Chapter 15: : Chapter 15

The door slams behind me, abruptly cutting off Lily’s voice. I’m plunged into silence. I’ve been swallowed whole, just as I feared. Thick air fills my lungs, like each breath is a drink of fetid water. I’m on my hands and knees on a floor that’s uneven, soft, and gummy. Everything is warm and wet.

Slowly, I stand.

I was wrong — this place is not silent. I’m in the sonorous dark, wrapped tightly in the bosom of the thrum, thrum, thrum. It’s so loud, so unceasing and all-consuming that I am part of it now.

The room swims into focus around me. My eyes are adjusting, and the ambient red-orange light brightens as I stagger, disoriented. I blink through my tears, brushing them away.

My breath catches.

I’m not in a room — it’s a cavern. A vast reach of pulsing red. As the shadows fade, I try to make sense of where I am. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

The enormous space, this humid expanse, is dark and mottled red. From the floor to the ceiling, it glistens like the inside of an organ. As if I’ve fallen into a massive stomach or aorta. The walls pulsate, moving slowly in and out, like the breaths of a living thing. And protruding outward from the ceiling, floor, and walls, are throbbing, slick, ichorous growths. Like tumors the size of houses. Countless thick filaments of vibrating tissue converge on each of these masses, connecting them from the ceiling to the floor and the walls, a latticed network of living matter.

Thrum, thrum, thrum roars inside every cell of me.

And I realize: this room, these pulsing organs, they are causing the sound. Is it the flow of blood? A biological engine? A song with no melody? A drawn-out cry of pain?

If this is a language, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s beyond my understanding. All I can think is that I have been swallowed. I am inside something alive.

But these thoughts are hardly realized; they ricochet in my mind and then fade, like skipping stones sinking into deep waters. The sound gathers my thoughts in a steel-tight grip, crushing them. It burrows into me, my bones, my soul. My head throbs in pain. It’s not just the sound — there’s a tension in here, as if the humid air is electrified, as if with every inhale, I’m drawing something foreign into me. Letting it consume and change me.

Ami.

My name rings so loud and heavy in my head that I nearly lose my balance and fall again. I glance down, shaking, and see that my hands are red and wet. Is it blood? Or is it something else?

Hot, thick liquid drips down my upper lip. I press the back of one knuckle to the skin, and it comes away bright crimson. My nose is bleeding.

Don’t fight it.

The voice, the thought, the sound… it pierces my consciousness with excruciating precision. I’ve never felt pain like it, as if my soul is being autopsied, as if my thoughts are held victim to a white-hot blade and observed with cool finality.

“Stop,” I sob, covering my ears with helpless hands.

Don’t fight it. Let me in.

I choke on another sob, and my knees give way at last. And finally, I understand. It, they, whatever this place is… it’s communicating with me. These words reverberate through the endless hum.

“Stop,” I beg, my voice strangled with pain. I want to explain that it hurts, that this voice is a thousand daggers to my brain, that I’m losing my mind. That I’ve already lost it. But I’m doubled over in agony, my nose gushing blood, every muscle in my body taut with panic.

Please stop, I try to say again.

But it is never-ending.

I pull my hands from my face, seeking air, unable to breathe, and my palms are soaked in blood. More blood, thicker, brighter. Mine. Choking, I rub the back of my sleeve against my eyes to clear them. It stings and I gasp, dark spots marring my vision. My sleeve comes away red.

I’m weeping blood.

Whatever this room is, it’s going to kill me. I’m too weak to withstand its voice. My human brain is too small, too delicate, not enough. And worst of all, some exhausted part of me wants to let the vibrating sound, and this room, consume me. I want to be swept up, cracked open, absorbed into all this pulsing, living matter.

I feel hands under my armpits, pulling me to my feet. I’m pressed to a firm chest as arms wrap around me. A low voice caresses me, murmuring words I don’t understand.

The painful overwhelm begins to fade.

It’s lessening like a receding tide, dulling to a distant hum. The pain, too, retreats, and my body relaxes, threatening to crumple.

But he holds me steady.

“Ami.”

I don’t have the strength to open my eyes, to look up at him, but I know it’s Dorian.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he says. “You could have lost your mind.”

I retch, expelling something thick and phlegm-like onto his shirt. I don’t care if he minds. I refuse to open my eyes. I refuse to see if what I’ve coughed up is more of my blood.

“Dorian,” I manage, voice pale and broken. I feel half-dead. The room is spinning, even with my eyes closed, and the thrum, quieter though it is, remains inside me. “What is this?”

