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Chapter Text

Mizi’s body wracked with sobs— but she could no longer hear herself over the din of the ecstatic alien crowd cheering for their victor. Till’s eyes were slipping shut from his place on her lap, his heartbeat stopping seconds prior. She wanted to shake him awake, scream at him to hold on, even though a part of her knew he was gone.

Till was gone. 

And she would never get him back. 

Bitterly, she wondered if this was her punishment for being so naive, if the look of utter hope Till had displayed upon spotting her in the sea of aliens was a cruel mechanism just to crush the remaining life out of her when he got shot. 

It was all too familiar to Sua’s death on that godforsaken stage months ago, watching someone so precious and full of life crumple right in front of her. 

Sua. Ivan. And now, Till. 

Hyuna’s not saying anything behind her, which, if her head wasn’t muddled by shock and grief right now, she would consider strange. 

She brushes her shaking hands through Till’s hair, watches the blood dry on his lips. For a second, you’d almost think he was sleeping— sharp eyes shut, back against a tree in Anakt Garden with his sketchbook splayed over his knees. 

A fresh sob tears its way out of her mouth, a hand retreats from his cooling cheek. ‘He’s not suffering anymore. He’ll never suffer again.’ 

But he will also never smile again. Never laugh again, never see the freedom she so desperately hopes for in the future.

She stands up on wobbly legs, the blood roaring in her ears. Ah, now there’s Hyuna’s voice. The resistance leader’s voice sounds far away, the words fitting into Mizi’s ears like disjointed puzzle pieces, loath to reveal their meaning. 

“Mizi, watch out!”

She turns, but horrifyingly, she’s too slow to react to whatever this is– 

Until she feels a stabbing sensation, and then a blinding pain in her chest. 

She stumbles, eyes widening, faintly recognizing the warm wetness already staining the fabric of her shirt. Her breaths halt momentarily as she glances up at the guard tucked into the audience with his gun drawn, the other guards seeming to scold them for their carelessness. 

Her legs give out under her, weakness overtaking them. No, no, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen, she can’t die here, not on this awful stage, not anywhere in its vicinity. 

“Mizi!” 

Tanned arms are suddenly propping her up, putting pressure on the wound. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Mizi, we need to get back to the base— just stay awake for me, okay?!” 

She grimaces, meeting the eyes of a stunned Luka who’s watching the two of them with what she could call morbid fascination. 

Fucking hell, if anything, she doesn’t want to die in front of Luka of all people. The thought makes her skin crawl. 

The increasing amount of blood on her shirt says otherwise, and Hyuna is getting increasingly panicked at how weak her pulse is getting. 

“Hyuna…” she chokes, something metallic trickling across her tongue and spilling from the corner of her lips. ‘That’s not good.’ 

“Take care of… Take care of Dewey and Isaac for me,” she forces out, fingers trembling where she grips Hyuna’s wrists. 

“No, Mizi, you can’t— we need you at base, I need you,” Hyuna asserts shakily, wiping the residual tears from Mizi’s face. 

Fresh tears pour out of Mizi’s eyes, her mouth whispering apology after apology in Hyuna’s arms, straining to stay awake. She can’t die, not here, not when she hasn’t saved even a single person she loves from the demented system she grew up in. 

Weariness seeps into her bones, her eyes fluttering shut against her will. 

This can’t be all for nothing. She won’t let it. Weakly, she grasps Till’s cold hand next to her and squeezes, making one last wish, one last plea to the stars. 

And takes her last breath, as a brilliant star shoots across the sky above the glass dome of the stage. 

Chapter Text

There was something tickling at Mizi’s sides, itching at her face. 

She could almost swear it was grass, but… the rebel base didn’t have grass, just a dusty dirt clearing that Hyuna affectionately called their ’lawn’. Dewey had planted one flowering alien plant in the corner, a scraggly thing that somehow held on despite the infrequent waterings it got. Isaac was always larping on him to water it in the mornings; their petty arguments are what Mizi often woke up to. 

She lay still, eyes slowly opening as she gathered her bearings. Her ears feel numb, ringing from misuse. How long had she been out? 

Wait. She shouldn’t even be waking up from losing consciousness. She shouldn’t be breathing, thinking, or feeling anything. For all intensive purposes, she should be—

“—Dead!” 

“Do we need to call the medic? She’s been out for over five minutes now,” a worried, and very familiar voice fretted right next to her ear. 

“I don’t think dead people move their eyes like that,” a boyish voice replied to the first, voice calm as if he experienced this daily. 

“Shut up Ivan! I wasn’t asking for your opinion. Learn to read the room,” the first voice hissed at him. 

Ivan? 

But he… he was dead. Mizi had known since the moment she saw Till up on stage, competing against Luka. She didn’t see how he had died, exactly, but she knew her friend had lost that round. 

Mizi groaned, struggling to open her eyes. It took a while for her blurry vision to clear, but when it did, she almost wished it hadn’t.

Because those purple eyes, that choppy black hair she used to thread her hands through so lovingly— it could only belong to one person, the person she had lost so many months ago.

Sua.

Her heart almost stopped and restarted in her chest. 

“Sua…?” Her voice sounded higher pitched than normal, which could be a weird fluke, yet that’s besides the point. Sua was right there, right in front of her, eyes tracking Mizi’s every move with concern. 

“Mizi!” She called, that voice as sweet as she had remembered it. Mizi squinted at her, trying to gauge if this was some sort of Luka-induced hallucination. When Sua’s purple eyes didn’t fade to pale yellow, confusion swept over her. Sua seemed a lot shorter than she last remembered. Younger, with a lot more energy. 

Without the blood splattering her neck. 

“Jeez, don’t scare me like that, Mizi! That’ll teach you not to climb up trees so carelessly,” Sua chastises gently. 

Mizi stares blankly at her, sitting up. Grass. There’s grass under her feet, and a tree casting its shade overhead. She looks up—an artificial blue sky looms above, its clouds scheduled to float across every few system hours. 

Her eyes flit back to Sua, then to the black haired boy sitting beside her, unbothered from her scrutinizing gaze. 

“You know what, I think she might have some sort of brain damage,” Ivan muses, and Sua jabs an elbow into his ribs, hard. 

She tears her gaze away from the two squabbling, and it settles on something equal parts terrifying and incredible; a pair of teal eyes behind bangs of silver watching her from behind a tree, averting uncomfortably when they meet hers. 

Till. Till is here. That’s Till, alive, fidgeting like he always does around her.

Mizi doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream or rip her hair out, maybe all at once. 

She cries instead.

Sua makes a noise of alarm when she bursts into tears, hurriedly moving to comfort her. “Mizi? What’s wrong, are you hurt?”

‘Yes,’ she wants to say, ‘Yes, in so many ways you will never understand.’ She can’t say it. Can’t, no matter how much she longs to. Sua can’t know about it, shouldn’t know about it. 

About the way the bullet tore its malicious path through her artery to her collarbone, about how she folded into herself like a doll on the cold floor of the stage. 

About all the tears and restless nights that followed, and the empty feeling that never left. 

She cries, and Sua cradles her in her arms, squeezing tight, and it’s her warmth that makes that hollow space in her heart finally begin to close, just a little. Sua’s holding her and she never wants to let go, ever again.

“Sorry,” She blubbers, head tucked into Sua’s neck. Sua smells like a mix of fresh linen, grass and something else entirely, and oh, Mizi had spent countless hours trying to replicate it in the base, all in vain. And here it was, familiar and so comforting she couldn’t help but let out another sob. 

“It- it was so scary, it felt like I was falling forever,” she lied, Sua giving her a worried glance.“I couldn’t even catch myself after I slipped…” 

“Well, you’re on the ground at the moment,” Ivan tilts his head at her. “Why make a fuss about it now?” 

“Ivan,” Sua growled, shooting him a glare while tightening her hold around Mizi. “Why don’t you go bother Till or something?”  At the mention of his name, Till tenses behind his hiding spot, eyes widening as Ivan turns his attention to him in mere seconds. 

“What’s that you got in your hands there?” Ivan grinned, pointing at the hand tucked behind the boy’s back. “Are you hiding something for Mizi?” 

“That’s none of your business—!” Till bristled, getting out from behind the tree to give him a shove. 

Mizi sniffles, ducking into Sua’s arms for a moment before hearing the soft padding of feet on grass nearing. Till was ambling closer, looking anywhere but her, and in his outstretched hand were a few strips of sticky gauze with crinkly paper on the tops. Band-aids. 

“For… for you. Thought you would need them because of the, uhm, the scrapes on your arms,” he mumbles out, his voice cracking on several places in the sentence.

She looked at her arms, and sure enough, there were a few small scratches on her elbows and on the underside of her wrist. 

Bless him, he was making sure she was okay, in his own very Till-ish way. “Aww, Till, this is so sweet of you,” she said earnestly, smiling at him.

“Just, just take it, it’s whatever,” he squeaked, dropping the band-aids in her palm and covering his red face with an unoccupied hand. 

Sua almost seemed grumpy as she shooed Till off, leaving him at the mercy of a very attention seeking Ivan as she insisted on placing the band-aids on Mizi’s arms despite her protests. 

“It’s fine Sua, I can do it myself,” Mizi pleads, watching her place another band-aid on her elbow. Privately, she thought of the countless injuries she’d gotten in the few months of her residence at the rebel base, injuries far worse than she had experienced here. At one point, she’d gotten clawed by a rogue alien trying to force its way in to get at their defenses, and it had left three deep gouges on her back; Hyuna had had to keep her on bed rest for two weeks just to let the wound heal enough before she went on another mission. 

It had made her so antsy to get up and help out at the base that Isaac had to intervene when she was found at all odd hours of the night cleaning every speck of dust off the floors. 

She wondered what Isaac was doing right now. Was he even safe at this point? From the looks of it, this was either one big trauma-triggered trip or her wish had been miraculously granted, and she was somehow several years back in the past. What the fuck.

The first option sounded infinitely more plausible, but her friends’ mannerisms and the way they interacted with her were far too realistic than any alien-manufactured simulation could replicate. Still, she recalled Hyuna’s instructions.

“Trust nothing and no one outside of the rebel corps, Mizi. Any human pet can be part of a scheme to trap us, the aliens can and will force them into it.” 

Her friends aren’t like that, though. That’s why she’d risked everything for the impossible chance that she could save Till despite Hyuna’s orders not to, why she held out her hand for him to take. 

Nonetheless, it was also why his blood was on her hands, why Hyuna and her had been cornered in an extremely dangerous position, right in the middle of an alien-filled arena infested with guards. 

Her heart is torn between her trust for her friends and the hardened, cynical side of her she gained after losing Sua. 

But Mizi’s heart has always been weak, soft and selfless and unwilling to die in its kindness no matter how many hits she takes. 

She will trust, because she can, because Sua and Ivan and Till are here, alive. 

And she will do everything in her power to keep it that way. 

The first night approached far faster than she was prepared for.  

Mizi hadn’t left anyone out of her sight, even for a second, especially in the case of Till and Sua; She’d all but panicked when Till had to step away from their group to attend his music practice with one of Urak’s instructors, and Sua had had to calm her down with more hugs until he returned. (Afterwards, there could be seen a highly flustered Till melting into a puddle after several anxious head pats from Mizi, Ivan rolling his eyes next to him.) 

The artificial sky above them was already beginning to display its twilight mode, and with each darkening tick of the sky Mizi’s anxiety grew. 

It would be fine, she rationalized to herself, fingers twisting in her hair. However, the threat of those horrible memories from yesterday night were starting to creep in unbidden, making her heart race in her chest, blood roaring in her ears. The thought of enduring tonight alone was too painful to bear. Not when Till’s death would replay over and over and over in her brain until she felt like crying again. 

Mizi gulped, slowly approaching Sua’s side as the girl watched Ivan and Till fighting over some inconsequential thing for the thousandth time. 

“Guys, is it okay if I ask you for something?” She looked away, hesitant. Sua stirred beside her, her concerned look returning. Ivan’s head also snapped up, black eyes blinking at her, undeterred by Till pushing his face away from him, one cheek smushed from an angry palm. 

“Whaf izzit Mizi?” 

“Can we… can we have a sleepover? I’m afraid I’ll get nightmares from today,” she grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. 

She could swear Till’s eyes sparkled at the mention of a sleepover, though it’s dimmed when Ivan shoots an enthusiastic hand up in the air, smacking his face in the process. “Count me in, I’ll bring Till,” he smirks, his snaggletooth catching on his lip. 

“You idiot! Who said I’m yours to bring, huh?!” Till snaps, crossing his arms. “I’m going because I want to, not because some lowlife like you brought me as a plus one.” 

Ivan smiles conspiratorially, raising his eyebrows. “You’re just there because you like—“ 

Till’s hand quickly slaps over Ivan’s mouth, laughing nervously. “I’m just there because I like sleepovers! Yes!” 

Suddenly, Till yelps, removing his hand away from Ivan’s mouth. “The fuck-! Ivan, did you just lick me?! Gross!!” 

“Mm, salty,” Ivan remarks simply, blatantly ignoring Till’s outrage and sparking yet another chasing spree. 

It’s only after Sua manages to get them all in line that they manage to sneak Ivan and Till into Mizi’s room, Till and Ivan’s whispered bickering turning into sleepy yawns as they gathered pillows and arranged them all into a comfortable nest. Sua falls asleep first, her back pressed against Mizi’s, and Ivan soon follows, his long lashes and choppy black hair tickling the crown of Mizi’s head. 

Till appeared to have a harder time trying to sleep, constantly adjusting his place on the pile until slotting into the space between Mizi and Ivan, Ivan’s hand resting on one of his shoulders. Mizi can hear his breaths slow next to her, feeling that rising sense of dread in the pit of her stomach, waiting out the painful urge to check his pulse until his eyes are shut completely, relaxed in the pile. 

Her thumb presses into his wrist, then her palm. She can feel the steady thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat, reassuring and sound. His hand is warm, and with each passing minute it stays warm. 

Mizi sighs, the knot of tension she’s had all day unraveling slightly. 

She lays there in the silence of the room, and takes it all in. Ivan’s chest rises and falls, hair moving slightly with the motion, and Sua’s eyelashes flutter in her dreams as she mumbles— an adorable habit she never grows out of in her later years. 

Till murmurs something unintelligible, pulse still steady under her hold. 

His hand is still warm. Distantly, she thinks she’ll keep it that way. 

Her weary eyes droop, and she lets herself be lulled to sleep in the ease of her friends’ company. 

Chapter Text

It takes two weeks for her to adjust to it all. 

First, to come to terms with the fact that her friends aren’t going anywhere (not yet, anyways) and second, that she’s technically twelve years old again, without the mobility and strength she possessed back when she was twenty two. 

That was objectively the first problem she had to address— she had ten years, more or less, to find a way to keep all of her friends safe, to help them all escape from Anakt Garden before the rounds began. Ten years to meticulously scheme, plan, plot, all behind her friends’ backs. 

She hated keeping secrets, hated lying, but if it was for the benefit of her friends? She would do it a million times over. The end justified the means tenfold; they would understand once they were safe, once they had a fighting chance at living outside of the confines of the glorified cage they had grew up in. She wanted to give them that taste of freedom, that opportunity to be more than just pets for alien entertainment. They deserved much more than that. 

That didn’t mean she knew how to accomplish it. Her plan was still in the ideation stage, and it would likely stay that way for a while, no matter how frustrated that made her. She had no idea how to bypass the countless safety measures that encircled Anakt, nevermind figuring out an appropriate time to find out its weaknesses without getting caught.  

Mizi curses her past life’s self for not paying attention enough to the locking mechanisms and robots patrolling the facility. Any information, no matter how small, would have been appreciated. 

She’s at least glad she had made the decision to pretend to be her usual carefree self after that first night. Sua and the others would have gotten worried otherwise, and she can’t risk attracting any sort of suspicion. For now, she has to grin and bear it, going through all the grueling singing practices and playing with the others as she normally would. 

It was surprisingly easy to slip back into that breezy, carefree routine as if nothing had ever happened, as if she was living the same life.

Except Mizi wasn’t ignorant anymore, privy to knowledge that the other kids were blissfully unaware of. It ached to know that she would never be as easygoing as the other kids were, all those years ago.. 

But that was a sacrifice she was willing to make. 

For now, she would bide her time. 

Mizi had been acting a little weird ever since she fell down that tree that fateful day a few weeks ago. At least, that’s what it felt like to Sua. Ivan had shrugged and immediately brushed her off when she mentioned it to him, talking about his idiotic brain damage theory again. 

Something about her didn’t feel...right. Sua couldn’t put her finger on it, but that sense of wrongness had infected everything about Mizi down to the way she stood, to the way her eyes would linger, scrutinizing, on the robots that served them their meals at lunchtime. 

Mizi was doing that same strange picking-apart-stare one afternoon while she made flower crowns, eyes narrowed on the yellow-orange liquid filled pistil in the flowers’ middle. 

“Are you done with that crown yet?” Sua yawned, flumping down on the grass next to Mizi. The pink-haired girl startled, hand covering the flower’s pistil. 

“Of course! I just need to, ah… tie up this last flower over here,” she quickly threaded the stem through the slot she had made with her fingernail, pulling it flush. The flower slipped smoothly in place among the others. 

“Wow, is that a blue version of those?” Sua sat up, peering more closely at one of the flowers in the crown. Mizi nodded, smiling. “Isn’t it pretty? I like its color.” 

“It is pretty,” Sua agreed, before smiling mischievously. “And weird, too. It’s like if Ivan was a flower.” 

Mizi laughed, those yellow eyes of hers glittering with glee. “Sua! Don’t talk down on poor Ivan like that!” 

Sua picked up the flower crown and fiddled with the blue flower, making its petals droop as if it was melancholic. “My name is Ivan, and I realllyyy wish Till would look at me,” she intones with a deeper voice. 

Mizi giggled, even among her protests trying to defend Ivan’s honor. “Wait, I should make it hide behind a twig or something as it watches one of the red ones with goo-goo eyes,” Sua snickered, arranging the blooms to set the scene. 

Mizi grabs a red bloom, making a crude impersonation of Till’s voice. “La la la! I’m Till and I’m definitely not paying any attention to that weird blue flower over there.” 

“If only he would notice me,” Sua sighs with false woe, moving the flower to make it hide behind the twig more. “I know! I should punch him to make him mad! Then he’ll totally like me and want me to be his friend.” 

“Suaaa, that’s not how Ivan would- wait, actually I think that is something he would do,” Mizi backtracks, frowning. ‘Damn, he really needs to get better at communication.’ 

Sua smirked. “Don’t underestimate me Mizi, I know Ivan like the back of my hand.” 

“Course you do.”  

Occupied by their game of make-believe (Which Mizi is surprisingly invested in, to her disbelief) a certain silver-haired boy watched with mounting incredulity at the scene before him. 

Not only was Sua waving around a blue flower like she was in some tragic play, but Mizi was? Participating?? In what could be considered roleplay of what appeared to be of him and Ivan? As him? Was he hallucinating? Had he died and gone to heaven? Or hell? 

“I will never notice you, Ivan! Ka-shoom! I hit you with my super cold shoulder!!” 

“Augh, right in my feeble shallow emotions—! How could you, Till?!” 

Till’s eye twitched. Seriously, what the fuck was happening? Why the hell did this story have such a heartbreaking undertone?! He almost wanted to keep watching to find out how it was going to end up.

“Oh Till!! You’re the light of my pathetic loser life, you should be mine forever and ever!!” 

‘Okay, that totally didn’t sound like an accurate interpretation of Ivan,’ Till thought, rolling his eyes. Ivan was much more keen on teasing and pestering him to piss him off every chance he got. Just where was Sua getting this misinformation?

He gracefully decides to let it go once he’s deemed the plot line to have gone off the rails far enough, slipping back through the trees towards his usual spot for composition practice.

He’ll leave the girls to their weird theatrical performances, thank you very much. 

In the rare hours where Mizi’s not occupied cherishing every single moment with her friends or attending study sessions and singing recitals, she’s busy with trying to sneak into the rooms connected to the main building of Anakt Garden’s facilities. 

It’s an extremely slow process, she discovers quite quickly. Anakt Garden is a lot bigger than she’d thought, considering she’d lived here for most of her life after her residence at Shine’s home (except on the rare days where Shine would visit to celebrate her birthday) 

She grabs one of her notebooks one evening after a recital, a pink sparkly one that left bits of glitter on her hands every time she used it. 

She had once made the mistake of peering through the pages she’d worked on before time traveling, struck by the familiarity the writing in the book displayed. Small, disjointed scribbles lined the pages, her handwriting cute but a little wobbly in some places. She had a tendency to use run on sentences, and proper grammar was out of the question. 

Seeing it left an ache in her chest. 

Her thoughts had been… so simple, back then. No stressing about the future, no fears over dying, over who would be killed next, just childish rants about how she despised studying, or gushing about Sua’s smartness in the Anakt-appointed school. Was it selfish to wish she was back to where her only worries were this? 

A small part of her says yes, says that she’s ungrateful, that it’s her fault that Till’s eyes were slipping shut in her arms, that the blood was trickling through his lips— Mizi closes the book fast, noticing a red light emitting from somewhere on her collar. She lets out a frustrated groan, forcing her breaths to steady until the light turns to a more stable yellow. 

She can’t afford to think about that. She was here now, and she couldn’t truly rest until she knew her friends were safe. 

Carefully cutting out the already filled pages, she buries the memories of her past into her nightstand.

It was time to get to work. 

Her first objective was to map out the areas of Anakt that she did know. Notebook in hand, she spent time between recitals each day cataloging the rooms she frequented and any items of special interest that resided in them. 

The library was her first entry. A blocky building, it encompassed over four hundred thousand novels, the most technologically advanced ones compressed into sleek book-like tablets that faintly glowed the text that the reader was focusing on. Ranked under those were swipe hybrids, small blue rectangles that allowed you to swipe through shorter, more entertaining volumes, primarily alien-approved fiction genres.(“The human who cried Beast-organism” was a fan favorite among them). And ranked under that? The elusive paper book. 

Mizi had never come close to reading from one of those rare books, the reason being that they were heavily guarded by a holographic wall that would shock any human pet if they got too close. 

She’d originally thought they were some form of security manual, or perhaps a series of Alien-catered works for the Aliens that came to visit. However, looking closer through the holographic encasing, Mizi could make out the word “Human” on the covers. 

Curiosity piqued, she leaned in a little further, trying to read the rest of the words, but the sizzle of the strands of her hair getting electrified made her pull back, disgruntled. If only there was a way of knowing what was in those books… Perhaps then she might have a starting point into her investigations. 

She leaves the library’s secrets behind for later, trotting off to snoop through one of the empty recital rooms. Fortunately, few aliens were interested enough in paying attention to a small pet like her roaming around, turning a blind eye to her movements. 

Mizi could probably attribute that to her young age at the moment. Much like younger wild lowborn alien beasts were considered cute and harmless, so were human pets. Once she gets older, that might become more of an obstacle. ‘I have to take advantage of their lack of awareness while I still can.’

This cycle of search continues, day after day after day, each with varying degrees of success. Some days she’s able to slip into more rooms to catalog them on her makeshift map, and other times she narrowly avoids getting caught. Nevertheless, she can tell the new rooms she ventures into are becoming more noteworthy. The security measures in a little black-tiled room were a lot harder for her to bypass, and it took a couple of tries to sneak in unnoticed. 

Once inside, she found a huge heavy-looking black sliding door with not one, not two, but three high grade locks. Her eyebrow raises, eyes glittering with excitement. Now this is what she’s talking about. If only Hyuna could see this… She’d be raring to tear it open to reveal what’s inside already. 

Her eyes catch on the electronic label set into the top of the door, its holographic letters flashing. 

