Lux

They say the Void is empty, but they’ve never heard it scream. I can still feel the vibration of my home world tearing apart every time I close my eyes. It wasn’t a quick death. The Gilded Maw didn’t just "mine" us; they fracked the very seconds we were living in. One minute I was Elara, a Nocti engineer with a life that made sense, and the next, the light didn’t just hit me—it went through me.

I looked down at my hands and saw my own pulse. I saw the way my blood moved through my veins like glowing amber. I screamed, but I couldn't hear it over the sound of the universe folding in on itself. When the Syndicate pulled me out of the wreckage, I wasn't a person anymore. I was a "specimen." They didn't see a girl who’d lost her family; they saw a battery that wouldn't die.

They’re the ones who gave me this... this anchor. I look at my left wrist and see that matte-black metal housing chewed into my flesh. It’s heavy. It pulses with this sick, orange thrum that keeps my atoms from drifting away like smoke. They told me it was a gift. They said without it, I’d be nothing but a memory smeared across the stars. But I know what it really is. It’s a leash. It’s a beacon that tells Vaxen Kar exactly where his "Golden Goose" is hiding.

I’ve been "Flux" for three years now. It’s a joke, really. I hop onto these rust-bucket freighters, hide my horns under a hood, and pretend I’m just another grease monkey looking for a credit. The captains don't care who I am as long as I can make their jump-drives purr. And I do. I jack this shunt into their diagnostic ports and I feel the ship. I feel every hairline fracture, every leaking gasket, every drop of Xwiz-Vex 9 flowing through the lines. It feels like home, which is the saddest part of all.

Last night, a deckhand accidentally brushed against my arm in the dark. He jumped back, expecting his hand to pass right through me like a hologram. I saw the look on his face when he felt that I was warm. Solid. Real. He looked at me like I was a ghost that forgot to die. I left that ship at the next rock before he could tell anyone.

I’m tired of running, but I can’t stop. If the Maw catches me, they won’t just put me in a cage. They’ll core me. They’ll take the marrow from my bones and the tech from my wrist to fuel their greed for the next thousand years. I am the last of the Nocti. I am a walking x-ray of a dead world. And as long as this shunt keeps humming, I’ll keep moving.

The engines are coughing again—time to get to work.