I lay flat on the bed, but sleep had no mercy for minds tangled in riddles.
Because peace cannot reach a man wrapped in questions.
And tonight, the unknown wore claws.
By the time morning limped into view, the base was already alive—
Not with chatter, but with the steady hum of function.
Guards patrolled in silent formation, weapons pulsing with soft electric light,
each step deliberate, each breath measured.
This was not a home.
It was a machine that ran on paranoia and protocol.
In the command center, a digitally printed map dominated the far wall.
Highlighted zones marked where the planet pretended to be safe.
But everyone knew—true safety wasn't detected. It was earned.
Through blood.
Through bodies.
Through the slow, grinding arithmetic of sacrifice.
That map wasn't printed. It was carved by the dead so the living could pretend they knew the way.
I scanned one of the updated terrain modules—targeting the so-called "radioactive lake."
From orbit, it shimmered violet like a poisoned jewel.
From the ground, it looked more like liquid deceit.
I began packing: radiation suit—an insult disguised as armor.
"Radiation-proof and shame-proof," I muttered, catching my reflection.
The mirror gave me a stranger in silver skin.
I strapped a dagger to my hip—not for defense. For data.
A smirk crept onto my face, cold and clinical.
Not triumph. Not fear.
Just something… interested.
That's when she entered.
Maria.
Elegance, sharpened. Chaos, contained.
Wearing a lab coat like it was stitched from battlefield flags.
Her shoulder-length obsidian hair tied back with military precision,
and those glasses—God, not even for sight.
She wore them like a blade.
She had a tell.
Whenever she was hiding something—emotion or data—her thumb would press hard into the scanner grip, as if she could suppress the truth by holding it tighter.
I stood straighter. Reflex.
She brought that out in people.
"Let me guess," I said, voice light. "You're heading to the lake too?"
She glanced at me the way a hawk might glance at a chessboard.
"It's not like we have a wide range of destinations. Unless you've discovered a five-star resort out here."
That was Maria. Every word calibrated, double-loaded with implication.
We weren't friends, not really. But something in her always moved two moves ahead of everyone else.
I'd once tied with her in a science competition—won by a sliver.
To this day, I suspected she let me.
The Journey
The rover hummed like a beast suppressing a growl.
Armored, silent, built for environments that hated human lungs.
Maria sat beside me, not tense—never tense—but always aware.
Her fingers danced over the scanner, but when I mentioned the beast from last week, she pressed her thumb down again—that tell—as if trying to erase the thought through pressure.
"You don't trust easily," I said, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
She didn't look up. "Trust is a word people use when they run out of data."
"Is that how you see me? Unverified?"
Now she looked at me—measured, precise.
"Not unverified. Just… inconclusive."
A smirk twitched at my lips.
"So I'm a mystery?"
"No," she said. "A variable. I just haven't decided if you belong in the control group or the explosion."
I laughed. Genuinely.
God, she was dangerous.
And I liked that about her.
We reached the lake before noon.
It didn't shimmer like water. It pulsed. Like a wound.
The violet hue thickened in waves, clouding anything beneath.
Maria stepped out first. Her eyes scanned everything—not the lake, but the patterns in the sediment, the angles of the wind, the way shadows bent slightly wrong.
I offered, casually, "I can stay nearby. As bodyguard, backup, or just a charming background noise."
She didn't glance back.
"Your charm might work on radiation. Might."
"Some say it's fatal at close range."
She paused, finally smiling—just a little.
"Then let's make sure I stay exactly five meters away."
Iconic.
She moved like a surgeon dissecting God.
Every motion clinical, every reaction half a second before the event.
But behind all that… I wondered—
Would she dissect me, too, if I ever became fascinating enough?
And more than that…
Was she like the leaf?
People admire flowers. But the leaf—
the process, the quiet grind of survival—
Maria was no flower.
She was a process in motion.
I left her there.
Said I was moving deeper into the lake's edge.
That was partly true.
The truth?
I didn't want to linger too close. Not because of distrust.
But because stalking a woman during fieldwork isn't romantic. It's creepy.
And because something in me needed to see what the world was hiding from her.
Threshold
No signs. No warnings.
Just the world whispering, "Come and see."
Then—
A whisper like static kissed the inside of my skull:
"Don't overuse your power."
Gone, as fast as it came.
But I already knew I'd ignore it.
Because if this poisoned world taught me anything, it was this:
Hesitation is a thief.
Caution is a luxury.
And opportunity is a door that never knocks twice.
The Beast
It stood like a half-born god—
twisted, wide-limbed, shaped like evolution had a nightmare and couldn't wake up.
Its skin was taut with mutation, its breath a heatwave.
And yet…
It was beautiful.
Not in symmetry.
But in the way it held truth.
"People adore flowers," I whispered, "but the extraordinary revere leaves.
The flower is a byproduct.
The leaf is the process.
Photosynthesis, breath, survival.
Everything beautiful begins in something ugly."
And just for a moment—
I thought of Maria.
I could picture her hands—calloused from hours of field calibration—trembling just slightly.
Another leaf.
Another process.
Another mystery not meant to bloom, but to survive.
It stared at me.
Still. Listening.
Then I remembered:
"No mutated being will harm you."
That law. That gift. That curse.
I approached, slow.
The dagger wasn't drawn out of rage.
It was precision. Mercy. Obsession.
I stopped. Took a breath.
Not fear.
Just the breath we take before a mistake we know we'll live with.
Then I lunged.
Buried the dagger into its skull.
It wasn't quick. It wasn't supposed to be.
Even as it collapsed, it avoided striking back.
Because it remembered His words.
And I carried His echo.
If my sister saw me like this—
Blood on my gloves, eyes calm, breath steady—
She'd probably mutter through clenched teeth:
"You better not be doing this without taking proper notes."
Science, Not Cruelty
Its body twitched with dying heat. I knelt.
Not to pray.
To study.
This wasn't murder.
This was data.
This was research.
This was the world's cruel math—solved in flesh.
"Big fish eat small fish.
Small fish eat shrimp.
And the smartest fish… learns how to swim with blood in its mouth."
I took tissue samples. Enzymes. Muscle strands.
Every slice a step toward a question too complex for language.
Would He be angry next time we met?
Maybe.
Or maybe…
He'd be proud.
Then—
a sound.
A shriek.
Sharp. Human. But threaded with something too raw.
And beneath it, faint and impossible—
that same dying hum the beast had let out.
Maria.