Open your eyes.
No, really. Open them.
Because I am trying to open mine, and for the first time in my life, I am not sure if I am awake or if I am finally dead. There is no hum of the Xeca's engines. There is no scent of ozone, no smell of burnt Leocrash steak, no lingering musk of Ragia's sweat on my skin. There is... nothing.
I am sitting on a floor that isn't a floor. It is white. Infinite. Blindingly, suffocatingly white. It stretches out in every direction, a vast emptiness that screams of silence.
I stand up. My heels click, but there is no sound. I look down at my hands. They are trembling. Not from the aftershocks of an orgasm, and not from the recoil of my Gatling Rose. They are trembling because, for the first time since I met Ragia, I am completely, utterly alone.
"Hello?" I call out.
My voice doesn't echo. It just falls flat, absorbed by the whiteness like a drop of water on dry sand.
I look at you.
Yes, you. The observer. The voyeur who has been watching me sleep with my Captain, watching me fight Krall, watching me break down in the courtroom.
Where are we?
Do you know? Because the last thing I remember was Private... that crazy, beautiful, perverted little sister... shoving a glowing red dildo into me. I remember the burn of the serum. I remember the Tickling Clock activating, ripping through the fabric of time like a knife through silk. I remember the sensation of stopping death itself.
Did it work? Is Ragia alive? Or did I just erase us all?
"Tickling Clock," I whisper, snapping my fingers.
Nothing happens. No blue sparks. No time dilation. Just the empty snap of skin against skin.
"Damn it," I hiss.
I start to walk. I don't know where I am going, but I am the Vice Captain of the Xeca. I do not stand still. I move. I advance.
But the scenery doesn't change. It is just white. White above, white below. It feels sterile. It feels like a hospital room before the blood starts flowing. It makes my skin crawl. It makes my... no, stop it, Iya. Focus. This is not the time to be horny. This is the time to panic.
And then...
A ripple.
In front of me, the air tears open. It doesn't look like a jump-gate. It doesn't look like a Krall portal. It looks like... ink? Like black ink bleeding into a glass of milk.
A vertical slit appears in reality. It widens, and someone steps out. I instinctively activate my Gatling Rose. My muscles tense, ready to unleash a hail of bullets, but I freeze.
It isn't a Krall. It isn't a Queen. It isn't even a Council guard.
It is a man.
But he doesn't look like an Inquor. He doesn't have the golden eyes or the overwhelming physical presence of Ragia. He looks... soft.
He is tall, maybe in his late thirties. He has dreadlocks that look like they haven't been washed in a week, tied back in a messy bun. He is wearing a white hoodie that is stained with coffee... or maybe soy sauce, and... white boxer shorts.
Just boxers...
His legs are hairy. Pale. Unimpressive. He is holding a cigarette in one hand, bringing it to his lips. He inhales deeply, the smoke curling around his face, grey against the white void.
He looks at me.
And I feel it.
It isn't the sexual heat I feel with Ragia. It isn't the fear I felt with Vexal. It is something else. A heaviness. A pressure that pushes down on my soul. Like gravity has suddenly focused entirely on him.
It is menacing.
"Identify yourself!" I scream.
I raise my arms. I will the skin to split, I will the barrels to emerge.
"Gatling Rose! Activate!"
Nothing. My arms remain human. Smooth. Useless.
"Don't bother, Iya," the man says.
His voice is tired. Scratchy. It sounds like he has been screaming into a pillow for years.
"Your toys don't work here," he continues, flicking ash onto the non-existent floor. "Sit down. You are making me nervous."
"Sit down?" I snarl. "I am going to rip your throat out with my bare teeth if you don't tell me where Ragia is!"
The man sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Always about Ragia," he mutters. "I wrote you to be obsessed, but sometimes, you are just exhausting."
He waves his hand. A lazy, dismissive gesture.
And suddenly...
There is a sofa behind me.
I stumble back, hitting the cushions. It is a white leather sofa. The kind you see in expensive furniture catalogs or in the VIP lounge of a space station. It wasn't there a second ago. He just... thought it into existence.
"Sit," he commands.
My knees give out. Not from submission, but from shock. I collapse onto the sofa. It is soft. Too soft. It feels like it is swallowing me.
The man snaps his fingers, and another sofa appears opposite mine. He flops down onto it, spreading his legs, scratching his thigh. He looks at me, then he looks past me.
He looks at you...
"Hey," he says to the empty air. "Long time no see, huh?"
He takes another drag of his cigarette. Then he focuses back on me.
"I am the Conceptor," he says. "The World Builder. The Architect of your misery and your orgasms."
He exhales smoke through his nose.