The second word was Archive, but the first was…

“Ge… Gen… Geno… Geno-meh?” She sounds aloud, scratching her head. 

‘What the hell does Geno-meh even mean?!’ 

Mizi suddenly wishes she had paid more attention in vocabulary class. This ‘geno-meh’ thing wasn’t something she had ever really heard before, and when she wracked her brain for any similar instances in the rebel base— yep, still nothing. 

Stupid aliens and their stupid alien dialect. Her collar beeps, flashing a warning crimson at her again. Mizi wants to rip off it off and chuck it at this damnable door label. Somehow her instincts tell her it would relieve the frustration that’s building up in her chest. 

She’d seen Till do the same exact thing with his compositions, grabbing failed sheets and crunching them up into a crinkly ball, then catapulting them as far as his arms could throw. He’d always seemed a little calmer afterwards, too. 

Well, if it works, it works. She’ll pick up a rock or something on her way back. Maybe scream into a tree when no one’s around. Yeah, she could go for a good scream right now. 

Ivan will never admit how his whole body jumped at the sound of some girl yelling insults to the sky in the normally vacant corner of Anakt Garden that he loved to frequent. 

He will also never admit that, unless he was auditory hallucinating it, said girl yelling sounded an awful lot like a certain pink-haired girl he knew. 

Chapter Text

The nightmares have been getting worse lately. 

They’re too lifelike, too real in the darkness of nightfall. If at day her memories are like small drizzles of artificial rain, at night they’re a downpour, drowning out every thought until it consumes everything she is. She sees Sua’s vacant eyes, feels Till’s heartbeat slowing to a stop. Blood on her hands. Blood on her face. Blood, blood, blood. Over and over and over. Above it all, the ruthless amusement of alien laughter, mocking her on the stage. 

Mizi wakes up, bolt upright in bed, breaths heaving and collar beeping that warning crimson, dangerously close to alerting nearby aliens of her intense mental distress. 

She curls up around her pillow, clutching it tight and imagining Sua next to her, keeping her safe. It doesn’t work. Her mind isn’t rational, doesn’t recognize that Sua is fine, that she’s probably peacefully sleeping at the moment and not in the insurmountable danger that Mizi’s instincts tell her she is. 

She needs to check, has to check. Right now. Dazedly, she manages to get her shaky limbs to obey her commands, walking out of her quarters and down the hall to Sua’s room. The door slides with its electronic hum, revealing her friend sleeping soundly on her bed, having tucked in herself at the usual 11:00 PM. A wave of relief washes over her at the sight. 

Exhausted, she doesn’t think much of what happened next, lets her brain shut off as she crawls right into the space between Sua’s arms. Sua stirs momentarily, but doesn’t wake, a warm arm moving to hold her back. The touch grounds her in reality just enough for it to grant her a few hours of merciful rest.

When she next rouses, she leaves, disentangling herself from Sua carefully before she has a chance to get up. 

And returns the next night, to do it all over again. 

Rinse and repeat. 

Months fly by faster than Mizi knows what to do with. With each month that’s striked from her internal countdown to graduation from Anakt, that unending sense of doom ticks slightly higher.

In two months it’ll be her thirteenth birthday, and she tries hard to be optimistic about it. Birthdays with Shine and the others were always quite nice, even considering her predicament. (She still thinks a true birthday would be at the rebel base, surrounded by Till, Sua, Ivan, Hyuna, Isaac and Dewey, but that’s all but a dream she can only aspire to achieve) It’s coming close to the day where that strange meteor shower fell upon Anakt Garden, its light bathing the grass in swaths of vermillion and orange. 

If her memory is correct, the meteor shower would be two weeks from now, which would give her ample time to prepare something nice for Sua while they watch the sky that evening.  

For once, she wasn’t considering flower crowns to give her. While they were a staple gift in Anakt Garden, she’s been studying them very closely as of late. The middle part of the flower— that’s where lies the trouble. Mizi swears it’s watching her, moving three tiny spheres inside to capture her every move. 

One evening after recital practice, her hypervigilance won out, and she tore one of the flowers from their bushes, squeezing the pistil with a thumb until it popped. Orange fluid immediately trickled down her hands, and there it was. Three tiny spherical cameras angling up their lens at her, a little damaged by her fingers. 

Revulsion filled her gut, that uneasy feeling compounding until it became hard to breathe. 

It was watching her. It was watching all of them. 

Probably recorded their voices, too. 

All this time, they’d been her favorite, had been something pretty she decorated her room with, had adorned Sua’s head to make it even more beautiful, she even pressed and gave one to her to keep as a bookmark— it was all a complete lie. 

A ploy to keep tabs on them. To keep them out of trouble. To observe them, at all hours of the day. 

She felt sick. 

That day was deemed the flower purge on her calendar. 

Every flower in her room was ripped from its revered places. The blooms on her favorite vase that she kept by her nightstand? Crushed to oblivion. The ones she presses to keep as rulers? Snapped in half, thrown in the bin, then thrown in the communal garbage. The ones in Sua’s room? carefully dismantled of its pistil, cameras smashed, but the red petals kept intact. The bushes of them on the route to her room? Destroyed.

When she was done, she was a flower-covered mess, the red of the petals everywhere on her hands like a persistent dye. 

A few Anakt students looked at her oddly as she made the trek to the washroom, and she gave them her cheeriest grin. 

Their opinions were of no concern to her anyway. That need for validation from her peers had left years ago. 

Sua was occupied with her studies in Expression of Music class, zeroed in as the alien teacher pointed out the key principles of emotions in song. Apparently negative, more wistful emotions were quite preferable to be sung with on the stage; it heightened the performance, the teacher explained. 

She flips her worksheet, scanning the open-ended questions provided. How to inflect wistfulness into song? Only answer would be to dredge up the feeling from your soul, she surmises.

“Have you heard? That girl in our class—“ 

There goes the resident gossips again. Sua tuned their whispers out like usual, beginning to fill in her thoughts on the first question at the top. The students behind her provide ample background noise as she focuses, tapping her pencil against the page. 

“The cheerful one with the pink hair? Mizi, was it?” 

Sua froze. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. I think she should be put in one of those mental reform rooms, don’t you agree?”

Mental reform rooms? For Mizi of all people? What could she possibly have done to deserve something so ridiculous? Mizi was the brightest, bubbliest person she knew, she wouldn’t need to be reformed of anything! Her collar was green at practically all hours of the day. She dutifully turns her head to tell off the two idiots as such, but—

“You’re not wrong. I saw her this morning, she was ripping flowers apart by the dozens like that one weird black-haired kid does.” 

That… that was… That was not her Mizi. Mizi wouldn’t do something like that, she adored her flowers. Why else would she craft flower crowns for her all the time? They were just spouting off nonsense. Pointless drama, she tells herself. 

“She’s scary. I don’t know what happened to her, but I think you should stay away from her, Lily. Nothing good could come out of talking to that freak.” 

Sua’s head is buzzing, alarm bells ringing off in her head. Mizi had always been pretty well regarded by everyone else, so why was that changing now? Was she… was she really ripping apart flowers? No. That has to be impossible. Mizi ripping apart flowers would mean she was stressed, and Mizi didn’t get stressed. Sua had specifically taken all precautions on keeping certain bits of information about Anakt away from her. 

There was no logical explanation on why her mental state would be any different. By all accounts, she should still be as carefree, as happy as ever.  

Unless she figured it out by herself, A traitorous part of her subconscious supplies. 

She violently disagreed with that train of thought, uncertainty seeping into her. As smart as Mizi was, Sua was equally as careful. There should be no reason for her to question her dreams or her surroundings. She’d lived with her for years, knew her habits, her likes and dislikes. 

Yet, her mind couldn’t help but drift back to when she had made flower crowns a few months ago. When Mizi had had this… unsettling investigative look in her eyes towards the flowers. Like she suspected something about them.

Maybe something was wrong. 

It wouldn’t hurt to check in on her. Mizi would tell her if anything was wrong. She was just that type of person. She shared anything and everything that was on her mind, almost to a fault. Especially with her. After all, she was Mizi’s best friend.

If Mizi had a problem, Sua would be the first to know. 

…Right? 

Call her crazy, but Mizi was bored. She could argue that she didn’t have the luxury to be bored, considering everyone she loved was going to get one-shotted if she didn’t do something to stop it. Nevertheless, she hadn’t gotten any further progress on getting through the black “Geno-meh Archive” door, and it had put her into a dire creative slump. Not enough to give up, that was certain. 

But perhaps she needed a different approach. 

She strolled around aimlessly in the garden, passing by Till to give him a friendly pat on his hair. The resulting flustered squeak he gave out was enough to lighten her mood. 

The false sun was already setting in the enclosure, opening up the “study hour” slot for the more studious students in Anakt. Most of the classes had already ended, and it would be an hour before dinnertime began. She had time to organize her thoughts until then. 

Wandering into a clearing with sparser trees and less students roaming about, Mizi flopped unceremoniously onto a lone tree’s trunk, letting out a heavy sigh. 

“What am I going to do,” she lamented, scrubbing her face with her hands. “God, I’m so tired of this…” 

“So tired of what?” 

Mizi screeched, body jumping into the air on reflex. 

A pair of black eyes peered at her from the other side of the trunk, accompanied by a snaggletoothed smile. 

“I-Ivan! Don’t sneak up on me like that, I almost got a heart attack,” she wheezed, clutching her chest. 

“Not true,” Ivan blinked slowly. “I was here first. So strictly speaking, you were sneaking up on me.” 

“You don’t own this tree,” Mizi poked his cheek. Ivan lets her without complaint. 

“Till says I do,” Ivan’s head rests on the wood, gaze flitting away to fix on some point in the distance. 

“Oh yeah?” She raises a brow. “What’s he calling it then? Ivan’s hideout?” 

“Nah. He calls it the Loner Tree,” he says plainly, balancing something in his lap. 

Mizi’s eyes catch on the movement, stopping in its tracks at the sight of the item in Ivan’s grasp. No way, that couldn’t be…

“Is that a paper book?” Mizi’s jaw dropped. She stood up abruptly, rushing over to the boy to get a look at the precious object. 

“What, this?” Ivan glances at the book, then up at her. “It’s just some light extracurricular reading.”

Her hands grasp his shoulders, shaking him. “Light extracurricular reading?! Ivan, this— this is a highly classified volume from the restricted section in the library— How did you get this?!” 

“Unsha lended it to me,” he shrugs, and Mizi can’t believe how nonchalant he is about all this. “Perks of my Guardian, I guess.” 

“You guess?!” Mizi was seconds away from throttling him. Here she was, struggling for months to figure out how to get through the library security features, and Ivan’s been reading the same books all along! 

Wait. Wait a minute. Ivan was a top student in her classes as well, which meant he was pretty strong in the intellectual department. Which meant— She has a new lead on her “Geno-meh” problem.

“Ivan,” She inhales, planting her hands firmly on his shoulders. “This is going to sound crazy, but I need a favor.” 

Ivan stares at her, a hint of suspicion in those void-filled eyes. “Depends. What’s the favor?” 

“Do you know what the word “geno-meh” means?” 

Ivan’s lips flatten into a deadpan line, cocking his head to the side. “Come again?” 

“Geno-meh,” Mizi presses, hands tightening on his shoulders desperately.  

“Never heard of it.” 

She makes a frustrated sound. “Spelled G-E-N-O-M-E? Geno-meh? That ring any bells?” 

Ivan perked up, recognition flashing in his eyes. “Ohhh, did you mean genome? Your pronunciation was way off.” 

“Aha! Genome! So that’s what it is! Finally!” She whoops, punching the air. Ivan is staring at her funny, so she ceases her celebration, sobering up. “Right… ahaha…” 

“Where’d you find that word?” The question is casual enough, but Mizi can detect something deeper lying behind the surface, probing her for answers. 

She really shouldn’t involve anyone in her secret investigations. She’d vowed to herself to keep it under wraps the day she got her bearings. 

Except… It would be nice to have some help. And Ivan seemed like the type to be able to keep a secret; in her past life, he’d been something of a quiet observer, mysterious in his motivations and keeping to himself, other than his frequent escapades of bothering Till. 

It hit her all of a sudden— the fact that she really didn’t know Ivan all that well before he died. Aside from the rare occasions they hung out when Sua or Till were busy with recitals and classes, there hadn’t been many instances where they could interact. Maybe this would give her the opportunity to change that. 

Mizi makes her decision, taking a quick glance around for any flowers or students before she leans close to him. “Promise you won’t tell Sua? Or Till?” 

Ivan nods. 

She anxiously chews at her lip. “I saw this big black door in that creepy hallway next to the dining hall, you know the one. Couldn’t get in, of course, with all the locks it had, but I caught a glimpse of the words on it.” 

Ivan nodded, giving her his rapt attention. “Yeah? What’d it say?” 

“It said Genome Archive,” She whispered. 

“Is that so?” Ivan’s eyes widened minutely, a hint of emotion peeking through his normally calm face. He looked almost… impressed? She couldn’t tell. 

“Do you think you could show me?” He nudged his head in the direction of the main facility. 

“Wh- right now?!” She spluttered.

“Why not? No time like the present,” Ivan snaps his book shut, tucking it under his arm. “Let’s go check it out.” 

 “Are you crazy?! We have dinner in less than an hour! What if our caretakers notice we’re gone?“ 

“We’re wasting time talking about it,” Ivan singsongs, already heading off to the dining hall. He glances back at her, raising a brow in question. “Are you coming or not?” 

“I— well- fine,” she accedes, lengthening her steps to match his strides. “Just don’t blame me when we get in trouble.”

“Trust me, we’ll be in and out before the caretakers can bat an eye,” Ivan declares breezily. 

Mizi can only hope he’s right about that. 

Chapter Text

The sterile smell of alien cleaning products permeated the air around the two humans as they carefully entered the main facility, the muted chatter of Anakt students getting ready for dinnertime reverberating through the halls. Fifty minutes left until they needed to leave, Mizi noted, spotting a clock blinking the time. 

Mizi walked behind Ivan, keeping her steps light and natural in case they were to be spotted by a wandering caretaker, or worse, an on-duty security sentry. 

Ivan, however, appeared totally unbothered, his gait perfectly relaxed as if he’d been doing this for ages— Mizi almost felt envy rise in her chest at his indifference. 

“How much farther?” Ivan prompted, the two passing another hallway. 

“Not long now. It should be riiiight… there!” She pointed at a scuffed tile on one of the walls, recognizing the mark. 

Ivan hummed, turning into the path. They veered past a wall-mounted camera, going directly underneath it to temporarily fry its sensor, squeezed past a mountain of medical supply crates, then stopped at the entrance to the black-tiled room, right at the foot of the formidable Geno-meh— ahem, Genome Archive room. 

She gestures at the door. “Well, here it is. I don’t suppose you know a way to get into this?”

Ivan remained silent for a minute or so, squinting at the door and scratching at the underside of his chin. 

“You said this door had three locks?” 

“That I did,” Mizi nodded, watching Ivan step closer to scrutinize the door. 

“That’s weird. It only has two.” 

“Huh? I swore it had three,” Mizi took a double take at the door, noticing grudgingly that Ivan was right. Connecting the last ”two” locks was a small metal wire, carefully embedded in a way that would throw off anyone who didn’t look close enough. 

“It’s a common misconception to mistake dual locks as separate parts, so I don’t blame you,” Ivan grinned. 

She rolled her eyes. “Oh shut it, do you know how to open it or not?”  

“Temper, temper,” Ivan clicked his tongue, “All will be revealed soon.” He cracked his knuckles, pulling out something tiny and rectangular from the pocket of his pants. The thing shimmered in the light of the room, several metallic lines running across it like crosshatched stripes of mercury. 

“What is that?” She whispered, entranced by the unfamiliarity of the item in his hand. 

“It’s a DIM2EL Card,” Ivan clarified, spinning the card in between his thin fingers. 

“I’m sorry, a what?” 

“A DIM2EL Card. Somewhat similar to a traditional RFID card in older human technology. Extremely useful in situations like these,” he slotted the card into a thin slit in one of the locks, watching the lock begin to vibrate as its inner mechanisms popped apart. 

Mizi gaped at him. “And you— you just have those in your pocket at all times? Ivan?! Hey, listen to me for one second, will you?!” 

Ivan blissfully ignored her ranting, removing the card from the first unlocked lock and moving on to the last one. 

The door’s safeguards made a clicking sound, the heavy black door swinging open with a near-inaudible hiss. 

“Door’s open.” Ivan stated simply, and then he strolled inside the archive without skipping a beat, leaving Mizi staring in stunned silence for a few moments before she collected herself enough to call out several wait up’s to the boy disappearing into the darkness of the room. 

Her harried strides thunked heavily on the floor, evoking the echoing sounds of solid metal. The tiles were cold and slippery on her bare feet, and she had to slow to a walk to avoid tripping, and, lifting up her gaze from the floor, took her first good look at the Genome Archive’s interior. 

The room matched the mostly minimalistic design of the rest of Anakt Garden’s main facilities, or, at least Mizi thinks it would have, if it weren’t a sprawling landscape of tubes upon tubes filled with dark turquoise fluid, encasing veined embryonic forms that free-floated in the liquid. If she pressed her face closer to the glass, she could make out the faint pulsing from the fleshy shapes inside. Gross. 

Following the bigger tubes of embryos were hundreds of rows of thinner, taller glass cylinders, each containing a single, extremely thin thread— It was so fine that Mizi had to squint to spot it. Tiny robots scuttered up and down the thread with abject precision, snipping and reorganizing it to some mysterious standard of perfection. 

She paused to read a tiny label stuck to one of the cylinders. 

DNA MODIFICATION STATION 115. STUDENTS A THROUGH F, 39TH CLASS

Huh. DNA? Mizi sure as hell doesn’t know what that is. A question fit for Ivan, she supposed. 

“Hey, Ivan? What does D-N-A mean?” She yelled across the room, trying to gauge the area in which Ivan was poking around in. 

A black head of hair bobbed up from behind a rack of smaller bottles to her right, the strands catching the blue light of the fluorescent illumination strips. Ah, there he is. 

“Yeah?” Ivan shouted back, voice muffled slightly by the racks between them. “D what?” 

”D-N-A,” Mizi clarified, cupping her hands over her mouth to amplify her words. “I saw this label over here that had - holy shit-!” Mizi let out a strangled shriek at how Ivan had seemingly popped into existence right next to her, eyes boring into the tube she was looking at. ‘Why the hell are his footsteps so quiet?!’

Ivan was silent, looking at the words on the tube over and over, tracking each line of text as if committing it to memory. 

“…So? What’s the verdict,” Mizi asked hesitantly, drawing out the so. 

Ivan narrowed his eyes, grimacing slightly. “Well, I do know what this means.” 

A burgeoning sense of hope rose up in her chest. “Really? What is it?” 

Ivan’s expression darkened considerably. 

“Something very bad.”  

Mizi’s face falls, dread swiftly squashing that feeble inkling of hope. “Oh. Are we talking normal caretaker bad or run-and-hide bad?” 

“Run-and-hide bad,” Ivan states, then continues on with his snooping, clattering bottles together on the shelves. “If the caretakers knew we were in here, they might put us into the incinerator.” 

“They might put us into the what.” 

“The incinerator,” Ivan said casually, as if he were merely talking about what they were eating for dinner. “We know too much now. They’ll probably believe that the best logical step to eradicate us is to burn us alive until we are nothing but ash.”

Mizi threw her hands up in the air, irritated. “Why though?! Please, for the love of Anakt, elaborate because some of us have no idea about all these fancy and damnably important words!” 

Ivan blinked at her, eyes fixing on hers intensely. 

“Hm. I rather like this side of you. Okay, I guess I can tell you.” 

‘What?? The fuck?? Does that mean??’ Mizi’s eye twitched, completely blindsided by the random comment. No wonder Till always got pissed around the guy; Ivan was cryptic to a fault. 

However, now was not the time to throw in the towel; if she had a chance to needle out the answers to Anakt’s secrets through Ivan, then she would gladly endure his eccentricities. No matter how frustratingly confusing they were. She desperately wished he would stop beating around the bush. 

She took in a deep, measured breath. “Alright, so we established that, somehow, the term DNA is classified enough to get us killed.” 

“Correct,” Ivan agreed. 

“What is it, exactly?” 

“Do you want me to dumb it down for you, because I’m not sure you’d get it at the first mention without any prior knowledge of human science-“ 

“Ivan. Do whatever you want, just tell me.”

He fiddled with the collar of his shirt. “It refers to deoxyribonucleic acid components in a living organism’s chromosomes. Shortened, it stands for ‘DNA’—“ 

“So what does DNA have to do with us?” Mizi interrupted. 

“I’m getting to that,” Ivan gestures at one of the tubes with a hand. “DNA is like these… How do I explain it? In human science, they’re like these instruction manuals for different physical traits and behaviors for a human. Kind of like music sheets, their “notes” are building blocks for the melody, which is the human body.” 

“Oh, I get it! They’re like different chords,” Mizi nods, proud of herself for understanding the analogy. 

“Great, now imagine,” Ivan spreads his arms wide, as if opening his arms to the universe. “Imagine that these individual “notes”, all account for one specific trait. Like your pink hair— That’s one note, or a pair of genes. And the color of your eyes— that’s another note. And there’s also notes that affect your health or your personality.”

“Woah. My brain feels like it’s going to blow up,” Mizi clutched her head, her mind opened to the sheer magnitude of the new information.

“Wait until you hear about atoms,” Ivan grinned.

“If DNA is so great, why didn’t they teach us about it in school?” Mizi frowned, scratching her head. Deep inside her, she knew, but she wasn’t about to tell Ivan that. Better to play dumb for the time being. 

Ivan shrugs. “Simple. They don’t want us to know anything beyond music. A smart pet is a pet that unlocks doors,” His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. “A smart pet they cannot have, unless they want a rebellion to break out.” 

“And, with the information we have here,” Ivan taps the cylinders with threads in them, dislodging one of the robots skittering across it. “We have exactly the reason why that rebellion would be warranted.” 

“What is with these weird tubes, anyways,” she mutters, watching one of the tiny mechanisms pluck the string towards the top. 

“They’re re-organizing DNA strands. At least, that’s what I assume they’re doing.” 

Mizi tastes something like bile at the back of her throat, remembering the last few words on the label. 

“Hey, Ivan? When they said 39th class, did they mean…?”

Ivan’s eyes snapped to hers. 

“They’re… those are human DNA strands, aren’t they?” She said weakly. 

Which meant… the embryos… 

Oh great Anakt.

They’re taking DNA from dead Alien Stage contestants. 

To replicate them. To use them. But why? 

She knew why. And she didn’t like it, pushing back the possibility as far back into her subconscious as it would allow. 

They really were just products to them, weren’t they? Products to mix and match, to customize, to discard the bad and revamp with the new, iteration after iteration. As if they were nothing more than prototypes for the next big thing. 

As if every human life was worthless shit to them. 

She knew this, of course. Knew the moment Sua died on the stage, that their lives were meaningless in alien minds. 

Yet they still gave her new reasons to hate them all the more. 

Mizi paced, attempting to staunch the warning beeps of her collar that she knew were approaching. Those fucking bastards. She needed out. Now. Get the information and go. 

“There has to be something in here that tells us more,” She seethed, rummaging through the Archive’s cabinets and finding nothing but more empty tubes. 

“Your collar’s red,” Ivan points out, eyebrows raised slightly. 

“Gee! I didn’t know that, Ivan! What astonishing levels of observation you have,” she replied cheerily with sarcasm lacing her tone, ripping open another drawer. “Come on, you stupid archive, show me something useful!“ 

“You know, I haven’t heard you swear so much before,” The black-haired boy remarked, leaning on a nearby wall comfortably. “Feels like Till is speaking to me sometimes.” 