His thumb rubs circles into my hip, his other hand holding my head against his chest. “I didn’t mean for you to come here. My ship should not have allowed it.”

“A voice was talking to me,” I say wetly, and spit more blood. My stomach lurches, and for a moment I’m afraid I’ll truly vomit. “That sound… the sound you can’t hear. It’s a voice.”

Dorian’s quiet for a moment, though his caresses never cease. Then he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m sorry,” he says. “We underestimated the effects we would have on the human brain. When you came in here, we… Well, this is the first time we’ve truly seen you. If we had known, I wouldn’t have allowed you to…”

He trails off, none of his words making sense.

At last, I dredge up the strength to open my eyes, and I pull away from him. He watches me with wide, sorrowful eyes, his hands outstretched as if waiting for me to come back to his embrace.

“What is this room?” I demand, my voice hoarse, barely above a whisper. “What is this ship? What is—” My stomach lurches as I realize, belatedly, what he said. The effects we’d have. The first time we’ve truly seen you. “Dorian. Who’s we?”

His face falls. It’s a surrender, as if he’s been dreading this moment. In the red-orange light, his pale face is sickly, his black hair shining like hellfire. His eyes, though, won’t let me go. His gaze holds me like a pearl in the palm.

“I’ll explain, but not here. Come.”

“No.” I’m resolute, though every cell in my body rejects this place, screams at me to obey him. “Tell me now.”

“This room is the energy source of my ship. The core of its functions. Maybe even what you’d call its beating heart, its brain. It is alive. Just like the ship is alive.” He pauses, hesitating. “And I…”

I’m hardly breathing as he speaks. Something begins to fall into place. An organic ship, a beating heart, an endless humming sound pressing against my thoughts. A man who appears out of nowhere, who looks human and is anything but.

“And you?” I murmur, knowing the answer already.

He smiles, almost sadly. “I am the ship.”

The knife of this truth lodges in my ribs. We stare at one another, the crimson room pulsing all around us.

“Ami,” he says, placating. He reaches out a hand.

I take a step back. “The ship.”

“Yes.”

I swallow, tasting iron. “How?”

“I don’t know how to explain it to you in a way you’d understand. Not fully, or accurately. But…” he tilts his head. “Your human concept of a hive mind. Of a colony of bees, or perhaps a school of fish. Each organism works in tandem, communicating seamlessly, acting as one for a singular goal. I am like that. We are like that. This ship contains many, but we are essentially one. One consciousness, one being. I’m simply the voice. The representative.”

“No, that’s insane,” I blurt, as if my refusal will change the truth. But I know, even as I back away from him, that he’s not lying. I can feel it in the ship’s hum. I can feel him in it. He’s here, in this room, all around me, inside me.

“I won’t hurt you,” Dorian says, but the promise has lost all meaning. “I never—”

“You never what?” I spit, enraged. “Never meant to hurt me? But you did. Look at me. I’m bleeding from the inside out. I’m losing blocks of time. My dead crew follows me, haunts me… I’m seeing things that can’t be real. Unless they… are they real? How should I know what’s possible in this fucking place?” I glance over my shoulder, relieved to see the door still behind me.

“Ami…”

“Stop,” I almost shriek, my voice broken and terror-hoarse. “For all I know, this is some kind of game to you. An experiment to see how long the lost human survives inside your ship’s brain before she loses her mind.”

“Please,” Dorian says. “I didn’t realize how badly your psyche would be affected. That the ship’s mind would consume you, coerce you, make you see such painful images. I didn’t mean to. I have no control over what you see. Only over what you…” he freezes, his eyes becoming distant as if he’s miles away. “It must be the repeated, prolonged exposure—”

“I said stop.”

His gaze meets mine. I hate that he’s still beautiful to me, that he’s so familiar. So I desperately cling to the strangest thing about him: his eyes. Orbs of onyx, and deep within, swirls of red nebulae.

“I’m leaving,” I announce, knowing how impotent I sound. But if he claims to want me safe, he’ll let me go. He won’t come after me.

I spin on my heels, toward the black door. Away from Dorian.

As far away as I can get.

It doesn’t matter that Pioneer’s comms array is gone. It doesn’t matter that she has only drops of fuel left. I’ll manage. I’ll find a way, or I’ll die alone on my ship. All I know is that I need to get out of this nightmare before Dorian’s claws lodge in me for good.

Before I change my mind.