I do not return home until the late (or rather, early) hours of the cycle. Two in the morning by standardized time measure. The station lights have long since darkened to facilitate proper circadian rhythms, and I shuffle into my shared living space from the dimly lit housing quarter streets.

Upon entering, my fears are realized. My partner is home and awake.

Immediately, I feel shame. Not for any slight I have committed outwardly, but for even having the thought that I would prefer she was asleep when I returned.

I remove my walking shoes and place my identification signet on the low table by the door, alongside her own signet of biologist's mark.

"Oh, you're home!" I hear her call from the corridor leading to the bedroom. She is in her casual attire, but as she still fidgets with her golden hairpin restraint I surmise she has not been home for long.

"They only kept me a little late tonight!" I force a smile to cover the lie.

"Well then, maybe at this rate they'll even start letting you come home on the schedule you actually contracted for!" Her tone is humorous, but I feel the hidden edge to her words.

I had secretly been taking additional voluntary shifts to gain favor with the project leads in an attempt to negotiate a better position. With my extended hours and her unpredictable shifts, we could go for weeks and see each other only in passing. The distance had placed strain on our relationship, and she could not help but feel some resentment.

I justified the choice to myself as an opportunity to secure higher standing. More favor with the academy. A better life for us both.

Part of me wonders if I only did it to avoid her.

"I was going to reheat some of the fried rice you made for us. I'll go ahead and cook it all if you haven't eaten dinner yet?" She asks as she rummages through the cryobox.

I briefly consider lying again and going straight to sleep, but I silence the thought. I refuse to participate in more willing self-destruction.

"I'm starving!" I reply. "I'll make us some tea as well. Green?"

She places the sealed metal container of food on the thermal plate to reheat, adjusts the timer, and shakes her head. "Ginger, please. I think I'm coming down with something. My throat has been bothering me lately."

I fill the porcelain teapot with hot water and carry it to our seating area. "How long has it been since we've actually managed to have dinner together?" I ask to keep the conversation going, though I'm unsure I want the answer.

"Have we ever? Come to think of it, are you actually the man who lives here or just some stranger from the streets? It's been so long since I've seen him after all!" She teases. I feel the edge to her words again, but I appreciate her humor. It's what first attracted me to her.

I laugh, genuinely. "You've caught me! I thought I would slip in while the master of the house was away and rob the place, though there doesn't seem to be much to take. Tell me then, are you frequently in the habit of indiscretions with strange men who wander in uninvited?"

She sits on the recliner opposite me and crosses her legs on the cushions. "Oh, all the time!" Her words are deadpan. "But only if they're as cute as you." She winks and busies herself with steeping her tea block. The steam fogs her glasses and she lets them slide down the bridge of her nose.

I scoff, and feel myself easing into a relaxed mood. I chide myself again for the trepidation I had felt when I first noticed she was home. I sip the tea, feeling its warmth melt away the stress from the outside world, and for the first time in months I no longer feel like a layover in some hostel. I feel like I am home.

She drinks deeply from her cup and lets out an exaggerated sigh of relief. "So! Anything new with your project or just more Voidgraph monitoring?"

I sink down into the chair and throw my head back to look at the low ceiling, sighing in turn. "Just more Voidgraphs. Nothing interesting I'm afraid. But vital all the same."

I would rather avoid lingering on my work for long. I sit myself back up and lean forward. "What about you? You were talking about that project with the new strain last time. Is that still going to happen?"

Her eyes light up. "Yes! Oh! It's so exciting, we just got approval for Grineer clinical trials! Oh, but I need to tell you about a new divergent, it has some incredible potential for direct neural conduction!" And just like that, she is away.

Her passion for her work is yet another aspect I adore. I find myself frustrated with the slow, often fruitless work of charting Void abscission, yet she continues to find pleasure in her scholarly pursuits. I catch bits and pieces of her excited rambling; mentions of semblant strains, exo-graft potential, hard vacuum resistance, but I am quickly lost as her excitement causes her to forget that while I am of the low-illuminant order like her, I am a layman in her particular field.

Instead I enjoy simply listening, not needing to understand. I am revitalized just by proximity to the true joy she finds in her work and my thoughts drift again to the guilt I feel for not taking our relationship more seriously. Our few domestic squabbles had centered around our growing distance and she had accused me, quite understandably, of not being committed to our partnership.

Initially we had agreed to share quarters to augment our living expenses, renting out the other hab to students on apprenticeship who had not been granted living scholarships at the academy. At least that was how I proposed it to her. I realize now that she likely thought I was only being coy with my proposal's true intentions. Perhaps I was.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I briefly glance at our Ayatan, woefully still. Given to her by her mother when she had first been informed of our relationship. She was horribly embarrassed by the gift, though I did not fully understand why at the time. Again I feel shame for how daft I can be in regards to courtship.

Hidden beneath the Ayatan is a small ring I had purchased for her during my trip to Uxmal. I had briefly considered a simple pair of earrings as souvenir, but something drove me to purchase the ring instead. A matrimonial band, the craftswoman had told me. An old local custom.

Would proposing an official marriage assure her of my dedication? Or would it just be seen as an empty gesture to secure the status quo? In truth, would I even be able to afford the marriage declaration on a scholar's finances, or receive signatory from the Executorial branch? I would need to be of a higher station to be sure, and an official rejection could be disastrous to our domestic climate.