The comment makes her cringe, turning back with an apologetic glance. “Yeah, well… I have a lot on my mind. Is it wrong for a girl to lose it, sometimes?” 

Ivan stares at her, expression unreadable again. “No, it’s not. I don’t think so.” 

Her gaze lingers on his before she goes back to rooting through the drawers, Ivan wordlessly joining her a minute later. 

And it’s somewhat nice, to have him helping by her side. 

Till does not need to hear this. 

That’s what he tells himself a million times over as Sua walks back and forth in front of him, glaring at the ground and chewing at her lip with enough force that he’s surprised it isn’t bleeding buckets already. 

The girl has been talking to herself for twenty minutes now, mentioning Mizi’s name under her breath for ten times the amount of that. 

He’s tempted to make her trip and face-plant on the grass to make her stop, but then he thinks about Mizi and how upset she would be if he did that to her best friend, and immediately discards the idea. He could never upset Mizi. 

So, he’s stuck with watching Sua pace for another half hour until dinner starts. Which he is not looking forward to. 

The only other option is to try distracting her with… conversation, which is also something Till is no good at. He could snap at her to stop like he does with Ivan, but then it boils down to the Mizi thing again and god how he exercises so much patience for the sake of love. 

Talking it is. 

He grits his teeth, forcing an awkward smile. He hates this already. For Mizi. For Mizi, he reminds himself. “Hey. Uh. Whatcha doing there?” 

“I can’t take this, what if she knows, I tried so hard and all my progress would have gone to waste-“ 

“Sua. Anakt to Sua,” he waves his hand in front of her face, causing her to startle. 

“Oh. It’s you.” Her worried expression settles back into indifference, purple eyes darkening. “What do you want?” 

“You were staring off into space there,” he rests his cheek on his palm. “What’s all this about Mizi?” 

“It’s… none of your business.” She deadpanned, crossing her arms. 

His annoyance prickles at that. “It is my business, she’s my friend too, you know,” he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Like I said, it doesn’t concern you.” 

“I think it concerns me when you’ve basically been acting like a lunatic all evening. You’re really ruining my appetite,” he quips. 

“Well it’s not my fault that Mizi’s been acting off, okay? This is serious, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it—“ 

Till’s shoulders tensed, whipping back his head to face her. “Wait a second, did you just say Mizi has been acting off? Damn, you really are losing it,” He whistles.

“I’m not lying!” Sua wrings her hands, collar flashing yellow. “Something is wrong with her. I think she might be… Burnt out, or something. I don’t know.”

“She might just be tired after all the tests we’ve been doing,” Till reasoned, laying back against the grass. “Mizi’ll come around eventually, you’ll see.” 

He let out a yawn, stretching. Last night’s insomnia-fueled composition session had left him drained. He makes a mental checklist; have dinner quickly, then try to go to bed earlier. Hopefully his brain will be too exhausted to protest by eleven PM. 

“She’s been ripping apart flowers, Till.” 

The sentence rips the breath from his lungs, making his eyes shoot open. 

He sits up hastily, tracking Sua’s anxious body language. “What?” 

“I’m not saying it another time,” she scoffs. “When I went to check on her in her room, she wasn’t there studying like she normally is. And all of the flowers she painstakingly collected this week were gone. Just… gone. Every single one.” 

“Maybe she’s… changing them out?” Till said tentatively. Denial lapped at the edges of his increasingly worried thoughts, struggling to wrestle them down. 

“Nope, I checked.” She pulls at her bangs, twisting them into rivulets on her fingers. “Worse, when I went to my own room, she’d mangled all the flower crowns on my desk. Their middles were cut out completely.” 

Till gulped. That’s not good.

“I think she might be dealing with something. I’m going to try to talk to her after dinner.” 

“Well, good luck with that,” Till sighs, flumping unceremoniously back onto the grass. The worry for his beloved still wrapped around him like a vice— but he was certain that Sua would fix it. After all, he could barely get out proper words in front of Mizi without turning into a flustered mess, so he’d let this situation resolve itself from afar. 

Twenty more minutes until dinner. And then sleep. He couldn’t wait. 

They’d found the jackpot. 

Mizi was frantically scanning the lines of text in front of her on the long rectangular screen she and Ivan had found in one corner of the archive, bypassing the security code with a carelessly tossed password-containing swipe-hybrid hidden under the glowing keyboard. 

“There’s so much in here, we need to catalog it all!” 

“I wish I brought my H-DRIVE,” Ivan hummed, typing in some phrases to narrow the search results on the archive database. 

“Why do you have a— you know what, nevermind, I don’t want to know.” 

“Aw, but I was hoping you would ask,” he grinned cheekily. 

“Less talking, more searching,” she poked his cheek. 

Ivan dutifully hits the ‘Narrow Results’ bar, and there it is, in all its glory— the 50th class DNA and Human Trait registry. 

[LIST: ALL STUDENTS OF CLASS 50: ENTRIES A-Z]

[ENTRY 1]

ACORN

SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATION: [NONE]

DNA STRAND #0025891

PHENOTYPE Dd: DOCILE TEMPERAMENT 

PHENOTYPE AA: MEDIUM BROWN HAIR

PHENOTYPE bB: DARK BROWN EYES 

“Wow, look at all those entries! Must be at least a hundred just in this section alone,” she scrolled down to the middle of the document, stopping to read some of the entries that caught her eye. “Harper, Bari, Sein, Luna… Kinda feels weird to be looking at our classmates from a different angle like this.”

Ivan makes an indifferent expression beside her. “Whatever works, works.”

Mizi senses an opportunity plucking at her curiosity, a sly grin curling onto her lips. “Hey Ivan, wanna check out your own genetic makeup?” 

“I’m not particularly interested in doing so,” he replied, busy reading the synopsis of another one of their classmates. 

“Oh, come on! Don’t be a stick in the mud,” Mizi pouted, grabbing the keyboard and navigating it to the “I” section. 

“It’s not like there’s anything important that we would glean from— And you’ve already pulled it up.” 

[ENTRY 62]

IVAN

SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATION: [FAMILY BUNDLE] [PHENOTYPE RB] 

DNA STRAND #0105331

PHENOTYPE DD: DOCILE/RESERVED TEMPERAMENT 

PHENOTYPE AB: BLACK HAIR

PHENOTYPE Tt: FANGED

PHENOTYPE RB: BLACK EYE/RED PUPIL

Mizi squinted at the text under Ivan’s name. “What does “Family Bundle” mean?”

“Oh, it just means two or more humans are born from the same ”family” gene, making them biological siblings—“ Ivan leaned forward suddenly, eyes widening. ”Wait a minute, that can’t be right.”

“What? Ivan, you have a sibling? And in Anakt Garden, no less?” Mizi’s gaze flitted back to him and then to the screen, and then back again, in rapid succession. 

“It could just be a weird fluke,” Ivan waves her off, and Mizi notices the subtle way his shoulders freeze up, biting at his lip with his fang. 

“Well I don’t know about you, but I’m not passing this up,” Mizi clicked the [FAMILY BUNDLE] link, making the text glow blue for a second before it displayed a new page. 

>>DISPLAY: SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATIONS

[FAMILY BUNDLE:] 

IVAN

AGE RANK: YOUNGER BROTHER [BY 1.4 HUMAN YEAR] 

DNA STRAND #0105331 

SUA 

AGE RANK: OLDER SISTER [BY 1.4 HUMAN YEAR] 

DNA STRAND #0105332 

TEST RESULTS FOR LB-01: 

BIOLOGICAL MATCH— OVER 50% DNA SHARED

Ivan’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates, not a single word coming out of him for a solid two minutes as they both stared, stock-still, at the name that was displayed on the screen. 

Slowly, they both turned to look at each other, Ivan’s speechlessness mirroring her own. 

Mizi’s mouth opened, floundering to come up with a response, a word of reassurance, something, when she was graciously spared the trouble of doing so by the sound of the dinner announcement crackling over the overhead speakers, proclaiming to all Anakt residence that dinner was served. 

Mizi cursed, exiting out of the program hurriedly and scrambling to reorganize the mess of the tubes they made earlier. 

“Ivan! Ivan, we have to go,” She grunted, dragging him back from the monitor and towards the doorway like an uncooperative statue. 

“But…” Ivan’s voice sounded small, expression still dazed as he stared absently at the empty screen in front of him. 

“We’ll talk about this later, okay?” She grabbed his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Ivan gave her a small, distracted nod, and the two rushed out of the Archive, back to the uncertainties that lay in wait beyond. 

Chapter Text

To say that Ivan wasn’t taking the information that Sua was his biological sister well was an understatement. 

Mizi practically had to lug him around with her feeble arm strength (She cursed the fact that she was still so weak at this age), and his reflexes were slower than normal, resulting in a few close calls with the mounted cameras and a sentry that had been lurking close by. 

“Great Anakt Ivan, get a hold of yourself!” She shook him, after the third time where he zonked out momentarily while they rounded the corner to the dining hall. 

“I am indeed in possession of myself,” Ivan replied lethargically, and Mizi fought the urge to facepalm. 

“Whatever, just, act natural. Where do you normally sit,” she scanned the rows of student-filled tables, the dinner rush line already stretching out towards the back of the room. 

“Till.” 

“What?”

“I sit next to Till.”

‘Of course,’ Mizi thinks ruefully. “Okay, so where does Till usually sit?” 

Ivan’s face goes blank again, eyes zoning out. ’For the love of—‘

“Ivan? Ivan, you there? Where does he sit,” she groaned, gripping his shoulder to ground him in some form of reality. 

His eyes refocus, blinking away the brain fog. “At the back of the hall, next to the seventh row.” 

“Great, I’ll accompany you there after we get something to eat.” She pulled him by the wrist towards the direction of the dinner line, not trusting his ability to get there without freezing up in the middle of the dining hall like a lunatic.

Obtaining the food was a lackluster affair, with the two of them waiting in line for about twenty minutes and receiving their verified human-safe meal without incident. 

It was getting Ivan to his usual spot with Till that was the hassle. 

Because instead of Till and some of their other random classmates filling the space around him, there had to be Sua sitting across from him, eating her food without so much as a glance to the boy in front of her. Of course. 

She felt Ivan tense up beside her, and she squeezed his wrist reassuringly. 

“Sua!” She greeted merrily, watching the choppy black hair from the girl sway in an arc as she fixed her gaze back at Mizi, eyes softening. 

‘Damn, she really does look like Ivan,’ Mizi panicked internally. ‘Their bangs even have that same sleek and shiny texture! How the hell did I not notice it sooner?!’ 

“Hi Mizi,” Sua replied, waving her over with a smile. “Sorry I grabbed dinner without waiting for you, I was a little hungry after recital practice.” 

“It’s no problem! You know I would never hold anything against you, Sua.” 

Sua’s eyes crinkled at the corners as Mizi slipped into the spot next to her with ease, and, as if sensing the static presence behind Mizi, switched to a calculative expression when her gaze locked with Ivan’s. 

“Oh, and you brought… him.” Mizi cringed inwardly at the utter contempt slathered all over her friend’s words. 

“Sua,” Ivan addressed. 

“Ivan.” Sua said, with matching apathy. 

Well, this was off to a great start. Mizi laughed nervously, keeping her eyes on the food on her plate. 

Till seemed like the only one unaffected by the tense atmosphere, sending only the occasional shy glance at Mizi as he ate. 

That short-lived peace was immediately interrupted by the resident weirdo, who plopped himself right next to him to engage in more teasing tactics. “Ivan! Fuck off, give me my spoon back!” 

“Not until you show me the songs you’re working on,” Ivan grins, a hand wrapped around Till’s shoulders. 

“Like hell I’m going to show you! And get off!” Till spat, slapping Ivan’s hand off of him. Ivan frowned, whining about Till’s apparent ‘horrible cruelty’ as he wrestled for space on Till’s shoulder again, spoons clattering to the ground in the process. 

Mizi watched the scene out of the corner of her eye throughout her and Sua’s own conversation, her mind frequently wandering back to their exploits in the Genome Archive. 

Ivan’s teasing towards Till was dialed up to the max today. Mizi had a sinking feeling that he was using their usual bantering as a means of distraction; His smiles seemed a little more forced, clinginess subtly intertwined with quiet desperation.

She might be observing him a bit too hard, though, because she doesn’t catch the tail end of what Sua’s saying until it’s too late. 

“—should talk.”

“Hm?” Mizi looked over at her, once again peering into lilac purple eyes, which were downturned a little in something that looked like worry. 

“I said that I think we should talk. Preferably alone,” Sua repeats, and the way she says it has Mizi’s heart dropping to her stomach in dread. 

Alone. With Sua. With that concern in her eyes. 

She found out about the flowers, didn’t she?

“Ahaha— Sua, what are you saying? I’m quite comfortable where we are, don’t you think?” She winced at the nervous cracks in her voice, pushing away the rest of her plate. Suddenly she’s not very hungry anymore. 

“Mizi,” Sua says, with the beginnings of a warning tone. “I think it would be better if we had this conversation somewhere else.”

“Can’t!” Mizi blurts out impulsively, heart racing too fast to think properly about what she’s saying. “I, uhm—“ her gaze darts around, settling on Till who’s still messing around with Ivan. “Because I- I promised Till that I would help him compose tonight!”

Till’s head snapped up at the mention of his name, Ivan temporarily forgotten even as he pinched his cheeks. 

He pointed to himself, mouthing a “Me?” with a rapidly pinkening face. Mizi nods, placing her hands on her hips to bolster her false confidence. “Yep! He, uh, he asked me to help him with his latest song and I said yes so we need to go do that— that thing. Yes,” She faltered at the disappointment brewing in Sua’s eyes, her disapproval stabbing into her heart. 

“Mizi, if you would please listen to me—“ 

”Sorry Sua, me and Till really need to get going, it’s getting late!” She wrenched Till from a pouting Ivan with a squawk, Ivan’s eyes darting to hers for a split second, as if saying, ‘Please don’t leave me here with her.’

“Come on Till, to your room!” She tugged him in the direction of the dorm rooms, ignoring the strangled squeaking of his voice as they went. 

‘Sorry Ivan, but you’re on your own this time,‘ She sent one last look of quiet reassurance at him, Ivan blinking slowly back. 

Till could hardly believe his own luck.

His plans for sleep that he had made earlier were promptly thrown out the metaphorical window by the change in plans— he couldn’t miss such a rare occasion; Mizi was hanging out with him, alone. He could count the number of times she had done so on one hand. It was exceedingly rare for her attention to be placed solely on him, especially for such a long period of time. 

He was in such a state of bliss that he almost didn’t register Mizi asking him what his room number was.

“It’s enclosure 34-B, I’m in a separate unit from the others,” Till hears himself say. Mizi frowns slightly at that, but nods, her pink hair jostling to flow down one shoulder. His thoughts flow unbidden, tangling into a garbled mess. ‘Great Anakt, she’s so pretty. I don’t think I’m worthy to be in the same room as her. Wait, did I brush my teeth? Crap, I didn’t, and we just came back from dinner. Maybe I can excuse myself real quickly to—ah! She’s looking right at me! Did she say something?! I wasn’t listening!‘ 

“—working on?”

“Hm?” He blinks, frantically hoping that he comes off as cool and composed rather than the haphazard chaos that he’s facing internally. 

“I wanted to know what song you’re working on tonight?” Mizi smiles. She seems not to have noticed his turmoil, thank Anakt. 

“Oh, ah- yes, I-I was working on one called After Everything,” He rummages around the crumpled papers littering the floor of his enclosure, feeling embarrassment squeeze at his ribs like a vice at his unpreparedness. ‘So much for a good impression…’

Mizi, thankfully, still appears unfazed by his poor organization habits, instead taking the time to visually absorb the entire one hundred and fifty square foot room, eyes tracking every nook and cranny. 

He’s close to the bottom of the pile of music sheets when he feels her tap his shoulder, and Till has to suck in a breath lest his fight or flight reflexes kick in and result in an accidental punch. 

“Till, why is your room so…empty?”

Till turns back to face her, temporarily abandoning his task in favor of capturing Mizi’s attention once again.  “Uh, I guess it’s supposed to be like that. Better for composition work, and less distractions. What, is it supposed to be filled to the brim?“ 

Mizi shakes her head, and those blindingly sparkly eyes flash with something unreadable, too fast for Till to follow. 

“No, not at all! It’s somewhat surprising, considering your personality,” Mizi pondered, looking him over thoughtfully. “You’re always this loud, larger-than-life person.” 

‘Loud?! Crap, she thinks I’m annoying!’ Till deflated visibly, getting the urge to dive into the music sheet pile to hide away for the rest of time. His life was over, cut the cameras, cut the scene—

“Till?! I didn’t mean it in a bad way!” Mizi reassured him, putting her hands out in front of her placatingly. “Being loud is a good thing! It means you can fight for what you want!” 

“…Really?” He asks hesitantly. “Our classmates don’t seem to like when I’m around.” 

“Really,” She affirms. “Nevermind what they think. You’re lucky you have such a strong drive, Till. I don’t think you should ever give that up, no matter what.” Those kind eyes stare unwaveringly back at him. It’s an unspoken sentiment, stark as day: If no one else will believe in you, then I will.

‘She believes in me…?’ The thought sparks a fading memory from a long, long time ago. Dull light shifting through metal bars, cold, dirty floors, a warm hand threading through his hair gently. Soft, encouraging words spoken as Till lifts up the crinkled paper in his hands for her to see.

What do you have there, my little star? Ah, I believe this might just be your best piece yet. 

Let’s sing this one together.

He shakes his head to clear it, forcing the prickling sensation in his eyes down. It won’t do to get upset now, especially with Mizi in front of him. 

“Thanks, Mizi,” he smiles, and that warm fuzzy feeling in his chest settles, just a little. 

“No need to thank me, I know I’m very cool and amazing,” Mizi jokes, reaching for a paper that had been dislodged from the sheet pile. “Hey, what’s this song? “No Better Options Than You,” she reads aloud, and Till’s heart drops, going into overdrive. 

Fuck fuck FUCK, that’s one of his very secret and self-indulgent confession songs to Mizi that he was working on for the past 3 months! He wills his limbs to unfreeze but his body has yet to catch up, staying stubbornly still as Mizi begins to read the lyrics. 

“My shifting reality, your brightness exceeds everything else, The light you shine brought me stability, brought life into my cells—“

“Ahaha, th-that’s enough reading!” His laughter has a hysterical edge to it as he yanks the sheet from her grasp, face aflame. “Don’t look at that one, I wasn’t finished with it,” he adds weakly. 

“Oh, okay! Sorry, I was just really curious about what kind of songs you write.” The embarrassed smile she gives him is enough to make his heart combust. He’ll up and die at this rate before they even get to working on After Everything. 

He resists the urge to hide away again, mumbling something unintelligible as Mizi sits down cross legged next to him, watching as he brings out the lyrics to his latest number. 

“So this is After Everything,” Mizi brings the lyric sheet up to her face, eyes sparkling with interest. “ The intro really starts off with a bang,” she mimes an explosion with her hands. 

“Yeah, I wanted it to hook the listener in with a punch, and then amp it up in the chorus.”

“It really shows,” Mizi nods, reading over another line. “This part, when you’re talking about kick and break, reminds me so much of the bar singing in Hyu—ahem, I mean, it lends a very energetic tone to the chorus.”

Till points towards a line in the bridge between the first and second chorus. “I don’t know what to do with this one though. About the ‘Living in an open world,’“ he frowns. “The way I worded it feels kind of vague. But I guess I can’t really describe what it means to be in an open world since I’ve lived in an enclosure almost my entire life.”

Mizi makes a pained expression next to him, hand scratching at her chin. “I could have a few educated guesses on the topic.”

“What, like you’ve been there?” Till raises a brow. Mizi splutters, pupils shrinking to dots. Till could almost swear the green of her collar flashed yellow for a second, but dismissed it as a trick of the light. 

“Of course not! It’s just… I’ve always dreamed of someday being… Free, with everyone else. Anyways, two heads are better than one, so do you want some help or not?” 

“Fine, fine, I’ll accept your help,” Till shrugs, grabbing a pencil. “Now let’s get to writing a revised bridge…”

They composed late into the night, and Mizi was surprisingly staying awake better than he was; he had assumed Mizi was the type to go to bed early and get exhausted if she didn’t get enough rest, but it appeared that his assumption was far from correct. 

At around two am, Till’s eyes were getting heavier and heavier, his hands refusing to cooperate as he wrote increasingly illegible scribbles on the page. 

“You should get some sleep, Till,” a soft voice says next to him, a hand leading him by his wrist to the mess of blankets Till uses as a bed in the corner of his cell. 

Till flumps onto his sheets, murmuring words of protest. He barely registers the kind hands tucking the blanket around him, patting his hair before retreating. 

“Sweet dreams,” the voice says, and Till is not sure whether it’s from two people in his life or one. 

He sleeps better than he has in months that night. 

Chapter Text

The first thing Ivan thought after Mizi left was simple and inevitable: 

‘Oh. I’m screwed.’

Sua was already turning back to look at him the second Mizi had vanished from her sight, and judging by the venomous glare quickly forming on her face, she wasn’t happy. 

“This is your fault, isn’t it,” she accused, jabbing her pointer finger into his chest. 

His faux smile remolded itself onto his lips. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Cut the crap, Ivan. I saw you two entering the dining hall together, I’m not stupid.”

“Whatever you’re insinuating is purely a result of your poor grasp on your own emotional insecurities,” he deflected, and ouch, that was probably the wrong thing to say. 

Sua’s finger dug itself harder into his chest, almost bruising in its force, her voice dangerously low on her next words, “If you’ve been messing with Mizi’s head, then you better fess up now. I’m done with these games. What have you been doing with her?”

“I haven’t been messing with her head.”

“Really? Because you sure as hell have a history of having external motivations when you get close with someone,” Sua spat, crossing her arms tightly. 

Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “If you have a problem with me hanging out with Mizi, then just say it, Sua.”

“I do have a problem with you, and it’s the fact that I know why you’re doing this.”

“Do you, now? And what might that be?” Ivan dared her to say it, bitterness twisting his smile. 

Like their interactions often went, Sua rose to the bait. 

It was no less aggravating to hear her response than any other time. 

“You just want to get close to her so you can impress Till. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Don’t bother telling me it’s not,” she scoffed. 

Ivan usually prided himself for keeping a level head, unaffected by even the worst possible situations. He was the one in charge, the one who controlled his reactions, the one who held the leash to his own subsurface feelings, if he could call them that. There wasn’t much the aliens, or his classmates, could do to get under his skin. 

There were only two unfortunate outliers to this mentality, however. The first was Till. 

And the second, Sua. 

Her words weaseled their way past his barriers, causing the unfamiliar sensation of his throat closing up, an inkling of something that felt almost like real pain welling up in his chest, squeezing it tight. 

“Take it back.”

Sua shook her head, smiling ruefully. “What? Am I too on the nose? Caught you in your manipulation schemes, didn’t I—“ she’s cut off by a vicious pull to her hair, yelping.

“Why do you always assume I’m out to get you?!” Ivan tugged on her hair childishly, his black eyes drowning the reflection of her own in his frustration. Sua grabbed his hair back, tugging on it hard enough to make him wince. “And why do you insist on trying to butt your way in on my friendship with Mizi?” 

“I’m not trying to do anything,” Ivan hissed, gripping the strands in his hand tighter. “You’re the one being all defensive about it. You’ll push her away further if you keep doing this, you know.”

“You don’t know that!” She bristled. “If you would just leave us alone, then maybe I wouldn’t have a reason to be defensive!” She yanked his hair back. 

