Episode 10: Reunion

When I woke up, the lights hummed like they’d forgotten how to sleep.

They weren’t warm lights. Not the buttery kind you get in kitchens or the soft ones in motel bathrooms that make even broken people look romantic. These lights were silver. Hard. Surgical. The kind that show everything.

I didn’t know where I was. That was the first thing.

The second thing was pain. Not sharp—dull. Like my whole body had been erased with the wrong end of a pencil.

The third was Ant.

He was sitting beside the door. Like he’d been there a long time. Like he’d promised not to leave, and meant it.

I stared at him.

He stared back.

His eyes were silver. Not a metaphor. Not “stormy” or “cold” or “unreadable.” Just…silver. Like mercury was alive and trying to crawl out of his skull.

I said his name.

He said mine.

“Marla.”

The last time I saw Ant, we were dragging what was left of Unit 12 through a blown-out School and his ankle was broken. He was laughing about it. Said if he turned, I should throw him off the balcony and tell people it was an accident.Then Something grabbed him and he was gone.

This Ant didn’t laugh.

This Ant looked like he’d been rebuilt from the inside.

“What happened?” I said.

“You died.”

“Oh.”

I waited. But he didn’t explain it like a person. He said it like a fact. Like a weather report. Like I’d missed something small. A bus. A message. My own expiration date.

“You were tortured by the Ghost Marine and your heart couldn’t take it.”

“And now?”

“I fixed you.”

“You’re not a medic.”

“I am now.”

I sat up. Regretted it. My ribs felt like they’d been rearranged by someone unfamiliar with the concept of ribs. The room tilted. The ceiling blinked.

Ant stood.

I stared again. His shoulders were wrong. His back was straighter. There were no seams in his shirt. No sweat. He moved like gravity had been turned down for him, and only him.

“Where are we?”

He didn’t answer.

The door opened before he could. It didn’t creak or hiss. It parted. Like water. Like this place didn’t believe in doors so much as permissions.

They entered.

They didn’t look human. Not exactly. Too tall. Too clean. Like angels drawn by someone who hated angels.

One of them tilted her head when she saw me. Her mouth didn’t move when she spoke.

“She’s awake.”

Another sniffed the air like I was meat they didn’t want to eat.

Ant stepped between us. Barely. Like a shadow taking my side without asking.

“She’s not a threat,” he said.

They didn’t answer him. They just left. The wall swallowed them.

“Charming,” I said.

“They don’t talk to us unless we’re bleeding or brilliant,” Ant said.

“Which am I?”

He looked at me. His face didn’t change.

“You’re mine.”

I didn’t ask what that meant. I didn’t want to know if it meant protection or possession or both. I just leaned back against the silver wall and listened to the silence.

There was no sound here. No air vents. No city. No wind.

No screams.

That was the part I hated most.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You would’ve died.”

“I didn’t.”

“You would’ve. I saw it. I shattered it and put you back together.”

I looked at my hands.

They were still mine.

Still scarred.

Still shaking.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you should have died when your heart stopped. Then I put you back together.”

“How many times have you done that?”

He didn’t answer.

But his hands twitched. Just once. Like they remembered every break they ever made.

“I didn’t ask you to save me,” I said.

“I didn’t do it because you asked.”

The lights flickered. Just once. Barely.

I froze.

Ant didn’t.

“They’re testing something,” he said. “The Silver like to make sure the world above is still dying.”

He looked up.

“Still is.”

I wanted to ask about the others. About what was left of Unit 12. About the ghost marine. About the war.

“Do I still count as human?” I asked.

Ant sat again.

“If they ask, you’re Silver-adjacent.”

“That a thing?”

“It is now.”

He looked tired. Not sleep-tired. Soul-tired. The kind of tired that means you've seen too much and didn't look away once.

I closed my eyes.

The light still pressed through.

And from somewhere far above us, a sound began. Not screaming.

Knocking.

Soft. Steady.

Like someone outside the door of the last safe place in the world.

Asking to be let in.