Chapter 1: The Bargain
Cold. That was the first thing. A deep, metallic cold that seeped into his spine.
Andrew’s eyes snapped open to a ceiling of swirling, iridescent gray. It pulsed, faintly, like a sleeping heart made of stone. His head throbbed. The last thing he remembered was the shortcut through Wilson Park, the smell of wet leaves, and then a light—not a flashlight, but a sickly violet wash that made his teeth ache.
He tried to sit up. He couldn’t. Smooth, silvery bands crossed his chest, his thighs, his ankles, holding him fast to a surface so cold it felt like it was burning him. He wasn’t lying on a table, but suspended in the center of a room, the walls a living lattice of those same pulsing veins. The air hummed with a low, rhythmic tone that vibrated in his molars.
Panic, clean and sharp, lanced through him. He tugged against the restraints. They didn’t give.
“Please,” he heard himself whisper, his voice ragged. “Is someone there?”
A shadow detached itself from the deeper gloom near a shimmering doorway. It moved with a silence that was all wrong, a gliding, boneless motion that made Andrew’s stomach clench. It drew closer, entering the soft, sourceless light that filled the chamber.
Andrew’s breath hitched. It was tall, maybe seven feet, and impossibly slender. Its skin was a uniform, matte gray, stretched over a frame of elongated limbs. The face… it was both elegant and horrifyingly blank. No nose, just slight indentations. A thin, lipless slit for a mouth. And the eyes—large, obsidian black, absorbing the light and giving nothing back. A soft, cerulean glow traced a ridge down the center of its skull, disappearing into the high collar of a seamless suit.
“Andrew.” The voice was not a voice. It was a whisper that formed directly inside his skull, melodic and chillingly precise. It tasted of static and mint. “Your vital signs indicate panic. This is counter-productive to our initial session.”
“What are you?” Andrew gasped, pulling against the bands again. “Let me go. I didn’t do anything!”
The being—Xoryan—tipped its head. The movement was avian, curious. “You existed. That is enough.” It glided closer, until it stood beside the suspension platform. Andrew could see the fine, almost imperceptible texture of its skin, like polished pumice. It raised a hand.
Andrew flinched, squeezing his eyes shut. A touch came, but not where he expected. Cold, electric fingertips—too many of them—brushed along his temple, then down the line of his jaw. The touch was light, exploratory. It left a trail of goosebumps and a weird, tingling numbness.
“Human males are fascinatingly responsive,” Xoryan’s whisper-thought echoed. “A cascade of chemicals, a storm of synaptic fireworks. All so… fragile.”
“Don’t touch me,” Andrew pleaded, turning his head away.
“That is the bargain,” Xoryan replied, its hand retreating.
Andrew forced his eyes open. “Bargain?”
“A simple one.” Xoryan folded its long fingers together. “You will resist my touch. For one hour. If you succeed, I will return you to your park, your world, your insignificant life. Your memory of this place will be erased.”
A sliver of hope, thin and desperate, broke thr