Page 32 of Rebirth

I have never revealed my secret to others. If the other hyu’mans know, it is because their Vullan mates have told them. So it is strange this little one before me now is causing me to lose my reservations.

She is something I didn’t know I needed until now. She…calls to me.

And as unaware as she is of the veins around us and their heightened attention to her, so she is unaware of my growing obsession.

It must be her curiosity. For though the other hyu’mans are tenacious and fight for their own, I have never met one quite like this.

Soh’fee is different. But I remind myself she is different for the same reason I was different before I changed. Her thirst for knowledge overrides all else.

I can only hope it brings her favor, rather than ruin. As it has done me.

Before we arrived on this world, our ship woke us from stasis as soon as we entered this planet’s star system. At our first glimpse of this world, we knew I could not reveal myself to the inhabitants of this little blue rock. The potential species of this new world would not understand what I now am. And, after we arrived here, we knew our decision was the right one.

Hyu’manity barely understands my brothers who are pure Vullan. The Gryken invasion. Our arrival. We are their first contact.

Why would they understand something such as myself?

An anomaly. Unnatural.

Something that should not exist.

In the damning silence between us, Soh’fee’s gaze burns into mine, silently demanding answers I have kept locked away for lifetimes.

“Y—” she begins, words failing as her eyes hold on to me with a tight grip. “You’re—”

I remain unmoving. Allowing her to take me in. Waiting for that horror to seep into her gaze.

But Soh’fee simply stares at me, her strange hyu’man eyes growing wider and wider, the white parts bigger and bigger as if the whole ocular structure will pop out of her head if she continues. It is unnerving to see…and yet, I cannot pull my eyes away from her.

The thrumming in the background, the call of the network around us beats at the back of my mind as the seconds tick by.

If I must find out why this thing led me here, if I am to discover its purpose, I must do so now. While she stares at me in shock, whatever preconceptions she had regarding me stripping away one by one.

“Go, Soh’fee. Leave.” I pull my gaze from hers and to the vein before us.

“L-leave? Why?”

I stiffen.

Did she not hear what I told her? Did she misunderstand?

“I—”

“—am my enemy.”

I stiffen even more, not even breaths moving in my chest.

“You are my enemy.” I hear when she swallows, forcing her spittle down her throat as she repeats the words. “Is that what you’re saying? That you’re one of them. That you and this thing…”

She trails off, gaze shifting to the structure around us. All along her arms, thin filaments almost invisible to the naked eye rise. A bit like how my ba’clan used to rise along my form when they sensed danger. It is a warning response. One that is telling her she should find safety.

Why does she not run?

Pale eyes land on me again. “You’re saying you’re my enemy.”

I…cannot answer her. I started this. Revealed this fact. Yet, I cannot respond. To say it out loud even when it screams at the back of my mind will call it into physical existence. So far, that part of me has only taken form in my mind. In the dark of night where it is cold and I am alone.

“Affirmative.”

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