Shame, again, this time for approaching our relationship so analytically. As a matter of pros and cons. I push the thoughts from my mind, content to simply drink and eat and share precious time with her now.

Loose strands of hair fall across her pale brow, and her cheeks flush as she excitedly arranges silverware to demonstrate some concept beyond my understanding. I let myself be lost in her features for a while, but then something else catches my eye.

The room is dark, with only the ambient light from the kitchenette overhead lamp and faint glow of halogen street light allowed through the partially open window shutters. But even in the darkness I see something across the room. My eyes adjust to the gloom and it comes into focus. Slowly peering from around the corner leading to the bedroom, a face.

Its eyes are wide, the whites standing out from the black of the corridor. It stares at me, then the glow of its teeth catching the half-light as it smiles.

In horror, recognition dawns on me. I know this intruder. Its mirror sits across from me now, distracted by her talk of biological symbiosis.

I open my mouth to shout but no sound emerges. Instead, my hands move of their own accord and lead the mug of tea to my lips for another drink.

The figure fully emerges from around the corner, and it is identical to my partner. The same casual clothing, the same messy hair. The only difference, the large golden hairpin she holds in her hand. I see her intention and try rising to my feet to stop her, but I adjust myself on the recliner instead.

Casually she walks up to my partner sitting across from me, and with single deft motion, plunges the pin sideways through her throat.

Arterial spray fans across both me and the killer as she withdraws the pin. My partner's eyes go wide, but the only sound she makes is a ragged gasp. She falls forward onto the floor, clutching at her wound. For a few moments her breath is replaced by wet sucking pops as blood floods her airway. She claws at the puncture wound, neck strained, eyes focused on me. Her breath falters, her eyelids droop, and her hands fall away. She stares at nothing.

The killer takes her position on the recliner, crossing her legs on the cushions and taking a drink of tea, pale features painted red. "Sorry! Got lost for a second there! What was I saying...Oh! Right! So anyway, once we separated the H-gene from-"

She continues speaking from where my partner left off. I struggle to comprehend what I just witnessed. I stare at the woman across the table, and then at the corpse by her feet. I try to scream but I make no sound.

I hear footsteps and turn towards them. Another woman identical to the one before approaches us. She reaches for the seated woman and forcefully brings her head against the solid table between us. There is a sickening crunch, and the seated woman merely lets out a brief guttural noise in response. The impact shatters teaset and tray, and hot water carries broken glass across the blood stained surface and onto the floor. It pitter patters as steaming raindrops against my partner's cold face.

The new woman does not even wait to be seated before she continues speaking where her victim stopped. She effortlessly shoves the corpse from the chair and it thuds onto the floor, landing atop my partner's. Again I try to scream, to bring body to action. Instead I hear myself mutter idle affirmations to some question the new woman had asked.

A third doppelganger approaches, and slits the seated woman's throat with a shard of broken porcelain. Her blood cascades in ribbons across the recliner. Its saturated cloth squelches as her body is pushed aside. The room reeks metallic.

A fourth. A fifth. More mirror images of my partner emerge and kill the one that came before. Some with improvised tool, some with empty hand. Blood does not stop flowing from the wounds they create. The simple rug on the living space floor is quickly overwhelmed, and the growing pool spreads across the entire room.

A tenth. A fifteenth. Their corpses pile in a messy heap. The blood continues to flow. I beg for the newest woman to stop as she wrenches the seated copy's head from her shoulders with horrifying strength.

"Oh, so the somatics division is interested as well?" I manage instead.

The pool has become a lake, and it laps at my ankles.

Thirty. Fifty. The lake has become an ocean, and each new copy wades across the room. It is viscous and warm. It sucks at my legs and tries to pull me in. I have long since drained my cup, but still I motion as if to drink from it. Some wayward blood collected in the bottom flows past my lips. It stings my throat.

A hundred. A thousand. Their corpses bob in the crimson depths, hair floating on the surface like waterweed. Discarded limbs catch as ashen driftwood on the sunken furniture. A face floats upward on the surface and it smiles into the dark. I feel my sanity slipping, and can only respond with a laugh. For once, my body reacts as I intend.

The cycle continues as she talks. Her speech doubles, then triples as the copies approach from the dark in droves. They speak in time with each other before they even reach our island in the gore, taking new place as quickly as they fall.

"Ooh, could you get us some more tea? Looks like we went through this pot pretty quick." Her copies ask me in concert as they tear eachother apart.

"Sure!" My voice responds.

My body gets up to move, pushing aside floating corpses that linger near level with my neck on the rising tides. I hear faint whispers bleeding from their still mouths, but I cannot make out the words.

I turn towards the kitchen, shattered teaset in hand, and stop.

I regard the wild-eyed man before me. He is breathing heavily, and he looks at me with terror. His eyes fall to the tea set in my hands. I follow his gaze and realize the teaset is no longer there. In its place is a knife with blood stained edge. A drop falls from its tip and lands on the cold tile floor. I look back up and the man is gone.

A soft, pleasant chime rings from the kitchenette.

"Oh good, dinner's ready!" My partner calls from the recliner.

I turn and smile. "About time, I'm starving!"

Hunger doesn't even begin to describe it. [https://i.imgur.com/TswmIP1.png]