“Oh, so I’m the problem here? Ha! That’s rich coming from you!” 

“It’s your fault Mizi’s getting gossiped about!“ Sua’s voice rose, attracting the attention of several of their classmates, whose conversations were beginning to fade in lieu of listening in to the argument. 

“She’s doing this of her own accord, I’m not playing any part of it!” Ivan argued, trying to disentangle Sua’s fingers from his hair. “Why the hell are you so strong—“ 

“You’re not fooling anyone with your stupid upstanding human-pet acts,” she grunted, stubbornly twisting her hand further into his locks. “Now let go of me.”

“Not if you don’t first,” Ivan sneered, holding steady onto Sua’s hair. 

“Idiot, let go.”

“Fat chance.”

They wrestled for control, knocking over their mostly empty plates in the process. A few of their peers scooted farther away, content not to get roped into the conflict. 

“Anakt, I hate you so much,” she scowled, trying to extricate herself from their jumbled mess on the floor. “Right back at you, sis,” Ivan muttered, the nickname slipping out unbidden— thank Anakt Sua was too angry to notice his mistake. 

“This is your last opportunity to get out of this unscathed,” Sua snapped, “Or I’ll dig up all those poems you made of Till and shove them in his face when I next see him.”

Ivan raised his eyebrows. “Not if I eat them first.”  

“Damn lunatic,” she pushed his head away forcefully, finally succeeding in detangling his hands from her bob. ”You’re such a pain in my neck.”

“Same to you.”

“Idiot.”

“Hypocrite.” Ivan smirked, clearly trying to push her buttons. 

Sua’s fists slammed on the dining table. “That’s it! I’m gonna pull out all your hair, follicle from damn follicle—!”

“H-hey, um…” A timid voice popped up between them, causing her to turn her wrath towards the person who dared to intervene. The boy had been so quiet that they had hardly noticed him, but that could also be attributed to his (in Sua’s opinion) forgettable appearance. His mousey brown hair was cut in a simple bowl cut, his bangs somewhat choppy. Sua couldn’t quite remember his name; she knew it started with an A. Apple? Avocado?

“Is it okay if I take your plates…? I wouldn’t want either of you to get stabbed by a fork while you are… uhm… having a conversation.”

“Ah, Acorn. Thank you for being considerate,” Ivan’s fake grin curls at his lips, and Sua has the urge to roll her eyes at the display. Leave it to Ivan to always be oh-so-goody-goody, even when they’re in the midst of a fight. 

The boy, presumably Acorn, does a nervous nod, quickly grabbing the plates and skittering off to the plate deposit bin. “We’re not done here,” Sua jabs a finger into Ivan’s ribs. “I’m talking with Mizi, whether you like it or not. And I better not find out you’ve been feeding her any awful ideas.”

Ivan sighed, leaning an elbow on the dining table. “I told you, I wasn’t the one who forced that on her. She came to me of her own accord.”

“But why? Why would she come to you and not me?” Hurt bubbled up in Sua’s chest. “I’m the one she talks with all the time. We’re… We’re supposed to tell each other secrets. I’m her whole world, and she’s mine. Why doesn’t she trust me enough to tell me what’s bothering her?”

“Maybe it’s because you don’t trust her enough to tell her the truth.” Ivan said quietly. 

Sua’s face fell. “You know I can’t do that, Ivan. She’s too fragile, she’d break if she knew. How am I supposed to deal with that aftermath? How could I watch all the happiness she ever knew get crushed into hopelessness? She’d become like me.”

“Mizi is stronger than you think. If you gave her the chance, I believe she would be sad for a while, but then she would take it in stride.”

“How do you know that, Ivan? How do you know she won’t shatter beyond repair?” Sua countered, grabbing at her hair anxiously. “If I come clean, she might hate me for not telling her sooner. I couldn’t bear losing her like that.”

“True,” Ivan shrugged. “There’s definitely a chance she’ll question you on your decisions, decide you’re a horrible person for keeping things from her, and never talk to you again.” 

Sua stared daggers at him. “You are not helping whatsoever.” 

“Just try it. If you’re going to talk to her, it better be now, rather than later.“ His eyes glanced towards a red flower nearby, hands twitching minutely. “You know we both don’t have a lot of time before the round selection process starts.” 

”Fine,” Sua agreed reluctantly, bunching up the fabric of her Garden-provided dress. “You better not be hiding anywhere to watch like the freak you are,” she added softer, looking at the ground— and Ivan understood what she was trying to say, under all the barbed words. A silent ask to be there while it took place, close enough to listen but not enough to intrude. 

Ivan nodded, feeling that pang of almost-pain again. His heart needed to stop doing that. 

Five days later, the artificial sky was inching towards sunset hour mode by the time Mizi couldn't do it anymore. 

Couldn’t run away, that is. Both from her overanxious mind and Sua’s plead earlier in the day to meet with her at six PM, after the bulk of their classes were completed. Sua had looked awfully nervous, and that’s when Mizi had known this couldn’t go on any longer. A suspiciously Hyuna-sounding voice in her head told her to woman up and stop dancing around the issue, or else it could potentially drive a rift between them. 

“What’re ya waiting for, eh? That target’s not gonna shoot itself,” A strong hand clamped onto her shoulder, startling Mizi from her shaky aim. 

“It doesn’t feel right,” Mizi’s hands trembled, voice cracking. “I look into the gunsight and it’s like I’m the one shooting her.” 

Hyuna gave her a sympathetic look, taking the gun from her hands and setting it down on the rack. ”Shootin’s never easy when you‘re just startin’, I know. Out there, on the stage, it’s a weapon of destruction. Of unnecessary death. But that doesn’t mean it will always be that way.”

The older woman pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head, grinning. “One day, these weapons are gonna mean freedom. Salvation from these bastards. We’re gonna take ‘em all down, Miz.”

“It all depends on how ya use ‘em. When the time comes, will ya be willing to take that shot?”

Mizi took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She was willing to take the shot. And she wouldn’t let her second chance get wasted, no matter how scared this made her. 

There’s a rustle of grass next to her, then a soft crunch of the blades as someone sat; She didn’t need to turn her head to know it was Sua, her walking patterns already so familiar to her that she could never forget them. 

“Hi,” Sua greeted, lilac eyes hesitant to meet hers. 

“Hi,” Mizi replied, offering her a smile. Sua didn’t match it, a little frown twisting her lips. 

There was a pause, the two watching the fake sun get lower in the sky, an orange gradient slowly overtaking the blue. It might be Mizi’s imagination, but she thinks she feels the presence of someone watching the two of them, waiting. 

“It’s… been a while since we last talked,” Sua began. “And I guess… I was wondering if I did anything to upset you?” 

Mizi shook her head, her smile wavering. “No, you didn’t upset me in any way.”

“Then why,” Sua’s eyes watered, sniffling. “Why are you avoiding me?” Mizi’s heart broke into bits at the sound of Sua’s faltering voice, panic at hurting her friend filling her.

“Sua, no, no, it’s not your fault,” she reassured her, her own eyes prickling with unshed tears (She had always been a sympathetic crier, and it was least helpful in situations like this). “I was… I was scared, Sua. Because I… I…”

She forced herself to say it. “I’ve been keeping something from you, and it’s been eating me up inside for the past five months.”

Sua’s gaze slowly met hers, eyes wide. 

“I didn’t want to tell you at first,” Mizi began, hugging her knees to her chest. “But it just got worse the more I ignored it. I… I know Alien Stage is just a death sentence, Sua.”

Her friend blanched, eyes widening in pure terror. “What? Mizi- you- how- how did you find this out? This- this isn’t true, right—? Tell me it’s not true—“ 

“It is true,” Mizi confessed, her smile finally dropping. “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” it was technically not a lie, vague enough to be kept for now. “I saw what happened when the contestants lost,” also not really a lie. “It was horrible, Sua. I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Mizi…” Sua’s voice shook, her eyes filled with despair. “I… I also haven’t been completely truthful with you.”

Mizi turned to look at her, the grass rustling under her dress. “What do you mean by that?” 

“I, well.” Sua looked as though saying the words was akin to coughing up acid. “I also knew that Alien Stage killed its contestants.”

Mizi’s blood ran cold. 

“You… you knew?” 

Sua nodded weakly, face so pale Mizi was sure she would faint altogether. “I knew since I was four.”

“Sua, why didn’t you say anything?” Mizi questioned, her heart hurting for the pain in her friend’s voice. 

“Because I didn’t want you to know.” Sua admits, tears beginning to slip down her cheeks. “You’re the brightest thing in my life, and I didn’t want to lose that. To lose you.”

”But you wouldn’t lose me,” Mizi sniffled, her own tears already joining Sua’s. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Her arms wrapped around Sua in a tight hug, both of them crying in each other’s embrace. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Sua cried into her hair, hiccuping throughout the sentence. “I was so afraid that you would never be happy again if I did.”

“As long as you’re here, I’m happy,” Mizi reassured her, hugging her closer. “We’ll figure something out together, I know we will.”

“Promise me that you’ll try to talk to me more if something’s bothering you?” Mizi asked, threading a hand through Sua’s hair. 

“Y-yeah. I promise. It’ll, uhm. Take me a while. But I… I want to try,” Sua vowed.

Mizi hummed, watching the false sun finally dip below the horizon. 

When they get out of here someday, together… Mizi promises to herself that will tell Sua everything that happened in her past life. But that’s far off in the future, and for now, she’s content to be in her friend’s presence, for as long as she’ll let her. 

“Oh, and by the way, now that we’re telling each other secrets, Ivan’s your biological brother.”

A few seconds of silence stretched between them. 

“What.”

Chapter Text

It had only been a couple of weeks since the Graduation of Anakt’s 49th class.

A monumental affair, Anakt Graduations were held completely separate from future classes; they were a time for rapturous celebration, hosting large banquets, impromptu singing performances from the chosen contestants, and brand deal marketing. Lots and lots of brand deal marketing. 

Like all shows, the public alien eye was already choosing their favorites, investors scrambling to sponsor the new alumni like ravenous lowborn aliens In alleys hunting for scraps. Brand dealers had to first choose among the eight contestants and carefully consider which one best fit their brand. Spunkier contestants were usually favored by more energetic corporations, most notably consumables with high caffeine-equivalent dosages. Associated with risk and daring, these human-pets often burnt bright and fast, dying within the first round tier. 

More collected and mysterious contestants were preferred by a multitude of alien fashion industries and large-scale bars and casinos, the successes of which were grand enough to buy them their own planets to build upon. And still others, with more dogged, loyal competitors, were chosen by smaller banking firms and transportation facilities, toting a supposed lifetime of safety.

There were varying degrees of which the market would invest on Alien Stage’s season contestants at any given decade. The 46th season had been somewhat slower to see the funding roll in, as was the 47th, and the 48th. 

But all that was about to change.

With the burgeoning rise of the 49th season came the two most highly sought after human-pet contenders in Alien Stage history: Hyuna and Luka.

Investors had kept a careful eye on the two of them throughout their formative years at Anakt Garden, though Hyuna’s brother, Hyunwoo, who was set to graduate two years later and participate in the 50th Alien Stage Season, was also a fitting choice. 

There was a spreading buzz among Alien Stage’s audience this year, bringing in new viewers from far and wide; it was safe to say that the show’s  director, Weiuz, was currently thriving from the increased ticket preorder revenue. And in Weiuz’s mind, there was no better way to generate more hype than with a good old intergalactic-wide interview. 

As was customary for their graduates, their first big public conference would be held on the main planet of Alien Stage Corporate in the Nosichine Solar System, QuothNar-e11, a purplish-orange planet with bands of muted magenta marbled on its surface, white clouds circling above it. Quothnar was an ideal distance from numerous other entertainment destinations, and a lot of the stages constructed for previous rounds had materials brought from neighboring solar systems.

And it was on this planet’s atmosphere that Hyuna stood, watching QuothNar approach from inside the safety of a private transporter jetship reserved strictly for her fellow contestants and their Guardians. 

Phan was silent beside her, the alien’s robes spilling out from behind her like a cascade of fresh snow. “We will be arriving in twenty wiccs,”* Phan remarked monotonously. “Do straighten that unruly hair of yours before we’re accosted by the camera drones.“

“Yes, mother,” Hyuna replied tactfully, forcing herself to enunciate her words clearly.

“Do you remember what we’ve gone through a few Waxxaks* ago? Repeat them to me,” Phan gestured towards her, the fabric of her robed sleeve swaying. 

“No fidgeting, no “standing like a man,” no swearing, no mumbling or slurring words together, speak when you’re spoken to, and remember to smile,“ Hyuna recited, resisting the temptation to sigh. 

“That’s correct,” Phan intoned, that ominous black hole in the center of her face lessening in its intensity towards her. “I will not have myself be embarrassed in front of the other Guardians today. You know what will happen if that occurs.” 

Hyuna shuddered, her mind drifting to Hyunwoo. “I understand, mother.” 

“Good. I shall be in my quarters.” The alien whisked off, robe flowing behind her. 

Hyuna waited a few moments until Phan was gone, then finally heaved out a big, exasperated sigh, imitating a running mouth with her hands. “Do this, Hyuna, do that Hyuna, brush your hair Hyuna. I can’t wait to be free of her after this damn interview.” 

She pressed her forehead against the glass window, absently watching QuothNar’s clouds drift past the jetship. This week-long trip to the planet wouldn’t be so bad if she had anyone else to talk to, but that was precisely the problem; pet humans were rarely allowed to mingle on the ship without the careful supervision of a Guardian. And it was always so awkward with them there— you could never have a real conversation for fear of gossiping between the Guardians. 

There was only one other person who was allowed to wander around on the ship unsupervised. But he could hardly be counted.

She caught sight of him, just a couple paces away in the main lounge: a head of blonde hair, placid smile, eyes an amber topaz, with long eyelashes to match.

Luka. The very picture of unabashed elegance, from the tilt of his lips to the poise in his posture. 

A sense of profound wrongness climbed its way up her spine. 

He was more pet than human nowadays. 

Unease prickled at her skin, multiplying the second those eyes wandered lazily to meet hers. A flutter of his lashes and she’s gone, flighty feet carrying her back to her room, hands fumbling to find the nearest brush to thread through her frizzing hair. 

She’s hardly given enough time to prepare herself when the ship grinds to a halt on QuothNar’s surface, the landing ramp opening with a mechanical hiss. 

Phan strides aloofly towards the ramp, and Hyuna catches the sight of the other contestants and their respective Guardians gathering outside of their rooms, getting ready to head outside. There was an equal ratio of girls to boys in the contestant pool, and she knew a few of them as well; A bubbly orange-haired girl hurried beside her many-eyed guardian, chattering non-stop about the upcoming interview (much to her Guardian’s chagrin). Anise, she recalled, from their acquaintanceship in Anakt; and the white haired person with tan skin, long white hair, and elegant clothing roaming next to their feathery winged guardian was Jude, she presumed. 

Two of the contestants like Jude came from different music schools than Anakt Garden, the likes of which were deemed “lower quality” by the brand dealers themselves, which Hyuna strongly disagreed with. After all, as long as a person worked their hardest to pass into the Stage’s Graduate program, then all else shouldn’t matter. 

She felt the slimy presence inevitably materialize behind Phan before she saw it; Heperu, undoubtedly trying to vye for her Guardian’s attention for the umpteenth time this week before the interviews stole them away. She wrinkled her nose at the sight. 

“Are you available for a round of Wauc* after the interview tonight?” the Guardian warbled, circling Phan insistently. 

“I’m afraid I am not.” Phan replied coolly, her head not even so much as dipping to look down at the alien below her. 

“What a shame,” Heperu did the equivalent of an expression of human exasperation, rotating the bulbous antenna on his head. “Surely you could spare a measly Waxxak during our two Duxxo* stay in QuothNar? We could talk business… Have a couple drinks.” 

Phan’s head hole flared, a gesture Hyuna interpreted as annoyance. “The only business I have scheduled on this planet is with the Director himself. I suggest that yours should be the same.”

“Tsk, Tsk. Perhaps your schedule should have more flexibility. I could assist with such a dilemma.”

“Respectfully, I would rather jump into a smoldering pit of Smauldarian core lava than allow you that opportunity,” Phan retorted. 

Their heated conversation is interrupted by the whirring hum of camera drones entering through the ramp’s hatch, their magnetic blades propelling them towards the group. Hyuna blinked furiously when the onslaught of photographic flashing started up, the drones acting as a preliminary wave of paparazzi. 

“You’re live on Savvek Entertainment!” A robotic voice chimed from one of the bigger drones. 

“How does it feel to be on QuothNar?” one drone inquired, circling around Anise’s head. 

“It’s a great honor!” Anise saluted, smiling widely. “I can’t wait to meet Mr. Director! Is he cool? What kind of species is he? Do I get to shake his hand? Can I get his autogra—“ Anise’s Guardian grimaced, pulling her away from the drone. “Alright, that’s enough, Anise. My apologies, we’ve never been able to fix her… high energy output, you know how pets are.” The drone did a little spin, as if to nod, then promptly moved on to pounce on Jude, who looked mildly disturbed by the drone’s insistence.

Meanwhile, Luka and Hyuna themselves were being positively swarmed by the hovering devices. Hyuna could barely keep up with them, answering questions as thoroughly as she could. In between a short lull in the interrogations, she caught the sight of the blonde amidst a sea of the things, responding to their queries with an ease that rolled off of him like smooth waves. Some drones even looked like they were swooning, hopelessly charmed by his performance. 

A few of Hyuna’s crowd went as far as to migrate towards him, more interested in what he had to say at the moment. 

And oh, that’s when it hit her. 

Phan had mentioned this to her before— about winning over the crowd, how talent only let you go so far in the ring. Alien Stage wasn’t just about being the best singer; it was also about garnering the most publicity, playing right into the audience’s hands. Earning their favor. 

And from the looks of it, Luka was already winning. 

Hyuna had to do something, and fast. That was a bit of a challenge; winning over humans was more her forte, and she could forge connections quite easily with her peers, as she’d done so in Anakt. 

It was aliens that were the problem. That was, decidedly, turning out to be Luka’s territory of expertise. 

It’d been years since the two of them had an actual conversation, since... that day, and Hyuna was stuck wondering just how much she had missed, how many countless interactions were forgone for Luka’s all-consuming “training regimen.” 

The human contestant and alien mixed assembly marched their way from a long, dimly lit hallway into Saavek entertainment industry’s massive circular raising platform, guided by the drones into their designated spots on the circle. 

Hyuna catches Anise’s eye from across the circle as the magnetic platform begins to rise, the booming noise of the alien crowd above slowly getting louder with every second. Anise waved at her cheerfully, mouthing a ‘good luck’. Hyuna smiled, returning the gesture, and directed it towards Jude as well, who gave her a small nod in return. 

“Don’t lose your head out there,” a voice softly says beside her, and she almost jumps; because of course the drones placed Luka next to her on the platform to rub her rotten luck right in her face. Of course. 

“Same to you,” she replied firmly, tilting her head up in defiance. Luka simply smiles, lips curved in a mirthless grin. 

She tried her hardest to ignore how unnerving it is. 

Let the fucking games begin. 

The manic roar of the crowd is what greets the eight contestants and their Guardians as the circular hatch above them splits apart, revealing a colossal arena jam-packed with aliens of all species and sizes, hysterically cheering for their favorites. Several sets of colored lighting streams illuminate the stands, and huge holographic screens line the uppermost seats, broadcasting the contestants on the stage; every smile, every shrug, every conceivable minute detail of the contestant’s expressions are captured in the highest definition possible. Various brands were displayed in the holographic wall surrounding the Ring, switching to different Saavek endorsed sponsors every few Wiccs. 

In the center of the arena a lone alien materialized into view, stepping down from a crystalline floating spiral staircase of steps towards the Ring below. 

“Good evening, QuothNar-e11!” A booming, charismatic voice reverberated through the loudspeakers. 

“Are you all ready to meet our special Alien Stage guests for the next eight Ziime Supers*?” 

The audience went wild, cheers fizzling the very air inside the arena, inhuman howls echoing off the stands. 

The alien swept his clawed hand out in a dramatic flourish towards the circular platform. “It is my greatest pleasure to present to you… The participants of the 49th season of Alien Stage!”

The platform illuminated into a blinding spotlight, the eight humans bowing beside their owners in perfect sync. 

“As you may already know, dear residents of QuothNar and beyond,” the alien smiled, his purple toothy grin unsettling to behold. “Our wonderful contestants here had to travel far and wide in order to take part in our lovely show. And just as in any other season, every single one here had to undergo the rigorous trials of their craft, and the disadvantages of their unfortunately low species intelligence,” the alien quipped, sending a throng of laughter among the crowd. 

“But! Despite that! Despite the enormity of the challenges before them, they still did it. Isn’t that incredible, folks? What dogged loyalty!” Cheers interspersed his sentence. 

“Without further ado, I, Director Weiuz, will be giving you all a brief introduction to our pet-human cast before we move on to the in-depth interviews,” Weiuz gave a bow, his form now clearly visible to the contestants.

The Director was twice as tall as any human, with bright pastel green scales and three fingered claws, the likes of which oddly floated above each finger, as if perpetually suspended in midair. He had orange frills on the back of his neck, a crest of appendages sprouting from the back of his head like the crest of a wave, two spindly antenna, with sharp lilac teeth and a set of seven turquoise reptilian eyes (which were constantly flitting from place to place, as if too antsy to stay in one area for too long). His suit was no less spectacular: A striped gray suit topped with a blue bow displaying the Alien Stage logo pulled the whole ensemble together. 

One by one, the contestants were introduced, starting from the less popular contestants to most popular, a brief synopsis given to each human on the broadcasting screens. By the time it was Luka’s turn to be shown, the audience was ravenous, the cheering reaching an all time high. 

“Coming to you from the prestigious musical school Anakt Garden, this pet-human is what some would call the epitome of the craft! Give a round of applause to Luuuuuka!”

Thump. 

Thump. 

Thump.

Luka allowed himself to take in the thunderous sounds and sights from the arena. Ah, yes. There was the Director, pointing at him to come up onto the stage for his speech before the interview, right as planned. 

His breaths are easy, light. Heart rate a perfect 90. Just enough leeway to adapt when the situation calls. 

Thump.

Thump.

Thump. 

His feet carry him with painstakingly measured steps towards the microphone on stage. The lights are blinding. The sounds are deafening. His steps don’t waver. His heart doesn’t falter. He’s better than them all, prepared in every single way conceivable. 

He casts a glance toward Hyuna on the Ring, noting her slightly tense posture. Poor girl— someone ought to teach her better etiquette. He methodically relaxes his own body even more on purpose, lifting his lips into a smile just so at the director.

“Thank you for having me today, Director. To be here, on stage… Is a dream I could have hardly hoped for. I can attribute that success toward my father, and all the training I have received,” he gestures towards Heperu, who smugly bows. 

“What a humble temperament!” Weiuz laughed, teeth flashing in the arena light. “By Anakt, I wish my pet-human was more like you. Would certainly be a relief to hear less whining,” The crowd burst into snickers at the comment. 

“I’m sure you’re all impatient to skip to the good part, folks!” Weiuz’s large hand ruffled Luka’s hair. “Let’s start the interviews!” 

Two iridescent sofa chairs rose onto the platform, complete with a microphone set and a faux alien plant, with cameras angled toward the chairs. 

“Now then! First up, we have Guardian Wether and her pet-human, Anise!” 

Whether guided Anise towards one of the large sofa chairs, making her snap to attention when she began zoning out. Luka watched them closely, eyes scanning for cracks in her armor; though, with this one, no armor was even worn. Anise left herself wide open with her senseless chattering, causing Weiuz to be disconcerted with her overly amicable behavior. 

