Something presses in around Sira. An imperceptible, vague something; the knowledge and impression of a presence being there instead of actual sensory input. A murky awareness that they can’t open their eyes to resolve. Wherever they are, they’re not sure if they have eyes to open in the first place.

  It’s skintight, oppressive, and cold – but not in the sense of temperature. Choking, but not that they exert any effort to breathe. Dark, but not due to the absence of light. The limited awareness that they possess wavers with each ‘impression’ they receive, unable to wrap their thoughts properly around any of it, unable to do much other than let it happen.

  Why is this…familiar?

  All that they can think to compare it to, with what restricted ability to think that they have, is being deep, deep underwater, if the water were as thick as tar and could eat away at their…corporeality? Is that the right word?

  Do they have a body in this place? They can’t. It’s not possible. The increasing pressure gives them a confusing, garbled sense of definition, but mentally feeling out what that definition is doesn’t seem like an option. Something inside them pushes back against the mere idea – forcefully.

  As if, in some way, it would be ceding territory.

  Ceding territory to what?

  The pressure becomes an insurmountable weight. It’s violent in a way that defies any concept of reality. It pulls, pushes, and tears without hands or fingers. It gnaws without any teeth.

  They want to scream, but screaming needs lungs, a mouth, and to happen in a place where sound exists.

  “You never do as you’re told, do you?”

  Sira shoots upright, their eyes finally opening—

  —to find they’re still in bed, inside F-6’s quarters.

  Within the bounds of reality.

  Sweat coats their skin. Their heart pounds against their rib cage harder than it did back in the chamber and their head is killing them. The darkness of the room doesn’t help with getting their bearings. It’s quiet. Calm. The temperature of the air is cool, not cold like the hollowness they arrived from. It’s a relief with the amount of sweat covering them.

  “Nightmares?”

  Although the question is a hushed one, Sira still flinches at someone else’s voice cutting through the silence. On the other side of the room, despite the place being unlit, they’re still able to make out a familiarly imposing figure sitting on the bed across from theirs.

  Mikael.

  Maybe their bed choice wasn’t the best idea.

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  ”I-I guess so, yeah,” they embarrassingly stumble over some of the words. Their voice is hoarse again.

  Glancing around, no one else has stirred. Sira can’t make out Mikael’s face in the dark, but they feel his eyes staring nonetheless. The residual fear from the ‘nightmare’ and the only other person awake being the same person who had a gun pointed in their face isn’t helping their heart rate. At all.

  Sira’s stomach growls, breaking the uncomfortable silence that was about to fall over the room. Their hand compulsively goes to their belly as they bend over slightly, the cloying hunger from not eating enough when they were offered food overtaking their senses.

  “…if you need to eat,” Mikael starts, but the reluctance in his voice is painfully obvious even with it being low enough to not wake anyone else, “I can walk you to the cafeteria.”

  That was loud enough to hear? Embarrassing. “I can’t just go myself? I’ve seen where it is, so I could probably make my way there and back.”

  The bed creaks beneath Mikael’s weight as he shifts, moving to sit on its edge. “Karim wouldn’t want you wandering around by yourself. I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise.”

  His voice is mostly monotonous, but there’s an attitude that underlies it. It makes Sira’s lips twitch whenever he talks too much. It’s as if conversation disgusts him. Whether that’s just with Sira or with everyone, it’s hard to tell when he hasn’t said much.

  But they do feel like they’re starving again. Some of the heat on their skin might not be from sweat but instead from hunger, which would be a bad thing. Waking one of the others to come with them seems selfish, or like they’re being demanding. He’s already awake. It makes the most sense.

  “…okay. If that’s what it takes.”

  Mikael doesn’t say anything in response. He appears to remove something from his face, then bends over to retrieve something else placed on the floor and raises that to his face instead. Once he’s through, he stands to his full height and makes for the room’s exit.

  Sira only thinks to get up, slip the boots on, and follow once the door opens and light from the hallway pours in. They creep through the room as silently as they can, not wanting to wake any of the others by accident and make this more of an issue than it apparently is.

  Mikael isn’t there holding the door for them, but he did leave it open. Sira squints a little as they enter the fluorescent light of the hallway and gently shut the door behind them. Once their vision adjusts to the light, though, they stop.

  Mikael stands off to the side of the door as he rolls his neck and flexes his arms behind him in a stretch. From the underside of his jaw to the fingers on his hands, the visible parts of his fair skin are covered in ink. Some tattoos are abstract shapes, some are words and symbols, and some resemble fierce animals like wolves, snakes, and birds of prey. The sheer amount of imagery is almost dizzying to look at.

  Most of it appears to be covered by his tank top and the uniform pants he never dressed down from. He’s broad-shouldered and muscular, but not the type of muscular that’s demonstrated through bulging veins and harsh contours. He has several piercings in his ears, with a short chain dangling from the one on his right. His thick auburn hair is tied back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, leaving his bangs and the shorter, uneven strands to hang in his face.

  The loose strands are most abundant on one side of his face, partially obscuring the black eye patch that covers his left eye with an angular, rugged design that fits in well with the style of the armor he wears. Patches of rough-looking, discolored scar tissue extend out from beneath it, but not by much. His visible eye is a soft amber—

  —and he’s looking straight at them, which means he knows they’ve been wordlessly staring at him for the past few seconds.

  Even still, Sira isn’t the one to break the awkward silence. Having first met him with all this detail thoroughly hidden beneath that armor makes this situation different from seeing his teammates dressed down.

  “Are you going to just stand there?”

  Heat rises into their face, and they blink rapidly as they look away from him. “Sorry.”

  Mikael rolls his neck again, unbothered. “Just follow me. And don’t drag behind too much.”

  The entire first arc (chapters 1-13 & bonus) is all on Patreon, in addition to some of the chapters from the Part II - Initiation. These will get removed from Patreon as they're posted publicly, but subscribing means having early access!