Page 50 of A Mate For Matrix
He stared out at the ship still approaching in the distance, the faintest glimmer of its silhouette visible beyond their imperfect cloak.
His mouth was dry.
His voice was almost inaudible.
“…She knows I’m here.”
The air grew colder.
The stars outside the viewport blurred, shadows stretching long across the bridge floor, as if reality itself was beginning to warp. Matrix’s breath caught in his throat. Something—someone—was here with him.
Then—
As if a veil were lifting, the shadows twisted into shape.
A woman.
Not human. Not anything he had ever seen.
Her form floated above the deck, bathed in a strange violet glow that seemed to pulse in rhythm with a heartbeat. Her skin was a shade of metallic gray that shimmered like liquid mercury, but as Matrix watched, it slowly shifted—flaring with iridescent blues, greens, and silvers as if responding to his presence.
She spoke.
“Zher’tai kahl nox’ten vah’dari.”
The sound wasn’t made with lips—it came from everywhere. The words reverberated in his bones and scrambled across his thoughts.
“Zher’tai kahl nox’ten vah’dari…” she repeated.
Suddenly—
Understanding exploded in his mind.
“You have connected.”
Matrix took a stunned half-step back, his lips parting.
He could hear her. Not through sound, but through some neural frequency, like his thoughts had been rerouted to another bandwidth of reality.
Her voice echoed through his skull again, calm and insidious:
“You are connected.”
The phrase reverberated across the mental link like a claim.
Matrix’s eyes darted across her alien form, trying to comprehend what he was seeing.
Despite the otherworldliness, she was familiar. Somehow. A shape from a nightmare he hadn’t had yet.
She was beautiful and horrifying at once—her long, floating limbs graceful, her body wrapped in what looked like cables spun from starlight. Thick tubes connected from her skull into the darkness above, hanging like strands of silken hair shot through with glowing current. More conduits snaked across her torso and legs, interwoven to mimic the shape of a flowing gown, but formed entirely of fiber and steel.
She drifted closer.
Matrix tensed.
“Don’t be afraid,” she cooed. “You were created to serve me.”
His blood chilled.