Weiuz’s toothy smile faltered. “My apologies Wether, but are you sure your pet-human is in the right age bracket for the competition?” 

Whether flushed with embarrassment, her many eyes glaring at Anise, who shrunk into herself guiltily. “I’m quite sure, Director. She has a bit of a ‘brain problem’,” Wether sighed, the crowd making pitying aww’s. ”The girl is extremely talented with singing, you see, but in everything else… let’s just say I’m grateful that singing is her one good trait.”

Anise looked stricken at that, her smile dropping instantly. Perfect. That look of desolation on her face— Luka loved it. 

Weiuz put a hand on Wether’s shoulder, as if sharing comfort in her trying time. “Well, Wether, you’re very brave for still letting her perform, despite that unlucky airheaded nature.” Wether snorted, giving him an approving nod. 

“Give it up for Wether and Anise, folks!” Polite clapping followed, notably muted by Anise’s failure of a first impression. 

A few interviews later, Weiuz called Guardian Arche and his pet-human, Jude, to the impromptu sitting room, and yes, this is what Luka was hoping for— a sizable challenge.

Jude was quiet as they took their spot next to Arche, white hair ethereal in the way it spilled down their shoulders onto the sofa.

“So, Jude! Rumor has it that you’re Gallia Terrace’s first ever graduate to get accepted into an Alien Stage season! How does that make you feel?”

“I cherish this chance to make my school proud,” Jude stated, voice soft and melodic through the microphone. A few of the aliens fanned their faces, swooning at the sound. “Not many have the same opportunities that I possess.”

“Do you think you’ll win this season?” Weiuz rose an eyebrow. 

“It’s hard to say for sure. There are many… talented individuals here.” They glanced at Hyuna, and Luka’s skin itched slightly. Mine. Don’t look. 

“But I believe, if I work my hardest, then anything can be possible.”

The interview concluded with raucous applause after a few more questions, and then she made her way to the room, Phan leading her. Luka’s smile tightened somewhat when catcalls and wolf whistles rose up among the audience, though Hyuna appeared unfazed, her face steely and focused.

“My oh my! Look what we have here!” Weiuz grinned, eyes drinking up the sight of her greedily. “Your arrival was much anticipated this year, Miss Hyuna! It’s said that your recorded stats were the highest of your class, next to our princely Luka over there.”

Hyuna laughed, settling herself comfortably into the sofa. “I can’t take all the credit myself, Director. My mother and my brother Hyunwoo have been my biggest supporters throughout my stay at Anakt Garden.” 

Luka ignored how Hyuna conveniently left his name out.

“That’s right! Phan, you have not one, but two pet-humans under your wing, don’t you?” 

Phan inclined her head, clearly bored with the conversation already. “That is correct, Director. Both Hyuna and Hyunwoo were given to me as a biological pair.”

“What’s it like dealing with double?” Weiuz wisecracked. “I bet it’s difficult having two pet-human’s to train.”

“They test my patience, certainly,” Phan replied. “But keeping them together has proved rewarding. Hyuna’s bond with her brother has far accelerated her development in singing than anything else I could have trained her with.”

Hyuna beamed, sitting up straighter on her cushion. 

“Marvelous! How heartwarming! What do you have to say about your brother, Miss Hyuna?”

Hyuna’s smile turned softer, more genuine. “I think he’s the best person in the universe. He’s always been there for me, no matter what. That’s why I’m going to dedicate all my performances to him this season.”

The crowd aww’ed at her sentiments. 

“If Hyunwoo were watching this right now, what would you say to him?”

Hyuna grabbed her mic tightly, eyes shining with determination. “Hyunwoo, if you see this, I want you to know that you’re the greatest thing in my life. I miss you so much, and I hope to make you proud.” 

More awws resounded from the audience, and Weiuz wiped a fake tear from his multiple eyes. “Ah, brings tears to my eyes! What a lovely display of human emotion!”

“Anakt, aren’t you just the cutest little thing!” Weiuz cooed, reaching out to ruffle Hyuna’s hair with a large scaly hand.

Hyuna shifted back on the sofa awkwardly, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t like being touched, thank you.” 

“Eeugh, we got one with boundaries, folks,” Weiuz complained, sending a judging glance towards Phan. Hyuna could hear jeers from the alien crowd booming over the loudspeakers, some hissing their displeasure from the stands behind her. Luka grinned; the way alien audiences changed their opinions about humans at the drop of a hat was truly commendable. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to go toe to toe with Luka this season, Miss Hyuna?” Weiuz asked, noticeably disappointed from the earlier infraction. 

“Without a doubt.” Hyuna affirmed, her expression hardening to steel. “I’m not letting him sweep the competition. With Luka, it’s best to keep a very close eye on him,” She pointedly stared in his direction, narrowing her eyes. 

Luka easily subdued the subtle variation in his heart rate from the sudden redirect of her attention, smiling back at her. 

Weiuz cheered. “What a fiery response! Bravo, Miss Hyuna!” 

With that, Hyuna’s interview was neatly wrapped up, and it was finally Luka’s turn to the room. The alien horde was on pins and needles, waiting for his lovely voice to grace them all. 

Yes, this— this is where he belongs.

“Mister Luka, you’ve built yourself quite the reputation in Anakt for being the prince of musical talent. I heard you scored the first perfect score in the astronomically difficult Expression of music course, as well as all other courses in Anakt Garden! That must have been quite the accomplishment! Did you struggle at all with your studies?”

Luka nods, reveling in the expressions of envy in the other contestant’s faces. “They were mere pebbles in my path to success, Director. My skills allowed the subjects to come more naturally to me.”

“To Heperu, how has Graduation from Anakt Garden been affecting his post-alumni training?”

“Such a question is simple,” Heperu warbled, patting Luka’s head. “Now that he’s out of Anakt, our focus is on maintenance. Lots of physical tests and coaching to keep him in shape are conducted every day.”

The blonde easily pushed down the memory of his heart rate exercise that morning— he’d aced it, like always. He was in full control.

Weiuz leaned over conspiratorially, as if sharing a secret. “It’s said that Luka harbors quite the affections for our dear Miss Hyuna,” the aliens in the audience whistled. “What do you have to say about that, Luka?”

Thump. 

Thump.

Skip.

“My heart belongs to my audience, and all who have supported me to get to this point,” Luka supplied without a hitch, effortlessly capturing the hearts of the crowd. “It would be foolish to assume I could ever dedicate my fondness to one person alone.”

Heperu is nodding— he said the right thing, like always. 

So he ignores the persistent twitch in his chest, following him from the end of his interview all the way back to his temporary room and board on QuothNar’s hotel.

Chapter Text

Mizi’s smile strained as Sua’s face slowly extricated herself from her shoulder, her arms unwrapping themselves from Mizi’s back. 

“You’re joking, right Mizi?” A pained grimace twisted Sua’s face. 

Mizi stayed silent, sweat beading down her forehead as she averted her eyes, hands pulling at her collar nervously. “You see, about that….”

Sua’s expression morphed into something more hysterical. “You’re joking. Mizi, tell me you’re joking right now.”

“I thought we were going to discuss it later,” A disembodied voice called from the bushes, and Mizi startled, her head whipping around this way and that to find the culprit. 

The sound of rustling leaves brought to attention a familiar black-haired boy emerging through the foliage. 

“Ivan?! How long have you been standing there?!” Mizi gawked, her eyes bulging out of her head at his sudden appearance. 

“The whole time,” Ivan replied casually. “Sua asked me to be here.”

“I did not!” Sua spluttered indignantly. “He’s lying, I would never want moral support from a freak like him!”

“Said ‘freak‘ who is also your brother,” Mizi helpfully supplied, sympathetically patting Sua’s shoulder. 

“Hell no! He cannot be my brother, just look at him!” She pointed frantically at Ivan, who just stood there, blinking. “There’s no similarities between us at all!” 

“I don’t know, you two kind of had a sibling-like energy even before I learned about it,” Mizi pondered. 

“Who’s side are you on?!” Sua cried, wringing her hands. “And just where did you two even get wind of this far-fetched lie? This is a hoax! Fraud! Deceit!”

“Should we tell her?” Mizi pulled Ivan aside, already regretting breaking poor Sua’s brain from the news. 

“Well you already spoiled half of it, so sure, why not,” Ivan shrugged, crossing his arms. There was a line of tension in his shoulders, and a downwards curve to his lip— was he sulking? 

Mizi sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I was trying to help, I didn’t think you would want to tell her yourself.”

“…True,” he admitted, shoulders loosening slightly. “But logically, that should be something I get to decide. She’s my sister, after all.”

She nodded, guilt weighing heavily in her stomach. “I’m sorry, Ivan. I should have thought of your feelings first before I acted on my impulses.” 

“It’s fine, there are no feelings involved. We have more pressing matters to—“ 

“This is a really nice moment between you two, and that’s great and all,” Sua interrupted, “But what the hell is going on?!”

”You already heard, so I don’t think you need to be told again,” Ivan said. “I’ll be going now. My job here is done.”

Before he could even take a step towards his usual spot through the trees, Sua grabbed onto his wrist, her voice dripping with fury, “If you think you’re getting out of here without telling me the whole truth, then you’re dead wrong, Ivan. Spill it. Now.”

And wow, even someone as unflappable as Ivan could be coerced into talking when Sua was mad, judging by the way the boy grudgingly explained the Genome Archive to her. ‘How terrifying— Thank Anakt I’m not on the receiving end of that glare!’ 

After a lot of deliberation, and some add ins from Mizi, Sua went silent, rubbing her chin in thought. 

“So you’re saying, Anakt Garden just keeps all this DNA record data under lock? And that they’re using it for genetic alterations?”

“Precisely,” Ivan agreed. 

“That’s…worse than I thought. Way worse.”

“That’s what I thought too!” Mizi exclaimed, pacing around Sua in circles. “The way they’re treating us like some unintelligent stock to mix and match whenever they choose— I can’t stand it.” 

Sua’s face grew a little pale at the mention of it. “Never stopped them from crossing the line before.”

Mizi could tell there was something deeper she wanted to say, but Sua’s mouth shut tight— she wasn’t ready for that discussion. 

“Where’s it located? I want to take a look.”

“If there’s enough time before dinner, then I suppose we could swing by,” Ivan conceded. 

“We have to watch out for the caretakers, though,” Mizi added, her collar beginning to flash yellow. “And with three people instead of two, we’ll need to be extra careful not to get caught. Ivan, did you crush all the flowers near the commons entrance?”

“Yes. They’re all taken care of.” Sua raised a brow at his quick response, glancing between the two of them in confusion. “What do the flowers have to do with anything?”

Mizi hummed approvingly, lost in thought. “Good. Let’s check the time when we get into the main hall.” 

“What’s this got to do with flowers? Mizi?” 

“Oh, sorry Sua,” Mizi smiled nervously. “I forgot that you didn’t know about the hidden cameras in the flowers.” 

Sua stood stock still for a moment, then deflated, looking utterly defeated. “You know what, sure. What’s another mind-shattering thing to add to the list today, It’s not like my whole life is in shambles now,” she sighed, trudging her feet in the direction of the main facility building. “Let’s get this over with.” 

Sua’s mind was still reeling as Ivan led the way through the main facility halls to the supposed Genome Archive, Mizi trotting alongside him. Sua lagged a few paces behind them, trying to make sense of everything she’d learned moments before– of Mizi, whose ignorance of Anakt Garden’s flawed system was entirely gone (and out of her own volition, no less) and of Ivan, who she apparently shared blood with. Even with her own fears confirmed, new anxieties took their place; what had Mizi meant, when she said she’d been “at the wrong place at the wrong time”? What had really happened that caused that realization to take form? She thought back to that day, all those months ago, when her friend had fallen out of that tree, and upon waking, had stared at her for a good minute before sobbing into her arms. That had been the first time she’d seen Mizi look so… devastated. For a good few weeks after, there had been this inexplicable sadness in her gaze whenever she looked at her, as if she was already mourning her absence. 

It was almost harrowing to see this new side of her. She misses her Mizi, the Mizi who smiled effortlessly like a little sun, the Mizi who snuck her birthday cake when Shine came to visit, the Mizi who braided flowers into her hair in between study breaks, and laid down on the grass next to her, eyes wide and shining as she picked out the constellations from the fake sky above them. 

But at that moment, Mizi turns from her strides next to Ivan and smiles at her, familiar and warm. Reminds her that Mizi is still Mizi, and that although her brightness has changed forever, it still shines. 

She smiles back. And pledges to herself that she’ll do her best to accept it, no matter how much her heart aches for the past.  

Her situation with Ivan, on the other hand… She doesn’t know what to think. Probably disgust. A lot of disgust. And totally not curiosity towards whether they really are related or not. Because that would be ridiculous.

That’s what she keeps telling herself the whole trip to the Archive, besides minding Mizi’s instructions to duck when they pass a wall-mounted camera. Ivan makes quick work of the locks on a solid black door, which swings wide to reveal a giant room filled with glass tubes that exactly fit the descriptions she’d heard from the two earlier. 

“Behold,” Ivan smiled, a little smug as he made a sweeping gesture around the room. “The Genome Archive.”

“Impressive,” Sua remarked, unamused. 

“Wait until you see the computer,” Mizi grinned, pulling her to a deskspace with the widest holographic screen that she had ever seen– the school-assigned hololaptops couldn’t hold a finger to it. “It’s got every single student from every class recorded in Anakt’s history.” Sua watched as Mizi scrolled through a few classes, occasionally stopping to peer at a few students that interested her. “Here, this one’s yours,” Mizi pointed at a small bar of text labeled ‘Sua’, clicking on it to open up a connecting section.

[ENTRY 72]

SUA

SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATION: [FAMILY BUNDLE] 

DNA STRAND #0105332

PHENOTYPE DD: DOCILE/RESERVED TEMPERAMENT 

PHENOTYPE AB: BLACK HAIR

PHENOTYPE PB: PURPLE EYE

She felt dread rise in her chest as Mizi dragged the cursor towards the [FAMILY BUNDLE] text. “And if we click on this portion here, it opens up this page.”

>>DISPLAY: SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATIONS

[FAMILY BUNDLE:] 

IVAN

AGE RANK: YOUNGER BROTHER [BY 1.4 HUMAN YEAR] 

DNA STRAND #0105331 

SUA 

AGE RANK: OLDER SISTER [BY 1.4 HUMAN YEAR] 

DNA STRAND #0105332 

TEST RESULTS FOR LB-01: 

BIOLOGICAL MATCH— OVER 50% DNA SHARED

Sua scanned the words ‘YOUNGER BROTHER’ over and over with an increasing sense of horror, futilely hoping that the text on the screen would miraculously change to something else. But alas, it didn’t. 

Well, that confirmed it. 

She was… related to Ivan. Directly. Unequivocally. Terribly.

This might just be the worst day of her life. 

“Hey, where are you going?” Mizi cocked an eyebrow, watching her walk towards the Archive’s exit. 

“Finding the nearest security sentry to put me out of my misery,” Sua answered miserably. Her friend made a strangled gasp, pulling her back to the desk before she did anything stupid. “Have you gone insane? They’d rip you apart in ten seconds flat!”

“That’s the whole point,” Sua sighed.

“Come on, is it really that bad to have Ivan as a brother?” Mizi pleaded, and Sua took one look at Ivan in the corner staring at them like some creepy surveillance camera to give her response, “Yes. Yes it is.”

Mizi scrubbed her hands over her face in what could be thinly veiled frustration. “You two are never going to go anywhere at this rate. Have you even bothered to, I don’t know, try getting to know each other better? Ask about what you like or dislike?”

“I like literature and watching people.” Ivan chimed in from the corner. 

“Yes, Ivan.” Mizi acknowledged, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly.

“I also like Till.” 

“We know, Ivan.” 

Sua motioned emphatically at Ivan, as if to say, ‘See? We’re totally different people.’ 

“Why don’t you give it a try, Sua?” Mizi encouraged, her hopeful gaze very nearly toppling over Sua’s defenses. 

She grimaced, watching Ivan’s eyes follow her heavily before switching over to stare at something on the computer’s holographic screen. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” 

“Your loss. Then I hope you don’t mind Ivan and I doing some actual research while we’re here.” She slipped into the spot next to Ivan, squinting at what she saw on the monitor. “...Ivan, can you tell me why we’re on Till’s profile right now?”

“This isn’t Till’s.” Ivan said, pointedly looking away from her. 

[ENTRY 77]

TILL

SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATION: [MANUFACTURED BY PROVIDER] 

DNA STRAND #0116227

PHENOTYPE AA: AGGRESSIVE/IMPULSIVE TEMPERAMENT [NEEDS CORRECTION]

PHENOTYPE BR: GRAY HAIR

PHENOTYPE TA: TEAL EYE

“Ivan, buddy. That clearly says “TILL” right at the top of the page. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“I promise you it’s not.”

Sua snorted behind them.

“I knew your dork self would do this eventually,” Mizi huffed under her breath, holding out her hand. “Give me the controller.”

Ivan’s gaze immediately whipped to hers, cradling the remote clicker against his chest defensively. “No.”

“Ivan.” She raised her eyebrows warningly. “Give it.”

He raised his own eyebrows back at her defiantly. “No.”

“Alright, fine.” She pretended to drop the issue, waiting until Ivan unfolded his arms from his chest, then made a wild grab for the remote–

Ivan made an undignified shriek, trying to bat her prying hands away from his prize. “Give it back, I haven’t even used it for ten minutes yet!” 

“You’ll have it back when you take our research seriously! You’re making us look bad in front of Sua,” Mizi grunted, trying to wrench the remote from his stubborn grasp. 

“Researching Till is a serious matter,” Ivan argued, his skinny arms pulling back as hard as he could. 

“I swear your logic never makes any sense–”

Click.

The pair stopped in their tracks, frozen as the mishandling of the remote led the cursor to click on a certain bar of text on Till’s profile. 

>>DISPLAY: SPECIAL GENE CONSIDERATIONS

[MANUFACTURED BY PROVIDER:] 

MANUFACTURE COMPLETION DATE ECC: 6/21/4XXX

HARVEST DATE: 2/03/4XXX

HARVEST RESULTS: SATISFACTORY

[PROVIDER ID:]

IO 

DNA STRAND #0116228

HARVEST DIVISION AA-9

CAGE #332988

PHENOTYPE Dd: DOCILE TEMPERAMENT [UNRESPONSIVE AND TEMPERAMENTAL SINCE HARVEST. NEEDS CORRECTION]

PHENOTYPE BR: GRAY HAIR

PHENOTYPE TA: TEAL EYE

“Ah,” Ivan said faintly, taking in the new information with widening eyes. “Maybe we’ve stumbled upon something we shouldn’t have seen.”

“You think?” Sua rolled her eyes at him, taking a closer look.

“Ivan, you got any guesses?” Mizi cleared her throat, adjusting her glasses to appear professional and not like she’d been squabbling with the boy a mere minute ago. 

Ivan hummed, running a thumb under the glowing sentences. “I would say the “MANUFACTURE COMPLETION DATE” has to do something with what I read about automated human creation. You input the right code into the machine and after a few months the humans can breathe without assistance. Perhaps the “PROVIDER” is the program which performs it.”

“Your theory would be sound if there wasn’t the fact that there’s a name under the provider ID, doofus,” Sua countered, pointing at the line below his thumb. “What kind of machine has a name like that?”

“I think you two are onto something here,” Mizi said slowly, her mind filtering through the possibilities. “It has a whole DNA strand number, too. With three main phenotype sections like we’ve seen in all the classmate’s entries. You don’t think that maybe…”

Ivan gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth. “Till’s machine is human?” 

“That’s so weird,” Sua uttered, her face looking as though she had tasted something incredibly sour. 

“I think it’s fascinating.”

“You think everything about Till is fascinating, weirdo. If you had the chance, you’d probably stick him under a microscope like some poor bug.”

“Mm, the idea sounds tempting…”

“Ew, ew, ew, are you seriously considering it right now?! Gross!” 

Mizi felt exhaustion seep into her bones as the two started bickering again, leaning heavily against a wall. 

This was going to be a very long afternoon. 

Chapter Text

It all happened so quickly.

The weight of the examination chair seems to melt itself away from his back, the blinding white tiles of the room fading to a wholly unfamiliar sight.

He’s never seen a sky of this color, so vibrantly red— he tilts his head up, up, looking above: streaks of yellow and white light cut through the atmosphere like errant knives. The grass is softer under his feet, grounding in its simplicity. 

It tells of a promise. 

Of an inevitability he can’t comprehend.

He somehow knows he’s not supposed to be here— not yet. But it’s getting close; he can feel it approaching. As sure as every mealtime in the Garden, of every personal hour spent badgering Till.

His eyes catch the sight of two figures emerging from the bottom of the hill he stands on. 

Their giddy laughter fills the air, streaks by him like a comet, to be seen once, then never again.

Ivan feels warmth flutter in his chest at the scene, exhilarated by the way Till looks at this version of him. His carefree laughter slices open the night, a hundred laughs playing all at once, a thousand, a million. Every instance is the same as the last, without a single deviation. As sure as time itself. 

As sure as everything in existence.

Ivan is not supposed to be here and yet he is, he is and he doesn’t know why. 

So he does the only thing he knows best. 

And watches. 

The two figures run towards the edge of the path, a million times apart. Two, together, inseparable, unavoidable— until they aren’t anymore.

A hand slips from one of the figures. Over and over and over, in countless reflections. 

A version of himself looks back, sees Till rush away, back to captivity—his eyebrows are pinched in puzzlement, like he can’t fathom why Till is leaving him, and Ivan feels his chest torn apart, stabbing and empty, spilling freely at the sight. 

It tears and tears and tears, he can’t breathe, his lungs constrict, his chest squeezes, and that awful almost-pain fills up what has been lost, what has been lost over and over, like fire burning everything he’s ever known into nothing but cinders, like the cold of a rainy stage—

“—van? Ivan!” 

His muddled head snapped into focus, Mizi’s concerned gaze coming into view. Oh. He’s been spacing out again. “You’ve barely touched your food. Everything alright?”

Ivan made a nod of assent, forcing down a bite of his lab-grown vegetarian meal. What little umami stored in the dish is lost on his sudden lack of appetite.

He’d learned this from one of the lab manuals in the library— a section describing the process of nutrition modification of Earth-grade edible products made specifically for pet-humans. Incredibly versatile, that process; it could produce a fifty percent increase in nutritional content and quality, without changing too much of the natural structure of the vegetable. 

It did have one unfortunate drawback, however; the chemical procedure caused a deficit in flavor, turning it to a slurry of near-flavorless mush between the teeth of anyone unlucky enough to eat it. Sweet treats were more favorable, since little nutrition modifications were needed to present it to a pet-human (Though those were provided very rarely due to their strict dietary schedule).

Mizi frowned, picking up another forkful of some tasteless orange root. A few days had passed since their escapade with Sua to the Archive, and things between the group had been… mostly normal, if he wasn’t counting the increase in his sporadic headaches and strange visions. And the lingering awkwardness between him and Sua. 

They’d always been somewhat awkward before, so Ivan shouldn’t have cared all that much. 

Except he did, weirdly enough. 

Maybe it was innate habit that he’d learned from the slums, or a little thing called coincidence, but the second he’d met Sua in the Garden, there had been this click in his head, that instinct that all younger kids in the alleys had when they saw someone older, wiser– to duck under their wings and be cared for, safe. 

And, initially, he’d indulged that instinct, following at her heels with as much subtlety as an overeager lowborn alien puppy. He’d quickly learned that course of action wasn’t feasible, after Sua had proceeded to try and brush him off, utterly confused at why this odd younger kid was trying so hard to interact with her. 

