aware, ma'am. But Director Free-"

"I need to rest more," she said.

She felt something odd for a moment. It was a sensation she could not quite place, but it seemed familiar.

She realized it was amusement. It was fleeting, and fading already, but she'd felt it. She knew she had.

An emotion that was hers alone. A smile came to her face.

"Doctor's orders," she said, and lay back down to rest.

Dr. Genson clearly could not think of anything to say to that. He stared, mouth agape for a moment, before slowly shuffling from the room.

Perhaps, when things were calmer, she would have the ceilings in these hospital rooms changed, she thought.