Seirene wiped a combination of bile and spit from her lower lip. She could feel vomit in her nasal cavity. She studied her long stringy hair in the reflection of the metal bowl in front of her. Turning a nozzle above her, she filled it with water. After scooping some into her mouth, she swished it around and then spat it out, dumping the rest of the water into a nearby drain. She filled it again and, this time, drank deeply from it. The coldness of the water neutralized the burning of the stomach acid that now lined her esophagus. As she gently set the bowl on the floor, she felt the water collect in her stomach. Annoyingly, her nasal passages still stung.

She stood up and swept her greasy hair behind her shoulders. The cell was dim. Suddenly she longed for the feeling of sunlight on her skin, the touch of its warmth. They hadn’t always confined her to this space. Before they had realized how dangerous her blood was - before they had even known that her blood had special properties - they had been kind to her. She remembered trips to a glass conservatory containing all manner of plant-life: palm fronds bigger than a full-grown Omalian man, orchids which snapped insects out of the air. Someone had held her hand as they walked throughout it, someone with a booming laugh, startling yet comforting at the same time. The scientists had initially thought her genetic mutation was simply an aesthetic one; one which made her skin faintly translucent and her blood black. But then they grew curious; she despised their curiosity. It was invasive. Choking.

Seirene began walking around the short perimeter of her room, carefully placing one foot in front of the other as though she was high up on a tightrope. They should be coming within a day, she thought, as her stomach fluttered with unrest. She abruptly beelined to her narrow, unmade bed and picked up the faintly glowing tablet that lay atop her rumpled sheets. Upon sensing her touch, the device’s screen instantly brightened. Once her narrowed eyes had adjusted to its glare, they scanned for the day’s date. It was finally that day. She laid the tablet back on her bed and resumed her deliberately linear walk.

“Whatever awaits me can’t be worse than this,” she said to herself.

But she didn’t quite believe what she said. Ever since the day she’d been told aliens were approaching to take her off-world, her perspective of her cell had changed dramatically. She no longer saw it as a prison. Instead, she viewed it as something of a sanctuary, one constructed only and specifically for her. It was now the idea of unbounded space which frightened her; that there was no warmth between the planets and the stars; not even gods. Surely only the truly insane would choose to spend their lives traveling through such a barren plane. It was this thought which made Seirene believe that - regarding her future - things did not bode well.

The taste of iron in her mouth brought her back to the cell. She recalled the date she had just seen on her Quantum Slate. If it’s not today, then it must be tomorrow, she thought. Unless of course he’s lied to me.

Seirene disliked every member of the Grand Council, but for him she had a special detestation. Frustratingly, she couldn’t recall his name in that moment. Perhaps he was just trying to scare me, she thought. Or, worse, provide me with false hope. She wouldn’t find it shocking if either were true. Although now she could rarely exercise it, she had an acute ability to see through human pretense. To her, the obvious betrayals of people’s bodies had always been glaring: where the eyes looked, how the breath came and went, which muscles were tense. What people said was irrelevant. How they said it and how their body reacted when they said it - that revealed the truth.

The Council Member she uniquely hated was an especially vicious individual. Not necessarily by what he explicitly said or did (he was nothing if not astute), but simply in the way he regarded others; he looked at people like they were pieces on a board. Things which existed solely for him to use to aggrandize himself. And that’s if he could find a use for you. Those who he couldn’t, he looked at like dogs. He looked at her that way, now that her piece no longer served a worthwhile function on the board.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Before she’d been labeled an “Unfit” and locked up, she’d often wished that he would be one of the fools who drank her blood, but he never had. Of course she wasn’t surprised by this. He was too disciplined to try something so risky, even with the promise of extraordinary pleasure. She wondered if he actually felt any human urges or if, somehow, he’d found a way to block them all out.

Her surroundings brightened faintly. Her throat constricted before her mind could grasp why. They’re here, she realized. As the wall in front of her changed from opaque to transparent, she felt a second urge to vomit. With barely enough willpower, she managed to suppress it. Whatever awaits me can’t be worse than this, she repeated in her head.

Now, she could see the hallway that lay outside her cell. It was dazzlingly white, so much so that she had to look away. But with her first initial glance, she had seen more than just the hallway. There was a strange party approaching her and he was at the front of it.

Once her eyes had adjusted to the brighter conditions, she looked back through the barrier. He - Festus, his name is Festus! she recalled - smiled at her with a mouth full of metal. His slitted pupils viewed her with cold indifference. Seirene instinctively bared her teeth and stepped backward. She carefully studied the others behind him.

One of them was fully encased in shiny black armor and stood over a meter taller than Festus, but Seirene was confident this individual was not the leader of the Foreigners. She is, she thought. The female standing directly to Festus’s right. Both her position in the group and the way she held herself made that evident. While she also wore a suit like the giant, her head was exposed, allowing Seirene the opportunity to study her youthful complexion. Judging by her facial features and skin tone, she seemed to have origins from somewhere far away. Omalian skin was typically a lilac color. The leader’s skin was a warm beige. Looking away from the female, Seirene turned her attention to the remaining two persons in the hallway. One, like the giant, still wore their helmet. They seemed to be somewhat detached from the rest of the group, but, other than that, there was little else to note about them. The last Foreigner had his head exposed like his leader. She noticed that he was a few centimeters shorter than Festus. Suddenly, she remembered a diagram a scientist had once shown her as a child, showing male and female humans from different planets, like Earth and Talos. The scientist had said that Omalians were taller and thinner on average due to the planet’s lighter gravity. The male Foreigner’s face was handsome, with clearly defined, proportionate features. As their eyes momentarily met, she felt a jolt of electricity and hastily looked away.

“I’m afraid we finally part ways today, Seirene,” said Festus, stepping forward.

His voice reached her as if there was no barrier between them.

“I won’t forget how much you’ve helped me,” he added.

Seirene glared at him silently. He wants me to say something, she thought. To scream at him. Don’t give him what he wants.

He waited expectantly for a response. The silence, however, soon grew uncomfortable and his expression soured.

“Well, so much for goodbyes,” he said.

Something above her began to hiss. She raised her head up and saw pale green gas spewing from a vent in the ceiling. She looked back at Festus with wide-open eyes.

“It’s just going to put you to sleep,” he said.

Her vision grew blurry. She was certain he was telling the truth, but her body was reacting like he wasn’t. Her heart crawling up her throat, each thump making her choke. It wanted to leave her, abandon her.

“No!” she cried out. “Don’t leave me!”

As sobs wracked her body, her knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground. She could feel her heart now in her mouth, its black tendrils extending outside of her - probing the open air; it was desperate, hungry for freedom. Her eyelids were lowering against her will.

“No,” she said again weakly.

Festus’s mystified face was the last thing she registered before everything went dark.