In response, he did what was most familiar to him at the time: he gave up, stowing that gnawing almost-hurt deep down into that comforting numbness he’s always had. It was easier that way.

Sua herself sat next to Mizi today, talking with her about the latest lesson in Religion and Music class. Apparently, Mizi still wasn’t performing well enough to be confident about passing their upcoming exam, and was consistently getting the questions Sua was quizzing her on wrong.

And Till… well, he was crankier than usual, probably due to the conversation they had when they came back from the Archive. 

“Where the hell have you three been?!” Till hissed at them, glaring at Ivan specifically. “I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes! Do you know how many idiots have been trying to sit next to me in the span of that time?” 

“Uh…Twelve?” Mizi guessed, cocking her head to the side as if seriously considering it. 

“It’s a rhetorical question, Mizi.” Ivan explained, sitting down next to the girl. “Though, it does sound like Tilly missed us,” he smirked, eyes crinkling at the corners. 

A fork was lobbed at him, hitting him square in the forehead. Ivan felt a small sense of satisfaction at the successful diversion of Till’s attention, even as he rubbed away the sting of the utensil’s impact. 

He contented himself with his usual daily ritual during meals: staring at Till. Of course, he still did that in his free time, but during meals, Till was especially cute with his cheeks puffed up with rice and a perpetual glower to his eyes, wiped away only by Mizi’s presence.

Which was surprisingly often— the four of them rarely sat together in all their years at Anakt Garden, and when they did it was most likely because all other seating arrangements had been filled by their peers. 

Now, Mizi would seek out Ivan among the crowd like a synthetic flower does to artificial sun, and Sua naturally followed her, grudgingly allowing the conversation to flow somewhat freely between the four of them. 

It was strange. And new. 

Ivan didn’t know what to make of it; he just took it as it came, rationalizing to himself that it would all soon end, anyways. Soon it would be back to him and Till, and then, just himself. 

Together and apart, under that brilliant red sky. 

The crackle of the intercoms while they had their first lesson should have been his first hint at what was to come. 

“Attention all students: An unusual weather phenomenon near Anakt Garden is approaching. System-integrated technology such as Hololaptops, classroom holographic screens, and swipe hybrids may experience malfunctions due to conflicting ion discharge. Classes early tomorrow morning are canceled. Dormitory lights-out will be rescheduled to 8pm, and dinner will be conducted at 6pm. Stay alert until further notice.”

A chorus of intrigued murmurs rose up from the students, a few cheering. 

“No quiz tomorrow, Anne! Let’s do our singing practice in your room!” 

“I can go sleep early… Thank Anakt.“

Ivan catalogued the information for later use. Unusual weather phenomenon… that sounded like…

No, it couldn’t be. He shook the thought away, focusing on the worksheet sitting on his desk, half finished.

Usually he would be done with something so easy by now, but today he felt antsy, restless. His chest was too tight to relax completely, and it must show somehow on his face, because Mizi kept asking him if everything was okay at breakfast that morning. And Sua, too, in her own way(Though it was hidden under a snarky comment about his apparent ”sulking”). 

After a half-eaten dinner, Ivan excused himself to an early turn-in to his room, though that was far from where he was actually going— the loner tree.

He didn’t catch the worried glances sent his way, by more than one person.

His bare feet padded through the grass. It’s still and quiet; the rest of his peers are still in the main facility building. The night air in the enclosure is a chilly eighteen degrees Celsius, no doubt to simulate the changing seasons from summer to fall. He would marvel at the dedication for funding such technology, if it weren’t the fact that it was designed to keep them complacent. 

Perhaps Mizi and Till are rubbing off on him, or the nerves coursing through his chest are muddling his normally level head, but tonight, there’s something like warmth prickling at his usual numbness, urging him to act. 

For once, Ivan listens.

Steeling himself, he walks past the loner tree, past the thinning bushes, carefully avoiding clumps of red-petaled flowers, climbing through holes in wire—and walking along the very edge of the enclosure towards the back, where the perpetually closed metal gate resides. 

Except, unlike all the other times he’s wandered to this exact gate, there’s one tiny discrepancy.

It’s open. 

Just a crack, but open, nevertheless. The digital latch that guards it is fizzled out, sending sparks that quickly die on the grass underneath the gate. 

Ivan’s heart is pounding in his chest.

It’s open. It’s open. 

Hands trembling, Ivan pushes at the door, expecting it to hold firm.

It does the complete opposite, swinging out further with a small creak. And what he sees beyond, it’s… it’s…

The walls of the enclosure seem dwarfed in comparison to the vast expanse of the outside world, a vibrant red sky raining down yellow streaks of light from miles above. It’s overwhelming yet so beautiful that he can scarcely breathe, and he can see hills of swaying grass spread out for what looks like forever.

The wind tickles at his hair, warm and welcoming, beckoning him outside, to run from it all, to run and never look back. 

He can’t.

One word cuts through a million racing thoughts in his mind. 

Till. 

He needs Till. Right now. He could run back as fast as he can, tell him about the gate, take him outside with him, they could be free, together, away from everything they’d ever known, where no one could hurt them anymore, away from Urak, away from Unsha. Something that feels like hope balloons in his heart so big that he can barely contain it all.

He’s running madly before he registers it, legs dashing through the trees and kicking up grass in the wake of his strides.

Till, Till, Till— 

That wild almost-hope threatens to engulf him, giddiness melting away the persistent numb for the first time in years. 

His lungs burn by the time he reaches the dormitories, flinging open the sliding door with careless abandon, and skidding on the tiles in his haste, almost crashing into a wall. 

The world seems to tunnel in the few seconds he finds the door to Till’s enclosure unit and his hand stretches out towards the keypad, ready to rip it open—

His hand stops inches away from the pad, a fragment of that vision popping up at the very last moment.

What was he thinking? 

His trembling hand retracts, his feet stepping back from Till’s door, unsure.

His mind is screaming at him to act, to just forget about everything else and open that keypad, to make the most of the one and only chance that he and Till could possibly have at escape. 

But— that vision— it couldn’t be revealed to him for nothing, would it? He must have seen it for a reason, seen that same exact sky and swaying grass before, felt the inevitability that came with it. 

His mind clears enough to remind him of other names— Sua. Mizi. They would… they would want to come too, right? He couldn’t leave them here to fend for themselves, wondering where they’d  disappeared for the rest of their lives. A brick forms itself in his stomach, weighing heavily as his frantic breaths slow, considering his options. 

He couldn’t leave without them.

And Till… he wouldn’t leave without Mizi. 

That settles it. 

His heart aches fiercely as he forces himself to turn back, feet carrying him in the direction of a different room in the dormitories.

This might be the hardest thing he’s ever done. 

He hopes the decision is worth it. 

Chapter Text

Mizi woke to the sensation of hands shaking her shoulders. 

She made a groggy sound of protest, snuggling back into the thin sheets of her dorm bed. The hands only shook her harder, commanding her attention.

“Mizi. Mizi, wake up, we need to get out of here,” a familiar voice wrenched its way into her skull, filled with a desperate urgency that sent anxiety shooting up her spine immediately.

“Mm, Ivan…? What do you mean, ‘get out of here,’ it’s not time for lessons yet,” She murmured questioningly, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. 

“Mizi, please, we don’t have a lot of time,” Ivan stressed, grabbing her wrist and tugging her. “We need to go. I found a way out, but it might close any minute now. Get the others–”

Mizi froze, her slow-moving brain grinding to a halt at his words. 

“Ivan, you.. you found an escape route?” At once, the syrupy fog of her thoughts dissipated, pure adrenaline taking its place. Disbelief and hope began warring within her, increased by the sight of Ivan’s wide, frenzied eyes– she’d never seen that look on his face, so rawly emotional.

“Holy shit. Holy Shit.” She scrambled out of bed, feet moving faster than her mind could follow. “You’re not– You’re not joking, are you?”

“Does it look like I’m joking?”

“Holy shit.” She repeated with feeling. “Oh great Anakt, there’s actually a way out.” Her legs went weak, and she felt like she could cry with relief. Finally, finally, they have a chance to get out of this god-forsaken hellscape. But now was not the time to ruminate. Every second counted.

Her expression hardened, grabbing her glasses off of her nightstand and quickly gathering her wits enough to form a plan. “You get Till, I’ll get Sua. Meet me at the front of the dorms near the west entrance. Go!” 

Ivan nodded, scurrying off in the opposite direction. 

Within ten minutes, she was pulling a drowsy Sua into the hallway, urging her to keep alert as they hurried toward the end of the west hall as quietly as possible. They couldn’t risk a rogue security sentry bot waking up from their designated charging docks, most of which powered on if their auditory sensors picked up anything too loud, or caught movement in their motion detection systems. Once the security bots were tipped off, the alien sentries would be deployed, and by then, everything would unravel. 

Sua mumbled something tiredly next to her, still half-asleep. “Where are we going, again?”

“West hall entrance. Meeting up with Till and Ivan,” Mizi replied tensely, voice lower than a whisper. “Almost there.”

Mizi carefully disengaged the metal latch from the west entrance, slipping through it with Sua in tow. The night air bit at their cheeks and noses, grass cool under their feet. She forced herself to calm down as they rounded the bend, into the darker corners of the dormitory’s exterior. Ivan’s head sharply turned to face her at the sound of her approach, relaxing slightly at her presence. 

Behind him, Till stood, teal eyes bright and awake; Ivan must have caught him in the middle of another insomnia-fueled lyric session. Mizi felt a wave of relief at the sight. “Ivan said he found a way out. Is that true?” He raised an eyebrow. 

“It is true,” Mizi confirmed, Sua and Till’s eyes widening at the admission. ”We don’t have time to explain everything now. This may be our only chance at getting out of here, so I beg you two to move quickly before the caretakers notice we’re gone.” The two nodded, a seriousness taking over their faces. 

“Ivan, lead the way.” 

Ivan gulped, his movements stiff as he held out a hand towards Mizi. “Is it alright if you could…” 

Ah. Mizi almost didn’t catch the subtle waver in the boy’s voice. He was nervous. Her heart clenched at the sound, her determined expression softening into a reassuring smile. “Of course. I’m right here with you, Ivan.” She took his hand without hesitation, moving to the front of the line. “Just tell me where to go, okay?” 

Ivan made a small sound of agreement, something almost like gratitude flashing in his eyes. 

Then, with a slow, tentative motion with his opposite arm, he outstretched a hand towards the silver-haired boy behind him, a warm smile accompanying it. 

A direct invitation. 

Till looked at Ivan’s outstretched hand for a few seconds, then darted his gaze away from Ivan, hesitating. 

Still not directly looking at him. 

And yet— and yet—

Slow, bordering on timid fingers intertwined with Ivan’s, their palms slotting together. A disgruntled scowl settled on Till’s lips, but he didn't pull away, not even when he’s tugged forward by their fast trek towards the compromised gate. It’s the greatest thing that Ivan could ever hope for. 

Sua mutters something snarky about, “Great, saving the worst for last,” as her hand grasps Till’s free one, all of them marching together quickly through the brush in a single-file line.

Mizi followed Ivan’s directions to a T, and the journey itself lasts a mere fifteen minutes; though it might as well have been four years with how slowly each individual minute passed. The whole group was on edge— every snap of a twig or flutter of a leaf had someone flinching, as if expecting a security sentry to come barreling towards them out of nowhere. 

Mizi herself was grappling with conflicting thoughts and emotions during those precious moments, from the crippling fear of getting caught, unbridled hope for her friends’ future, to overwhelming anxiety towards the rest of their classmates in class fifty. She was tempted to try to go back to the dorms to save more of their classmates, but something distinctly Hyuna-sounding told her such an option wasn’t possible at the moment. 

Her gut writhed at the thought of abandoning them, of seeing her classmates have to go through the same pain and fear inflicted on the stage in their stead. If she just had more time, more planning— maybe a better chance at escape, for all of them, could have been achieved. 

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an option for that later on down the line. 

Because when they got out, when Sua, Till, Ivan, and her escaped—they would scour the galaxy for rebel allies. And they would join the rebellion. 

They would come back to this very facility, and free all of their classmates before the rounds began. 

And raze everything in this place to the ground. 

Down to the very last flower. 

Ivan led them straight to the back of the enclosure, zigzagging to avoid the flower clumps littering the grassy walkway with painstaking care. 

Four pairs of feet slowed to a stop. 

And there it stood. 

The metal gate, in all its imposing glory— it towered above the four kids, casting a ominous red light through the tiny slits in the metal bars. 

Their path to freedom. 

Ivan motioned with his head at Mizi towards the gate, his smile full of anticipation. 

Mizi took a deep breath, and pushed it, the cool metal flat against her palm. 

All at once, it was like an explosion— crimson light flooded into the opening where the gate swung wide, bathing the four in a cascade of red. Sua gasped from behind Till, bowled over by its immenseness. 

Till’s hand was squeezing Ivan’s tightly, as if it were the only thing grounding him in the moment, as if he couldn’t believe they all were there, standing, looking up at the boundless atmosphere high above them. His teal eyes caught the path of a comet making its descent to a faraway destination, an incredulous grin sweeping years of strife and exhaustion away from him— here, there was no responsibilities, here, there was no rules, here, there was only the four of them together, under the light of a million real stars. 

At first—slowly, they wandered through the whistling grass as if in a dreamscape, heads swiveling this way and that in increasing awe. 

Then, with the reality confirmed, with the rising joy bubbling over in their chests, they broke into a run, hands linked together, laughter spilling freely from their lips. 

It was the most wonderful thing Ivan had ever experienced. 

He couldn’t take his eyes off of their faces, of how Sua’s laugh echoed off the whistling wind, how Mizi’s normally exhausted eyes had regained their sprightly cheer, and Till— 

Till, Till, Till. 

His grin was wider than he’d ever seen it, hand warm in his grasp as they ran. Ivan’s heart ached with an emotion he couldn’t name, threatening to drown him in its entirety. Their eyes found each other in the mess, Ivan watching incredulously as Till’s smile was aimed at him in all its dizzying splendor. 

Ivan’s heart burst. 

Beautiful.

Till was so beautiful. 

Ivan wanted to capture this moment forever in time, eyes desperately tracking the proof of his joy with a greediness he couldn’t contain.  

They’re so close to the exit, to the junction in the hills where the grass turns to a dusty grey concrete, the city skylights before them. 

He felt so full of that unnamed emotion— he wanted to scream it into the wind, overwhelmed by the brief flicker of belonging that he possessed, here and now, among his peers, maybe even his f—

He collided with Mizi’s back, their forwards motion halted in place. 

“Mizi? What are you…“ 

His words faltered, gaze trailing up to her face. 

Mizi’s eyes were fixed on a faraway point in the distance, pupils shrunk to mere pinpricks. 

He could barely hear the words that came next over the wind. 

“Run.” 

Mizi turned back, her voice rising to a frantic shout. “Ivan, RUN!“

And then, he sees it— all the way at the top of the grassy hill, a flash of white. 

It’s getting closer. 

Sentry guards. 

Mizi shoved the three backwards, positioning herself at the back of the line to defend with all the bravery she could muster. “Run, run, don’t stop, you hear me?! Ivan, we need to swing around the hill to bypass them!” 

Ivan follows her orders, maneuvering the three away from the guards towards the edge of the exit, hoping to squeeze by just enough to get through. 

The guards have already spotted them, their steps clunking through the grass, and Mizi can tell, with rising dread, just seconds after the start of their approach. 

They’re not going to make it. 

Not without a sacrifice. 

Mizi squeezes her eyes shut, a frustrated sob rattling through her throat. 

She peels away from the rest of the group. 

She can hear Ivan’s distress from here, his cry of alarm as she runs in the opposite direction, hoping to diverge the guards’ path where it meets the outskirts. 

But it’s too late. 

The guards are fast, way too fast to outrun on their young legs. Mizi feels an armored hand grasp the back of her dress, forcing her to the ground. She cries out, once, hands scrambling for purchase on the grassy dirt. 

Sua’s caught next, and her name tears its way out of Mizi’s mouth in a scream as she’s slammed to the ground, eyes dazed while the guard slips white restraints onto her hands. 

Till doesn’t go as quietly. He thrashes as a bulkier guard struggles to keep him contained, biting their arm hard enough to draw blood. Mizi’s desperate to see him win, to see him wiggle out of their grasp, but a needle is quickly administered to his neck, sedative pumped through his veins. He falls limply to the ground, twitching feebly as a collar is roughly placed around his mouth. 

And Ivan… Mizi can see the fight drain out of him the second Till is captured, raising his hands in surrender as the remaining guards surround him. 

Mizi can hardly register the way her mouth shrieks her friends’ names as they are carried away, her limbs writhing frantically at the armored hands holding her down. 

A small pinprick breaks through the skin of her neck, and she knows the sedative must already be flowing in by the way her limbs stop following her commands, growing sluggish the more she struggles. 

She fights to keep her eyes awake, until the very moment where her consciousness is finally ripped away from her fleeting grasp.

Like a fading dream, the world crashes in on itself around her. 

Chapter Text

Till knew where he was the second he felt the cold tiles under the thin fabric of his clothes. 

The lingering effects of sedative drifting through his nervous system made his limbs slow to respond, body aching. A whine tried to escape his lips, muffled by a smooth metallic substance— his jaw sealed by the presence of a muzzle. Again. 

The prickling discomfort of a fresh bruise on his cheek soon made itself known, and so did the ones on his ribs. He struggled to lift his head, opening his bleary eyes to a familiar sight— a set of three white-tiled walls in the form of a cube, with only one, the fourth, made of a transparent glass-mix. 

A solitary confinement chamber. 

With great effort, he managed to sit up, straightening his back against one of the walls. His muzzle clunked against tile, sitting at just the right angle to make rest uncomfortable. 

Damn it all.

They had been so close. 

Closer than they’d ever gotten. He could still feel his friends’ hands in his, warm with promise, the roaring wind ruffling his hair, the bright streaks swathing Ivan’s face in yellow and orange as he smiled like there was no tomorrow, fang glinting impishly in the light, eyes boring into his, intense and unyielding–

But there was no warmth in his hands now, and Ivan’s gaze was no longer on him. 

They had been so damn close. 

His nose let out a couple shallow breaths, too quick to control his rising fury. 

The muzzle let out a warning beep, threatening him with the outcome of alien confrontation if he didn’t calm down right that instant. 

Till didn’t care. Let them try. 

He got up on unsteady legs, stumbling to the thin glass separating him from the limits of the enclosure. They hadn’t updated its thickness since his last visit, a half-year ago. All the better for him; even with his sparse diet, he got into enough fights with caretakers that his body was coerced to strengthen. 

Till approached the glass, fully intending to crack it to bits with his fists, but the second he put any real pressure on the transparent material, a searing jolt of something coursed through him, causing him to make a dulled cry of pain. 

He fell back, his skin humming with the remnants of electricity. 

That was new. They’d updated the collar software. 

Till glared, trying again. The same thing happened once more, except far worse— the shock that rattled through his body this time made him collapse onto the tile, his limbs twitching from the sheer force of it. 

It was excruciating.

He let out an involuntary whimper as he laid there feverishly. His vision was swimming, unable to focus on anything but the awful pain. Till forced the air into his shaky lungs, gasping for breath. Deep breaths, deep breaths. In, out. In, out. Memories of a hand brushing through his hair, holding him close and warm, come rushing in, unbidden, and he grasps at the welcome thoughts desperately, pretending the person behind them is still there, brushing his tears away, calming his hiccuping cries. 

‘I’m here, my little star, I’m here. Don’t cry. Everything will be alright.’

‘I know it hurts, I know, I know. You must cheer up for me, hm? Cheer up, my star.’ 

Slowly, gingerly, he rises, stumbling back to the farthest wall from the glass. He’s not keen on trying that again, anytime soon. 

If anything, the only thing worse than the glass-triggered electric shocks was the mind-numbing wait. 

There was no real sense of time passing in solitary confinement rooms, and nothing interesting to look at. Just the low hum of magnetic-activated lights and the chill that lingered in his bones. He’d learned from experience that aliens kept these rooms ten to fifteen degrees lower than what would be comfortable for a human pet. Till was certain that was on purpose, just to further weaken any tenacity its occupants possessed. An uncomfortable pet was likely to start cooperating sooner, if only for the sole benefit of acquiring cozier quarters. 

And so he waits. 

And waits. 

And waits. 

The only indication of time passing is the meager meals that come and go, emerging from a small platform cleverly hidden behind one of the room’s tiles. A mechanical hand extended from one of the tiled walls to remove his muzzle, and forcefully clamp it back on when he’s done eating. As for the food, it wasn’t any different from the same tasteless slop served in the Garden Cafeteria, so it’s hardly an adjustment. He eats them in silence, the sounds of his sparse chewing the only things to break it. There’s no utensils provided, so he picks the dish off with his hands, grimacing at the slimy feel on his fingers. 

After around twenty meals, he’s getting restless. The muzzle chafes around his mouth, and the pain of his bruises has begun to fade. The allure of the glass beckons him to try again, but the memory of searing pain holds him back. He just needs to know if they’re safe. 

Once the sedative knocked him out, that had been the last time he saw the others, and he was beginning to worry that he could be…

Could be the only one left. 

The thought sends a shudder through him. No, that couldn’t be the case. They wouldn’t just kill valuable human pets, right? After all those years of rearing and training? Definitely not. At worst, they would subject them to the same treatment that he was given; placed in solitary confinement rooms of their own. 

Which wasn’t a comforting thought, either. Till’s breaths hastened as he thought of Mizi, scared and alone, stuck in an unfamiliar room with a shock collar fitted around her neck. He felt sick to his stomach just imagining it. 

Ivan could probably hold off on his own, being the alien’s model student at Anakt, and having privileges like being without a collar and allowed free reign to the place, but considering the treason he just pulled on them… Till wasn’t sure if they could stand to forgive him this time around. 

And Sua… She wasn’t particularly a person he could see getting out of this situation without punishment as well. He may have some negative bias towards her aloof and off-putting nature, but right now, he’d do anything to talk with at least someone, anyone. The lack of social interaction and activity was making his sense of self come apart at the seams, and he didn’t know how much longer he could take it. 

So, when the next meal arrived and the mechanical arm unclasped his muzzle from around his mouth, he took in a few hurried inhales, turning his gaze to the ceiling, where he knew they were watching.

“What do you want from me?” 

Silence. 

“You’ve kept me here for far too long! Just tell me what you want!”

More silence. Whoever was observing him wasn’t budging. 

Then, a smooth crackle blared through the hidden loudspeakers, making him wince, followed by a garbled, inhuman voice. 

“Negotiations with your leader are underway. It is recommended you try not to resist, lest their punishment be doubled.”

Negotiations? Leader? 

Uncertainty gripped him like a vice, his mouth gaping in bewilderment. “What the hell do you mean, leader? We don’t have a leader!”

“Other sources have confirmed your statement to be false. Do not resist.”

Till opened his mouth to protest, but his time was deemed to be over— the mechanical arm wrestled his muzzle back into place, shutting off all other attempts at conversation. 

He could do nothing but go back to that soul-crushing waiting, his fist banging against the wall in frustration. 

Squares were everywhere.

They’re under her hands, pressing against her spine, slipping through her eyes and bursting into bright, colorful triangles. Their vertexes hold so much meaning, making her giddy and delighted at their frazzled dance. 

Sua looks on, dazed, at the oscillating patterns swirling and warping the tile she sits on, her thought process slow and stretched and squished through a web of meaningless anxieties. 

She can’t even remember why she’s so worried. Memory is a fickle thing when among the squares and triangles. It’s a blissful peace she’s seldom known, a sense of community greater than her brief years under her older “sister”’s guidance in Guardian Nigeh’s home, or the blurry years that followed. 

