Page 26 of Nebula Hearts
His eyes meet mine again. Asking a question he won’t say out loud.
A sound interrupts. Distant clicking. The creatures returning.
We both freeze.
“We need to leave,” he says, his voice steady. “Now.”
“Yeah. Right. Leaving.” I step back, my legs unsteady. “Good plan.”
We move toward the exit, his hand finding my elbow, guiding me through the darkness.
TYNRAX
Ican’t stop shaking.
Every step back toward the ship takes effort I don’t have. My legs work but barely. Everything hurts in a way I can’t catalog or explain, just a deep ache that goes past muscle into something fundamental.
Aris’s hand is on my arm. Has been since we left the survey site. Her grip steady, warm through my jacket sleeve.
I should tell her to let go. Should maintain some kind of boundary. But I can’t bring myself to say it. The words won’t form. And honestly, without her touch, I’m not sure I’d make it back.
The landscape passes. Gray regolith, volcanic rock, the relay station in the distance. I register it all but can’t focus on any of it. My mind keeps slipping, catching on fragments I can’t quite hold.
The survey site. The creatures. Her trapped. The decision that wasn’t really a decision at all.
Then nothing. Just white noise where my memory should be.
I remember her voice calling me back. Her hands on my face. The way her saying my name cut through the static.
Everything else is gone.
“Does this help?” she asks. We’ve been walking maybe twenty minutes. “When I touch you?”
The question catches me off guard. Not because it’s invasive but because it’s true.
“Yes.”
The word comes out rough. I clear my throat but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps except her hand on my arm, anchoring me to something outside my own head.
She doesn’t ask me to explain. Doesn’t push for details. Just keeps walking, keeps her hand where it is.
I’m grateful for that. I don’t have words for what her touch does. Just that without it, the static gets louder. The fragments sharper. Like I’m coming apart and her presence is the only thing holding me together.
We walk in silence. Her breathing is audible in the thin air, steady despite her exhaustion. She’s tired. Running on adrenaline that’s going to crash hard when we get back to the ship. But she’s not complaining, not slowing down.
She’s stronger than she looks. Tougher than she gives herself credit for.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she says eventually. Not angry. Just stating fact. “You knew what would happen.”
The words sting because they’re true. I did know. Understood what going near the ruins would do to me. What hearing her in danger would trigger.
But I’d gone anyway.
“I couldn’t leave you trapped.”
It sounds inadequate even as I say it. Like I’m minimizing what actually happened. The truth is simpler and more complicated than that.
The truth is there was never a choice. Not really. The moment I heard her voice over the comm, heard the fear in it, every other consideration stopped mattering.