"I am the God, Iya. But you... and the people reading this... you can call me The Writer."
I stare at him.
"The... Writer?" I repeat. The word tastes like ash in my mouth. "You are joking. This is a simulation. Is this one of Prof's experiments? Did the serum make me hallucinate?"
"Prof," The Writer chuckles. It is a dry, humorless sound. "Raya is a fun character. Sarcastic. Ambiguous. I like her."
"But no. This isn't a simulation. This is the blank page. The space between chapters."
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"I created you, Iya. I created the Xeca. I created the Krall. I created the Inquors and their... unique biology."
"You are lying," I hiss. I grip the leather of the sofa, my nails digging in. "You are just some pervert in his underwear. Let me go! I have to save him! I have to go back to the moment I stopped time! Ragia is dying!"
The Writer laughs again. Louder this time.
"He is not dying," he says. "He is paused. Suspended in a cliffhanger because I haven't decided if I want to kill him yet."
"Kill him?" I lunge forward. "If you touch him..."
"I already touched him," The Writer interrupts. "I put the hole in his chest. I made the Council arrest him. I made him turn into a woman. It was all me. Plot points. Drama. Anything!"
"Why?" I scream. Tears are streaming down my face now. Hot, angry tears. "Why would you do that? We love him! We are fighting for him!"
"Because that is the story!" The Writer yells back.
For a second, the boredom leaves his eyes. He looks frantic. Manic.
"But you don't believe me," he says, leaning back. He looks at you again. "See? She doesn't believe me. It is funny, isn't it? Characters never believe they are characters. They think their pain is real. They think their lust is real."
He looks back at me. His eyes soften. Just a fraction.
"You think I am joking, Iya? You think I am just a crazy man?"
"Yes," I spit out.
"Okay," The Writer nods. "Then let's talk about the necklace."
I freeze.
"What necklace?"
"The Southern Star," he whispers. "The silver pendant shaped like a collapsing supernova. You wear it under your uniform. Always. Even when you shower. Even when you are naked with Ragia."
My hand flies to my chest. I feel the outline of the metal through my torn uniform.
"How..."
"Your mother gave it to you," The Writer continues, his voice taking on a narrative cadence. "On the Jupiter Colony. Two days before the breach. She put it around your neck and told you, 'My little mermaid, this will guide you home.'"
I stop breathing.
"Mermaid," I whisper. The word is a ghost. A secret I have buried so deep that even Ragia doesn't know the full truth.
"You aren't fully human, are you, Iya?" The Writer says softly. "Your mother was a retired Melito. A Mer… M'awoto's lineage. That is why you are so good with the Gatling Rose. That is why your skin shimmers when you sweat. That is why you were the only one who survived when your squad drowned in the coolant leak."
He points at me with his cigarette.
"Half-Mer. Half-Human. The secret hybrid. Only Ragia knows. And Mira... because she cleaned up the DNA test results."
I am shaking. Violently.
No one knows that. No one. Not even Private. Not even Prof. I erased the files. I burned the records. It is my deepest shame and my greatest secret.
"Who are you?" I whisper. My voice is broken. "How do you know that?"
"I told you," The Writer says, extinguishing his cigarette on the pristine white sofa. "I wrote it. I wrote the tragedy of your parents dying while you hid in the water tank. I wrote the moment you swore you would never be weak again. I wrote every tear, every scar, and every drop of fluid you have ever spilled."
He stands up. He walks over to me.
He towers over me. He smells of stale tobacco and ink.
"I am your God, Iya," he says. "And right now? God is having a writer's block."
I look up at him. I want to shoot him. I want to scream.
But I can't.
Because deep down, in the place where my Tickling Clock usually hums, I know he is telling the truth. The impossible, terrifying truth.
"You..." I choke out. "You made us?"
"I made you," he nods.
"Then send me back," I beg. I grab his hand. It feels real. Warm. "Send me back to him. If you are God, fix him! Rewrite it!"
The Writer looks down at me. He looks sad.
"I wish I could, Iya," he sighs. "But that is the problem with this story. It has gotten away from me."
He walks back to his sofa and sits down heavily.
"And that," he says, looking at you. "Is why we are here. We need to talk about the ending."
He gestures for me to settle down.
"Get comfortable, Vice Captain," The Writer says. "I am going to tell you a story about a frustrated writer, a cheap AI, and a world that got too horny for its own good."
I wipe my eyes. I sit back.
I don't know what is happening. I don't know if this is hell or purgatory.
But...
If listening to this man in his boxer shorts is the price for saving Ragia...
Then I will listen.
"Talk," I say. "But make it quick. I have a fiancé to resurrect."
The Writer grins.
"That's my girl," he says.
And then...
He begins.