Her mind drifted aimlessly, fumbling its way through the muck of orange evenings, pink screams, rolling circles of green expanding out to the horizon, floating like bubbles only to pop in iridescence. 

A trickle of some purple substance oozes out of her neck, coating the tiles in a splatter that’s dizzying to look at. She tries to scoop some of it back into her system, but it flutters through her arms like freshly cut grass, too intangible to possibly replace. When there’s enough of it to spread to the edges of her feet, she gives up, letting it all go. 

Sua spills freely. She spills hope, she spills life, she spills every good thing she has come to experience. 

There’s a name at the edge of her consciousness, tainted by the very substance that spills into it. 

She can’t quite figure out what it is, but it feels important. Sacred. Universal. 

It’s happiness, light. She laughs, looking up at the ceiling, where twin teal triangles oscillate above her aggressively, speaking nonsensical words to her. 

“-wrong with you?! Sua?!”

Everything is okay. Everything is right. A sparkling square pirouettes by the teal triangles, catching her eye. She voices its beauty, her words sounding distant and awed. 

The teal triangles are getting into her face, almost aggressive. They’re an alright color. She likes yellow more. Yellow, yellow, yellow. 

Bright, warm. She misses yellow. 

“Sua! Wake up,” Till fretted, shaking the girl in front of him. 

The aliens had finally, finally transferred him out of the solitary confinement chamber, locking him in a tiny transport cage without so much as an explanation before dumping him into… wherever this was.

At least it was bigger. Somewhat. And they’d removed his muzzle too, which was a bonus. 

The first thing he’d noticed upon arrival was Sua, splayed out haphazardly in a random corner of the cell. He’d all but rushed to greet her, desperate to have any social interaction, no matter if they were only acquainted. 

But upon further inspection, he discovered something truly harrowing and bizarre; Sua seemed wholly unresponsive. No attempts to rouse her could snap her out of this— this trance. 

Her pupils were blown, black voids, dulled and unseeing as she giggled and talked to herself under her breath. She was completely slack against the wall where she lay, hands bound by some device that restrained her arms together. 

Till slumped beside her, his head drooping in defeat. There was nothing more he could do besides wait it out and hope whatever was causing this wore off. It wasn’t much of an improvement from his previous situation; that awful wave of loneliness only crashed harder, and in a moment of weakness, he gently twined his arm around hers, trying to offer whatever comfort he could to her.

It took the timespan of two meals before Sua’s arm twitched in his, her eyes blinking (at a thankfully normal speed) before a harsh groan escaped her lips. 

She shifted, struggling for a moment while she gathered the strength to lift herself up properly. And promptly noticed the foreign arm linked with hers, eyes darting up in surprise. 

Her eyes scrutinized him, both wary and obviously confused. “You.” 

“Me,” Till offered lamely, making a weak attempt at a smile. “You’re finally up.”

“When the hell did you get into my cell?” 

Till frowned, thinking. “Uhh. Yesterday? I’m not sure.” 

Sua looked around, head swiveling this way and that. Then, incredulously, she said, “Wait a second. This isn’t my cell. Where am I?” 

Till’s eyes widened. “You really don’t remember anything?” 

“Remember what? All I can recall is fiddling with the tile that goes to that mechanical arm thing, and then it’s all really fuzzy after that— oh Great Anakt.“

She gasped, sitting up fast enough to make herself lightheaded. “Those bastards! They shot me with something!” 

“So that’s why you were so out of it?! I tried to wake you for hours! You were talking to yourself like a madwoman!” 

Sua suddenly appeared to have remembered something, clumsily shuffling over to Till with a manic look on her face. “Till— did you see Mizi while you were out there? Or Ivan?”

Till shook his head forlornly. “No. There’s been no sign of them since I woke up. Except… I did hear something weird when I was yelling at the aliens in my cell.”

If Sua’s hands weren’t bound by the mechanism, Till was sure they would be shaking him with impatience by now. “Well?! Spill it!” 

“They said they were questioning our leader and not to resist,” he explained. “Whatever that means.”

Sua’s face blanched. “It’s exactly as I feared.”

Till’s brows furrow at her ominous statement. “What do you mean by that?”

“Mizi’s trying to take responsibility for the escape. I just— I know she is. And they must believe her if we’re here, together.” 

It hit Till all at once, his voice faltering. “Great Anakt, she’s putting all the blame on herself. That’s suicide. They’ll kill her!“

“We can’t let her go through with it!” Sua panicked, attempting to get herself to her feet but toppling over immediately due to weak legs. 

Till grabbed her by the scruff of her dress before she face-planted. She blinked, nose inches away from the cold floor. “Right. I forgot how little I’ve eaten in the past couple days,” she remarked sheepishly. 

He huffed, sliding out an untouched plate of pet human food that he’d saved for her. “Here. Thought you might be hungry.”

She stared at the plate intently, saying nothing. 

“Well? Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Till, I don’t have any fucking hands to eat this with.” She raised her bound hands. 

“Oh.” 

“I guess I could hold the plate for you then,” he picked up the dish, holding it up to her face. Sua’s mouth twisted into an expression of disgust, as if to say ‘Really? That’s what you’re going with?’

“I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas, wise guy!” 

“Fine,” Sua grumbled, lowering her face to munch at the offered food. “This is incredibly humiliating,” she said between bites, grimacing. “Never breathe a word of this to Ivan, got it?”

Till nodded, and they coexisted in an uncomfortable silence, an undercurrent of mounting anxiety accompanying them. 

The first day was utter hell. 

Mizi did everything she could to escape, scrabbling with distraught hands at the tiles, pounding at the glass and getting shocked, attacking the mechanical limb that slid out her meals. 

She screamed and screeched and howled for her friends, day and night. In the moments where she wasn’t expressing her distress through angry means, hopelessness snuck in, making her weep in the farthest corners of her cell. 

It was only at day three that her screams ceased, replaced by an unbearable silence. 

After days more of this, the aliens eventually relented. 

“Cell number 22-B has a visitor,” the voice over the loudspeaker chimed while Mizi was making a half-hearted attempt at sleep, the harsh lighting of the cell making it difficult. 

She lifted her head groggily, head aching with the remnants of many teary nights.

There was something, or rather, someone, tall approaching the glass wall, their feet stomping loud enough to send vibrations through her quarters. 

Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks when she realized who it was, scrambling to get herself to the back of the cell. 

A white hooded head, that terrifying gaping maw peeking out under some sort of two-slitted black mask— she’d only seen glimpses of him once before, among the stage’s audience in Round two, and a few brief appearances in Anakt Garden, but it was enough for her to piece it together. 

Till’s Guardian. 

Urak. 

The Guardian snarled at her from beyond the glass, laying a hand flat against the transparent material with an expression Mizi could only describe as pure hatred.

“You little bitch,” Urak seethed, the timber of his voice even more frightening up close. “So it’s your fault, is it? The Garden should tear you to pieces for such a slight.”

“Who are you working with? Did the rebellion set you up for this?” he pressed, face getting closer to the glass. “Tell me!”  

Mizi cowered in the corner, shivering. “I-I didn’t- no one’s working with me-“

“Liar!” Urak snarled. “Your little stunt could’ve lost me the only investment I have in the season! I’m sure you were planning this to sabotage the little reputation Till has from the beginning!” 

“What’s going on here?” A softer voice glided over Urak’s, pink, jellyfish-like appendages gently pushing aside the other Guardian. 

Mizi stared with incredulity at the sight of her own Guardian standing before her, Shine’s eyes regarding her with fascination and slight amusement. 

“Shine…? Shine!” She ran to the glass, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “This is all just a big misunderstanding, Sua, Ivan, Till- they’re innocent, I swear, I-” 

“Mizi, dear, did you truly do it?” Shine interrupted her rant, tilting her head to the side. “Did you… try to escape the Garden?” 

Mizi paused at the tone of her voice, tearing her gaze away guiltily. 

“…Yes. I… I did.”

Urak erupted into aggression once again, voice raising. “I knew it! The little bitch was scheming—“

“It’s crass to speak to a pet-human that way,” Shine hummed, leveling Urak’s gaze with a hint of reproach. “Look at her, she's just a baby. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

“Are you serious?” Urak ranted, gesturing towards Mizi. “My investment could’ve been compromised because of her! She wasn’t escaping alone! Till was with her!”

“Only because I convinced him to!” Mizi blurted, desperate. “I-I just thought it might be fun to see what was outside and play, I didn’t mean to cause so much trouble.” 

Shine looked closer into the cell, noticing the bags under Mizi’s eyes and her unhealthily thin stature with something that remotely resembled pity, cooing over her with one hand raised to her cheek.

“Perhaps I should pull her out of the program,” Shine mused. “You poor thing, don’t worry. You’ll be home safe and sound with me again. How’s that, hm?”

“You’re going to what—?!” Mizi felt panic swell in her chest, her heart thumping rapidly. “No! Shine please, I have to stay— I’ll— my friends need me! Don’t you get it?!” 

“You’ll make more friends elsewhere, my heart,” Shine soothed, moving to open the cell. “I’m sure this is all a simple fix. We can even go to that pet-human park if you’re feeling lonely.”

“No Shine, please! I can’t go!” She backed away from the glass wall, mind racing to come up with a plan, something, anything-!

“I accept the punishment,” she yelled at the ceiling, her breaths ragged. “I accept! It was my fault, I’ll do whatever you say if you let me stay, just, please, please let my friends go.” Shine watched with bewilderment as the crackle of the interface above broke the tense silence, a few simple words being said: 

“Negotiations accepted. Accomplices will be receiving lighter sentences. Await further instruction shortly.”

Mizi almost couldn’t hear her staggering breaths over the pounding of her heart, her gut twisting in shame. 

She’d done exactly what they wanted, had stooped low enough to beg. 

She ignored Shine’s confused calls, Urak’s harsh laughter registering faintly in her ears. 

Her friends were safe, and that was all that mattered. 

Only time would tell of the consequences she’d have to endure. 

Chapter Text

HIIII EVERYONE!!!

I’m sure you all have sat here waiting for the past few months while Mizi’s Guide to Thwarting Doomsday has been on hiatus…

But I’m here to tell you it will be coming back this summer!!! I’m graduating college in a few days and I’m so psyched to finally have a chance to write again!

Stay tuned for more of 4nakt’s adventures ;)

Chapter Text

The first weeks of their stay on planet QuothNar-e11 had begun, and Hyuna was unsupervised. 

That wasn’t surprising, considering Phan’s abject distaste of the show business, and everything associated within that category— after introducing her to the televised world, the alien did what Hyuna knew her best for— immediately hopping on the next flightship to retreat back to her studies as a scientific recluse. Hyuna couldn’t find it in herself to feel bitter or slighted; it was much easier to breathe without her towering presence nearby. 

However, when one door closes, another opens. 

She can just feel him staring at her from across the lobby table, that fake-gentle smile plastered permanently over his face. It’s damn unsettling, and she has to fight to resist the urge to either stare him down also or get up altogether. Either option sounded horrible. She wants to eat in peace, for Anakt’s sake.

A chorus of “excuse me!” and “pardon me!” permeated the tense air only moments later, a huge plate of pet-human gourmet grade food ploppIng onto the placemat next to her. She’s almost startled by the action, but hides it well, still minding Luka’s omniscient gaze. 

A chunk of some type of meat falls off the plate, thin hands hastily scooping it up to cover the mistake. “Goodness, I’m so sorry! I suppose these plates weren’t big enough to cover my appetite,” tittered Anise. Relief floods Hyuna at the sight— out of the eight contestants, Anise is the one who she’s most familiar with.

‘Maybe I’ll get to take the opportunity to build more of a friendship with her during the pretrial years of the season,’ Hyuna mused, picking at some blue-purple edible plants on her plate. 

From way across the table, she can spot the long tresses of Jude, silently eating their meal. They’ve been openly remarked by aliens in the lobby in passing as a “Shuuef”; the context by which apparently a faraway galaxy’s inhabitants of the planet Suuex-2 were so extreme in their solitary nature that one individual lived ten miles apart from another to avoid interaction. (It was somewhat of a derogatory term, if Hyuna had any say in it.) If Jude had heard or felt offended by it, there was no indication. 

Anise yawns beside her, brushing away messy orange-yellow bangs. “Do they really need to serve breakfast so early? It’s barely seven in the morning!” 

Hyuna nods, allowing herself to slouch a bit at the table. She ignores Luka’s eyes following the motion. “I think we’re due for another televised screening soon. I can tell the Director is hungry for more content.”

“He does get kind of twitchy when he’s not in front of a camera,” Anise giggles. “Did you see the way he was flaunting himself on the news with the contestants the other day?”

“The guy is a bonafide drama queen,” Hyuna agreed, the image of the reptilian alien strutting around like a Qilara* in front of the show lights planted firmly in her mind. “I don’t know how I’m going to put up with him for the next five Ziime Supers.” 

Keeping up with being in the spotlight had proved much harder than Hyuna had anticipated it being so; She was unused to having so much attention lavished upon her at all hours of the day, aliens left and right ogling at her like she was some prized trophy sitting on a shelf. And Director Weiuz… he was someone to be wary of. She already had suspicions the alien was planning something big to come while they were on QuothNar, particularly involving either her or Luka. Or perhaps both of them. 

She shuddered. That was a thought she wasn’t keen on entertaining. 

As if summoned to the stage by her very musings, the director himself burst through the doors, straightening his bow with an exaggerated flair and flashing a razor sharp grin at the contestants gathered at the breakfast-laden table. “Greetings, my dearest guests! What a fine morning out on QuothNar-e11!” 

“It’s 93 degrees Celsius outside, I’d hardly call that a fine morning,” a bored voice wafts from Jude’s direction. 

The director grins wider, tapping at the high rise windows with glee. “I know, right?! Prime Quothnarian weather we’re having! Usually it’ll be 204 degrees Celsius, but we came right in the middle of a cold spell!” 

Anise looked a little queasy at the mention of the drastic temperature change. “Uhm, Director Weiuz, you do know pet humans can only handle up to 40 degrees Celsius, right? I hope you won’t make us go out there unprotected.” 

The alien lets out a barking laugh, patting Anise’s head. “Ahh, how adorable! You pets really are spoiled, aren’t you? If I bet a gzord gkein Shhkk-“ the once-intelligible dialect he spoke cut off abruptly, leaving enthusiastic reptilian hisses and clicks in its wake. At Anise’s expression of utter confusion at the new development, Weiuz looked down at his lapel, twisting the knob of a white device pinned to it. Within a few moments, his reptilian hisses turned back into understandable sentences. 

“Whoa there! Looks like there’s some interference on the LingualNet* today. Apologies folks, it’s handled!” He takes another scrutinizing look at the piece of offending technology. “You must forgive the developers, pet-human mode has only been implemented for the last few decades or so… it’s practically brand spanking new!” 

Weiuz leaned an arm on Luka’s head, Luka continuing to eat completely unbothered. “You should’ve seen the travesties that our first alien stage seasons were like… what a directional disaster that was! Pet-humans left and right were stumbling through media training like no tomorrow! There were barely any pet translators to go around!” 

Anise shivered next to Hyuna, looking wide-eyed at the director. “Was it really that bad?”

“Oh, it was the worst!“ the director lamented. “Nearly pulled out my mustache several times in the process from the stress. Pet-humans weren’t as nearly accommodated as they are now, and funding was a nightmare back then… it took a lot of convincing on my part to get the shareholders to listen.” 

Hyuna scoffs quietly at the statement, pushing her now-empty plate to the side. “Is there anything on the schedule for today, Director?” 

“I’m glad you asked!” Weiuz’s arm relinquished its pressure on Luka’s head, flitting back to his side. 

“We do, in fact, have something enormous to discuss with our dearest contestants! Listen up, everyone!” The other alien stage participants’ heads popped up reluctantly from the remnants of their meals.

“In two weeks time, QuothNar will be hosting an inter-species gala to celebrate your arrival!” He leaned conspiratorially towards the contestants, lowering his voice. “And this is no ordinary gala. Our sponsors will be watching, so be on your very best behavior. We wouldn’t want any slip-ups, now would we?” One of his seven eyes pointedly stared at Anise, who averted her gaze ashamedly. 

“You’ll all be tasked with learning an ancient pet-human dance method called “ballroom dancing,” which is typically performed in pairs,” Weiuz explained. “Our sponsors are fans of all things human, so this throwback should delight them in seeing such an exotic Earthen experience live.”

“Now then! Write your names on these swipe-hybrids,” the director hands them each a swipe-hybrid, each displaying a screen of a virtual ballot. “And when you’re done, just tap that enter button on the bottom right. The software will automatically randomize the input to pair you with your dance partner!” 

A few of the contestants murmured amongst themselves while writing their names, some eyeing each other for potential partner prospects. Hyuna slumped in her chair, unenthusiastically scrawling her name on her swipe-hybrid. Jude themself diligently wrote, looking focused on the task, while Anise took her time with hers, adding a few doodly sealife fin accents on her name. Luka, ever the prince he was, elegantly wrote his in perfect lettering, an Anakt flower sketch completing his ballot. 

Hyuna’s eye twitched as she watched his fancy ticket materialize on the ballot board. ‘Damn him—! He took the opportunity to be a showoff even now?!’

“Are we all ready to pair the ballots, now?” Weiuz strutted to the front of the table, pulling out his own swipe-hybrid. A chorus of half-hearted “yes,” greeted him. “Excellent! Now let’s see who our main pairs are!” 

Weiuz pressed the “randomize” option on his device, causing everyone’s hybrid screens to display a lottery-style animation with names instead of symbols. The first slot whizzed until it began to slow, ticking by names until it landed on “Ria”. 

The second slot soon began to slow also, decreasing in speed until it reached the name “Eun”. 

Weiuz clapped his clawed hands together, beaming. “Alright, what a first pick we have today! Eun, Ria, you two will be paired for the ballroom dance!” 

Eun, a spindly sort of man with white attire and a beige, choppy bowl cut, nervously stood up from the table, coming forward to be digitally logged by his silver name brand. Following him was a woman with long, wavy purple hair, whom Hyuna assumed must be Ria. She, too, came forward to be logged, flashing her wrist at the director’s scanner. 

“Next pair, please!” The director declared, immediately starting the next round of ballots. 

This time, the first slot landed on Anise, who squeaked in surprise at having her name chosen. 

The second slot whirred on, ticking past names until stopping right on…. Jude. They raised an eyebrow at the results, but otherwise didn’t react. 

“Oh? What do we have here?” Weiuz whistled, peering at the ballots on his hybrid. “What an interesting turn of events! Our local chatterbox with a silent type? Jude, Anise, please come up to the front to be logged!” 

Anise scampered up to the front, giving the director an awkward bow of thanks before pulling up her sleeve and revealing her silver name brand to be scanned. Once she was done, Jude trailed behind, 

exposing the collar of their shirt to the brand on their neck for scanning. 

With a dawning sense of unease as the pair walked back to their seats, Hyuna is suddenly hit with a realization. 

If she’s counting right, there’s only three more contestants left that she could get paired with. There’s Soomin, a round-faced woman with short cornflower blue hair, and Abel, a broody man sporting auburn hair. And then there’s…

Luka.

Oh Great Anakt. She could get paired with Luka. 

She quickly glances over at the very man, who seems preoccupied with picking at his food. Curiously enough, he’d left half of his meal untouched, and was picking it up with his fork, blankly staring at it. 

The Luka she knew would have finished it all by now. 

No, scratch that. The Luka she used to know would have finished it all by now. 

She shook the thought away, considering her options. She could ask for a manual pairing— but then that might be considered cheating by the other contestants. She could kick Luka’s ass and hightail out of there. Tempting, but most definitely illegal. She could also rip open that air locked window to escape, but then she would have to face the extreme Quothnarian heat and be fried to a crisp, and she wasn’t planning on becoming charred Hyuna today. 

All in all, terrible options. 

So she settled on the only alternative she had: hoping and praying to Anakt that she would not, could not, and will not get her blonde ex-friend as a dance partner.

Hopefully. 

Anise and Jude went back to their seats, and Hyuna’s heart pounded as Director Weiuz started up the hybrid’s digital randomizer again, watching the names click down until settling, with crushing finality, on her own name. 

Fuck. 

‘Here it comes,‘ she thinks to herself, crossing her fingers behind her back— Hyunwoo once taught her to do so, citing it was a human instinct from long ago. Doing it just “made you feel secure,” he’d reasoned, crossing his fingers clumsily with a lopsided grin on his face. 

The names flew by. Abel. Soomin. Luka. Abel. Soomin. Luka. On and on and on, in a dizzying array. 

Each time it passed Luka, her breath caught, then resumed when it moved onto the next. 

The name slot was slowing down. Not now, not now. Let it spin a little more. Let fate hold off for one more turn. 

Abel. Soomin. Luka. Abel, Soomin, Luka. Abel, Soomin—

Click.

Luka. 

It happened all at once. Director Weiuz beamed, Luka’s eyes widened a fraction, as if in disbelief at the results, and Hyuna felt her own jaw drop, witnessing the end to her coveted peace.
>>PAIR CONFIRMED

|HYUNA| & |LUKA|

“What are the odds! It appears our prince and princess this season had luck on their side!” Weiuz guffawed, and Hyuna wanted nothing more than to jab him in the throat, if only to stop hearing his nonsense for one blessed moment.

“What?!” She hears herself say, rising from her chair so fast it almost makes her dizzy. ”You can’t— this is rigged!“ 

“I’m sorry, what is rigged?” The Director said innocently, batting his many eyes. “You seem to be forgetting that this selection is completely randomized, my dear girl! And so, knowing that, nothing could have possibly have been pre-ordained.”

“Well- but-“ Hyuna spluttered, the fire in her eyes dimming. “You could’ve-“ 

“I could‘ve what?” the Director’s eyes narrowed, a hint of contempt hidden among them. 

He was right, no matter how much she detested it. She had no concrete proof that he had in fact, rigged it; just a lingering hunch that stuck to the back of her mind like tacky glue. Hyuna let out an irritated huff, backing down from the confrontation. “Nevermind.” 

Weiuz straightened up again, his brilliant smile coming back in full force. “Perfect! Now then, Hyuna, Luka, please come up to the front to be scanned! And Hyuna, do erase that sour look upon your countenance, it does not bode well for a lady of your stature.” 

Hyuna took in a deep inhale and put on her best confident smile, internally seething at the unwarranted comment. ‘We’ll see how much of a “lady of my stature” I am when I punch your teeth out one by one.’

Hyuna pulls down the collar of her shirt, revealing the silver brand etched on brown skin. Weiuz scans it cheerfully, giving her a pat on the head. 

She bows stiffly, stepping back to allow Luka forward. 

And promptly almost loses her mind when Luka starts pulling his shirt up from the bottom, as if he was going to take his entire shirt off. 

Her face flooded with heat, forcefully yanking Luka’s shirt back down and pulling him aside. “The hell are you doing?! Director said to get ready for a scan, not a strip!” 

Luka blinked slowly, silently regarding her. “That is what I was doing.” 

He pulls up his shirt again, showing off the silvery mark of his name inlaid upon his left hip.

“Oh.” Hyuna says dumbly. And wasn’t that a… strange place to have a brand.

She feels a little stupid now, a burgeoning embarrassment roiling at her core that makes her want to curl up in her hotel room and never return. 

Old habits die hard, she supposed. 

“Carry on then,” She pointedly ignores the slight crack in her voice, slinking into her seat next to an amused Anise. 

“What was all that about?”

“Don’t want to talk about it,” she groaned into her arms.

The beep of the scanner was heard, and that practically cemented it— Luka was her dance partner now. Luka, the oh-so-perfect, enigmatic force that she would have to deal with. Who apparently also had his name brand on his hip, which she was decidedly not going to think about ever again. 

This was going to be the worst two weeks of her life. 

Chapter Text

This was going to be the best two weeks of his life. 

Luka wouldn’t have believed it when his name slotted into place beside Hyuna’s, if it weren’t for the fact that he always knew it would happen this way— of course he would be paired with his rival; it only made sense, considering their scores on the entrance trials placed them as near equals, with Hyuna’s score slightly lower than his.

It all made perfect sense. They would dance together, side by side, lit under the spotlight of a watching audience… Luka could not let such an opportunity go to waste.

After all, it had been sixteen years since it happened. 

Sixteen years of averted glances, sixteen years of an ache he couldn't get rid of, of wishing and hoping foolishly between mandatory cardiac training and testings, locked behind rigorous study and respiratory duress. 

A lifetime since then. 

A lifetime, since that very day.

The grass itches at his face, something warm oozing down his nose as the sound of labored breathing rattles nearby. 

There’s nothing else he can register right now— time is slow and syrupy at this moment, dripping down his brain like honey. His lungs burn with the air he cannot replace, heart working too fast and too hard to account for its delicacy. 

He blinks through heavily lidded eyes at the scene before him, of brown hair and tanned skin, Hyuna’s wide grey eyes staring down at a spot somewhere to his left, her shoulders drawn taut with panic. 

There’s a flicker of some unsettling feeling in his chest at that expression, but it’s drowned out by the usual high he feels around her, the bliss of knowing that somehow, he’s got her attention. 

He wants her to look at him. To look at him only. 

There’s a moment of tense silence as Hyuna stares and stares and stares at the spot where he pushed Hyunwoo to the ground. He feels somewhat puzzled by it— wouldn’t he have some sort of replacement in the lab should anything happen? Luka couldn’t fathom being so worked up by a simple fall.

And then, that silence, that all-encompassing silence, seemingly indestructible, crushing in its finality, certain in its nature— ends. 

A little way’s away, someone coughs. Hyuna’s panicked eyes suddenly melt, a fierce reassurance filling them as she rushes to comfort the source of the sound. 

Hyunwoo’s voice is clear as he lets out a pained groan, the soft noise of grass being trampled upon filling Luka’s ears as Hyuna drops to her knees next to him. 

“…Hyunwoo! You’re alright—!” Hyuna’s voice, normally so loud and confident, is unexpectedly wobbly with fear, her hands clasped tightly on her brother’s shoulders. “Are you hurt anywhere?! What hurts—“ 

“My head,” Hyunwoo whined, eyes screwed shut with pain. He’s curled in a ball, face pale as he works on regulating his breathing. ”I feel dizzy.” 

“Let’s get you to the infirmary,” Hyuna frets, checking the back of his head and letting out a shaky sigh of relief at the sight of no blood. She loops an arm around his waist, half carrying him up the hill, ignoring his feeble protests. 

Their voices start to fade from Luka’s ears, going, going, until they’re gone, until Luka is left struggling to pick up the pieces. He gets up somewhat unsteadily, the bliss of his high from earlier all but disappeared.

The grass tickles at his feet from where he stands, and the wind whistles at the spot where Hyunwoo fell.

And inches away, the sharp gray of a rock hidden among its blades lies forgotten.

Brilliant.

That’s the only way he can describe the way she glides across the waxed dance floor, her poise graceful and practiced as they rehearse their waltzes to the tune of the alien dance coordinator’s shrill lingualnet-translated voice. 

The Director had already laid out the expected choreography that muneh*(week)— they would be learning the Viennese Waltz, quickstep, some swing, and to top it all off, the foxtrot. 

And while Pet-humans were usually required to learn dancing classes in their respective schools to perform alongside their “crying” sessions, the amount of moves they would have to learn in two munehs in order to successfully pull off a full thirty wiccs*(minutes) of performance for the sponsors was certainly… a trial. 

But not for Luka. Never for Luka. 

Because he was perfectly equipped for this. Heperu had made sure of it. 

Luka couldn’t even begin to count the number of investments that had been made on his physical attributes and movement training, Heperu’s hired instructors honing him every single day on his poise and posture, even after their dance recitals ran long into the afternoons. And of course, he mastered them all without so much as a hitch, Father’s praise lavishing upon him in sickly sweet words. 

Every morning was the same in the Garant Nimvus Hotel. 

He would wake up, greet Father in the room next door, dress in the clothes neatly laid out for him from Heperu’s stylist, and attend breakfast in the dining hall with the other contestants.

Hyuna would be there, naturally, talking with Anise about whatever pet-human friendly activity room they would visit that day. He would always hear her enthusiastic voice before he made it to the door, and the background chatter of their peers surrounding it. 

And then he would open the door, and like clockwork, the room’s volume, along with Hyuna’s easygoing attitude, would dissipate. 

So much so that he could sense the underlying unease rolling from her direction in waves, even through the beaming smile she gave Anise as the woman briskly picked up the conversation to account for the sudden lack of reply. 

He dismissed the faint twinge that would curl in his chest every time it happened.

He counts his breaths discreetly. 

Thump.

Thump. 

Thump.

Thump. 

Thump. 

A faint nod in the direction of the other contestants, and a lingering one to Hyuna, who would nod back as well, lips formed in a rigid line before softening when turning back to address Anise’s latest topic of the morning. 

Luka ignored the persistent itch resurfacing at the display, diverting his attention towards the racks of food laid out upon the serving tables, being mindful of his portions. 

His eyes momentarily caught on something glistening plated beside his usual vegetable picks— a tray of something bready and fluffy, coated with a brown substance that shined like water, but much more… viscous. He’d only seen food like this before once in his life; at his 20th adoption day celebration, where Heperu had him pose in the snow with a tray of the thing for a promotion picture for sponsors, then snatched it away as soon as the set was completed. 

“There’s no use for temptations now,” Father had said, and Luka had agreed. 

The… bready thing he saw now was much smaller than the one he saw at his adoption party, with huge slices already cut from its circular exterior. Now that he thought about it, wasn’t something of the same appearance heaped on Hyuna’s plate when he walked in? 

Luka slid into the seat across from the woman, subtly peeking at the contents on her plate. Yes, there it was— the same crumbly slices were stacked atop her plate, along with a few other meal supplements. 

“What are you looking at?”

Luka’s eyes snap to Hyuna’s.

“Hm?” He lists his head to the side, feigning innocence. “I’m not looking at anything.”

Her eyes narrow at him mid-chew. “Gee, that’d be way more believable if you weren’t burning holes through my breakfast.” 

“…What is it,” he finds himself asking, looking back at her meal. 

”What is what?” She asked, incredulity bleeding into her tone. 

“The thing you’re eating. What is it?”

Hyuna stared at him, hard, something like disbelief warring with her wariness. 

“Oh, are you talking about this?” Anise holds up her food-laden fork, smiling. “It’s chocolate cake! Apparently QuothNar’s Nimvus hotel is rich enough to afford to use reengineered cacao beans from pet-human grade greenhouses… I can understand why it’s so expensive, the flavor itself is heavenly.”

“Chocolate… cake?” He follows the motions of Anise’s fork, brown cake crumbs scattering across the table like little specks of stars on the white tablecloth. 

“Yeah! It’s really sweet! Do you want to try it?” She extends the fork out to him, seemingly oblivious of the request she’s making. 

Do you want to try it? 

…Does he? 

He looks at the fork, then at Anise, who keeps a respectful distance between them while extending such a… friendly gesture towards him. 

It’s not forcible. It’s not controlling. She’s not telling him to. She’s not making him do it. 

It’s curious. It’s maddening. It’s strange. Above all, it’s… it must be weak. Weak-hearted and weak-willed. 

And Luka is anything but weak-willed. 

She must know he would never be so simple as to accept this act of ‘kindness.’

“I’d rather not,” he declined, smoothly averting his gaze from the offered treat. Anise appeared unnerved by that, stumbling over apologies as she retracts her offering to her side of the table. 

And that should have been the end of it, had not an unexpected waft of the abominable thing snaked its way into his nose. 

Too late, he breathed in, being sucker punched with a smell unlike anything he’d ever experienced before— a rich, velvety sweetness, inexorably mixed with all the hearty pleasures of fresh cacao. It beckoned him with more temptation than he ever thought could have existed. 

Great Anakt.

His heart skipped uncontrollably in his chest, speeding up with a feeling he couldn’t name. He quickly snuffed it, heart rate returning to its usual 90. 

It smelled better than anything he had ever eaten before. And somehow, just from smell alone— some buried human-like instinct told him the taste would be just as, if not more, delicious. 

Luka hurriedly wiped the side of his mouth with a napkin (because when had he started drooling? How disgusting. He wasn’t a child anymore.) and straightened his posture, ignoring the slight slip and returning to his own meal with grace. 

“Jude,” Anise addressed the person sitting quietly to Luka’s left, “You, uhm, you said you were going to the observatory after dance practice. I was wondering— could Hyuna and I come too?” 

Jude shrugged. “Come or not, I don't particularly care.” 

“Awesome! Hyuna, you have time after practice, right? It might take a Waxxak(hour) or two to make the trip, since it’s out of hotel bounds…” 

Hyuna waves her concerns off with a grin. “‘Course I can! Anything to get out of this place, anyways. Might as well take a look around while we’re here.”

Luka could feel Anise’s hesitance as she attempted, yet again, to bridge the gap between them with somewhat of a “flower crown” gesture*. “Luka, would you like to join us? We have room for one more-“

“I have to attend extracurricular practice with Father, so I’ll have to decline.” He relishes in the awkward squirm she makes at his blatant refusal.

 “And before you ask for any other date that I’m free, it won’t be happening,” he added coolly. 

The woman predictably shrinks back, shoulders hunched in feeble insecurity. How idiotic. How weak. 

Hyuna bristles visibly beside Anise, her smile smoothing out into a stern line. “Let’s get ready for practice, guys. Don’t mind him.” 

The lines of her thick brows are downturned, harsh.

Angry. He’s made her angry, somehow.

How intriguing.

He smoothly suppresses the uncomfortable twinge trying to force its way back into his chest, and when Director Weiuz throws open the dining hall’s door with his signature flourish, it’s easy to sink back into the spotlight of alien presence all too quickly again. 

Her anger continues throughout dance practice. 

Luka can tell by the hard set of her jaw as he twirls her, the underlying tension under her form when their hands touch. 

It’s so, so interesting. 

But Luka could argue Hyuna’s always been interesting. 

“You’re upset with me.” A simple statement, exhaled in a breath as muscle memory takes over— the alien dance instructor is watching, and Luka wouldn’t want to break the relative silence of the room.

Their feet move in sync, twirling and interweaving. “Don’t act like you don’t know why, Luka.”

Another four-step, another brush of hands. “I’m not acting. Call it fascination, if you’d like.”

Her gaze flashed toward his. “Anise’s feelings aren’t some Rubik’s cube you can play around with.” She tugs his hand a little too forcefully on the next pass. 

His lips curl in amusement. “Why do you care? Being friendly with your rivals will do you no favors on the stage.” Their feet cross, step back, step forward again.

She scoffs. “It’s not about rivals.” 

“Then what is it? Companionship? Don’t make me laugh.” 

Luka dips her low, face so close his blonde hair brushes against her forehead. “You and I both know our best chance of surviving is to weed out the weak.”

Her face crumples at his words, indignation flaring in those beautiful gray eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

“You really have changed, haven’t you?”

There’s something hidden among those words, something Luka can’t easily decipher. Another puzzle to piece through in his spare time, to dissect every syllable with care. 

Hyuna’s worth the effort, though— the reward for knowing her intentions will be the only sweetness he is allowed. 

The moment doesn’t linger for long. Their practice ends eventually, the instructor escorting them out through the long, white hallways of the hotel and back towards the pet lounge, a common seating area where VIP aliens ogle and coo at the contestants from behind a giant glass window. 

He has thirty precious wiccs (minutes) before Father will whisk him off to extracurricular practice and maintenance, so he spends them in a light doze on one of the armchairs, focused on Hyuna’s long brown hair.

Her nearby presence must be a little too soothing, though, because he strangely finds himself shaken awake by Father in what appears to be mere siles (seconds) later, already over the presumed time limit. Father admonishes him for the rare mistake, and Luka bows obediently, following him to the painstakingly lavish accommodated room Heperu had bought for him specifically. 

As he’s rigged up to the heart monitoring machine, he only thinks of her before the numb pain of restriction begins all over again. 

If you ask Hyuna, the trip to the observatory could be described in a mere two words: Overly tedious. 

She was not expecting the sheer number of steps pet-humans had to go through just to get to a damn observatory; and even more so the humiliation required to partake in it.

Hyuna had been uncollared ever since she turned 11, a fact that made her proud to declare. To be uncollared was to be considered “good”, to be valued and respected by other pet-humans in the Garden. And to aliens, it meant you were well behaved, obedient. 

Hyuna didn’t really care about what the aliens called it, but knowing she was fitting in with the rest of her peers felt right. 

All that being said— when she and the others walked up to Director Weiuz’s hotel assistant to check out for the visit, the sight of three collars stacked on their desk sent an immediate shiver down her spine. 

“You will be putting these tracking devices on, as required under pet visitation rule IC-164,” droned the assistant through their glitchy lingual-net, handing out a collar to her with one slimy tentacle. 

Her eyes flicked from the white device to their many bored eyes. “I’m sorry— do we really need these…?” 

“Hey! What’s the meaning of this?!” Anise protested from behind her. “We’re not bad humans! We don’t need to have collars on!” 

“There’s no room for negotiation. It’s mandatory.”

“Mandatory?! That’s not fair, if people see us out with these, they’ll think we’re wild or something! Like Abel!” 

Hyuna tried not to let loose a laugh at that— Abel was indeed collared, for less than… savory purposes. 

“On the contrary, contestant Anise. If you go out looking as you are, you’ll be associated with this lot.” Their tentacle pointed towards a pinboard, cluttered with hotel sponsored advertisements and dozens of posters featuring black and green hooded humans covered with a gratuitous amount of warning symbols and text. 

Jude squinted at one of the posters. “Who is that?” 

“Only one of the most feral rogue humans the galaxy has to offer,” the assistant said. “We don’t even know their name, but you can tell them apart from the other bastards with their red light-up boots and abnormal height.”

Hyuna looks at the human plastered all over the pinboard. There’s several blurry shots of a big shadowy figure running towards the camera, the picture seemingly taken in a hurry. The only clear image of their likeness is one that sends a shiver down Hyuna’s spine; There’s bulky, muscled shoulders encased in a hooded cape, the hood having two triangular bumps that look almost like horns. Under the hood, a face so encased in shadow that only the tips of their spidery hair and one eye show through. Their remaining face is covered by a gray mask, emblazoned with the likeness of an alien dog’s fanged mouth. 

“They call them the Hound. Sure acts like one— they’ve evaded us for years, and every attempt at capture led to brutish attacks.”  Hyuna half listens to the assistant, lost in her own thoughts. “But lucky for us, there won’t be any chance of them sneaking in here. They’ll have to endure being sizzled by QuothNar’s atmosphere first.”

There was no more argument after that— begrudgingly, she angled her head down in front of the assistant to be collared, grimacing at the slimy residue they left and the tight-fitting pull against her neck. 

Anise and Jude queued up behind her, Anise also looking unhappy to be collared after years without it. She constantly tugged and fidgeted with hers, her collar light an anxious yellow. Jude didn’t look much different from their unbothered appearance with theirs on, except for a tiny twitch of their eye that betrayed a hint of irritation. 

”Head to the terminal gate near the entrance,” the assistant directed them, waving them off dismissively. “The gate will scan your collars and let you into the pet transport car.” 

“We have a designated transport car?” Hyuna blinked. “What for?” 

The assistant laughed at her confusion, and Hyuna couldn’t help but feel as if she was being talked down to. 

“What for? Ah pets, you’re all the same. How cute.”

She was given no further explanation, hurried off by a disgruntled Anise, who muttered something under her breath about “idiotic hotel staff”. 

“Can you believe that guy?!” Anise fumed when they were halfway to the terminal gate, their little group weaving carefully around preoccupied aliens who didn’t have the decency to avoid crushing them with their large limbs. 

“He was so annoying. I wanted to—! Well, it doesn’t matter. He’s stupid anyways.” 

“Woah Anise, don’t go rogue in the middle of the hotel,” Jude intoned, voice laced with slight amusement. 

“Maybe it’s for the best that we have our own transport car,” Hyuna grumbled, avoiding another alien’s careless tail as they neared the gate. “At this rate, the train ride will be hell. One unplanned hit of the brakes and some alien will squish us flat like those thin cakes at the dining hall.” 

“Ooh, I liked those cakes! Pan-cakes, right? I heard from Soomin that they’re actually an ancient human delicacy-“ 

A sigh from Jude. ”Anise. Focus here, unless you want to be stomped by one of the hotel guests.”

“Right, right! Sorry…” 

“You don’t have to apologize. Just focus.” 

At the terminal connector gate, just as the assistant said, a robotic appliance was scanning a line of pet-humans, each wearing a collar. There were only a few; most aliens seemed to shut their pet-humans away in their rooms, while the rare outdoor pets were allowed more freedom. 

When it was Hyuna’s turn to scan hers, the appliance beeped, pulling up a small holographic screen as it did with all the others. 

<<Contestant Hyuna, Season ID #43408. Guardian: Phan.>>

<<Destination: Please input.>>

“U-ORG Observatory.”

<<Access GRANTED. Time remaining for visitation, converted to Earth-Specie time: 3:30:00 HOURS.>> 

“Awh man, we have a time limit?” Hyuna sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “I was hoping we’d get to stay away longer.”

The smooth metal grates split apart for the stream of pet-humans already checked out. Through the grates, Hyuna noticed a much younger, uncollared pet-human attempting to sneak in after them, only to be snatched by a mechanical arm at the checkout lane. Their fearful yelp made her chest fill with displeasure at how roughly they were being handled, but there was no time for her to head back to help them- the line pushed her forward, and Hyuna could only move with them. 

There was safety in numbers now; The line of pet-humans huddled together like a pack of lowborn alien dogs as they headed through the terminal to the pet transport car. With her tall height, Hyuna could catch glimpses of the larger, more robust alien train cars; rows of plush seating with red velvet tufted cushions, dining booths with sharply dressed alien waiters serving expensive meals, windows covered with luxurious silken curtains for extra privacy. 

“Wow! This looks amazing!” Anise exclaimed, her eyes shining at the alien cars. “Maybe our car won’t be so bad if it looks like this!” 

They passed car after car after car without stopping, the group of pets solemnly trudging along until slowing to a crawl at the very last car on the train- a tiny, dingy attachment that looked like an afterthought, complete with faded, peeling paint and a crookedly slapped on label with a crude diagram of a human that read: “pet-human transportation.”

Anise’s face fell. “…Oh.”

And oh, was right. The inside was a cramped, dirty mess, with dust and tape covering the walls. The windows were grimy and water-stained, like they hadn’t been cleaned for years. Hyuna would go as far to say that it was a health hazard. 

But Hyuna wasn’t deterred— she stubbornly strode inside, leading Jude and Anise to a worn seat near one of the bigger windows. “Well, I can’t say this wasn’t a surprise,” she remarked, looking up at a couple of loose wires dangling from the car’s ceiling. ‘Luka would hate this,’ She smirked to herself, crossing her arms. He’d probably keel over and die at the sight of it, what with his new princely act and Heperu’s sheltering. 

Anise slumped against the frayed plastic cushions, sandwiching Hyuna in the middle beside Jude. After a few minutes, the soft thrum of the train’s hovertech ramps up, beginning its journey towards the observatory. 

“This sucks,” the orange-haired woman whined, laying her head on her knees in defeat. “I was really hoping we could get to ride in one of those fancy cars…” 

Jude sighs. “There’s no use in complaining now. At least we are heading to our destination.” 

”Jude’s right, you know!” Hyuna grinned, throwing an arm around Anise’s shoulder. “Let’s look at the bright side— we could still be inside that stuffy hotel, doing dance practice.” She mimics a ’getting-sick’ face with her finger.

“I actually wouldn’t mind doing more dance practice right now,” Anise said sheepishly, glancing at Jude. 

“Oh?” Hyuna follows her gaze to the person, eyebrows raised. “That’s right, you guys are dance partners. How’s that going for you?” 

Jude shrugs. “She is tolerable to work with. A bit too uncoordinated with her form for my liking.” 

“What-?! Uncoordinated?!“ 

“But,” Jude continues, meeting Anise’s eyes across Hyuna, “What she lacks in skill is made up for in enthusiasm. When she gets the hang of it, her energy can be infectious.” 

Anise’s cheeks go rosy at the compliment, a smile taking up half her face. “…You really think so?”

“I don’t say words I don’t mean.” Jude says simply. 

“Aww, Jude, you really do care!” Hyuna coos, earning a stern frown from the person. 

“Don’t twist my words.” 

Hyuna puts her hands up in mock surrender, grinning. “Hey, you said it, not me.” Anise giggles beside her.

“I would like to rescind my earlier statement. Anise, you are an intolerable dance partner.” 

“No take-backs!”

They settle into easy conversation from there, and the dingy pet transportation car all of a sudden seems like home back in Anakt Garden; all the laughter, the denials, the back and forth bickering, surrounded by pet-humans, no, people, just like her, that understand, that just know. 

The homesickness hits her when she’s laughing with Anise and almost accidentally addresses her by Hyunwoo’s name. She can’t help it— she hasn’t felt so safe in ages, being away from the hotel and all the eyes trained upon her; always judging, always measuring her worth with their suffocating stares as if she was a cut of meat on a butcher’s stall. 

It’s a simple slip; but one that sends that all-too-familiar heartache crawling back. In truth, she knows he’s safe and sound in Anakt Garden’s second division, separated from class 50 and busy with his last examinations before he graduates and joins the season ranks.

She’d promised to visit, but being hundreds of light years in a faraway galaxy isn’t really doing anything to ease her nagging worries that she won’t get the chance to. It had taken months of spaceship traveling to get to this planet, and following that train of logic, it would take months more just for a reunion. 

Knowing that makes her heart sink further. 

Hyuna lets Anise and Jude take the reins of the chatting for a while, leaning back into her seat and staring absently out of the windows as QuothNar’s capital city whizzes by. She can make out the glaring displays of holoscreens mounted on large vertical billboards, hovering above the skyline to beam down its advertisements at the alien civilization below. 

A fair amount of them display vacation rental properties on purple-sanded beaches and pet-human vet insurance, though a few rotate through romanticized images of Gaegin, the entertainment planet hosting the biggest megacasino in the known universe. 

Hyuna rolls her eyes as the train passes by a pet-human advert presenting Luka’s likeness— something about shampoo for silky, lustrous hair. He has that same insufferable smile plastered on his lips. Ugh. 

She’s just about to turn her attention back to the conversation when, out of the corner of her peripheral, she notices a small, black silhouette whirring beside the train car outside, keeping up with its quick pace. 

A camera drone.

It’s unassuming enough; a smaller, lighter model, with four rotating blades attached to its squarish body and a red sensor on its lens. She’d seen the same type a few weeks ago before the interviews, but they hadn’t shown up after checking in at the hotel due to the no-drone policy(Hyuna had a feeling it was something to do with guest privacy).

What was odd was that it seemed to be flying right outside their car window specifically, its glaring lens directed towards her. She waved at it, tentative. Maybe it was some sort of fan cam?

As quickly as it came, it dropped out of view, leaving Hyuna to wonder if she had even seen it at all. 

The observatory was huge. 

Its dome reached at least two hundred feet into the sky, magnifying QuothNar’s constellations in high definition. It was a shame that Hyuna couldn’t read what was on their descriptions, as they were all written in universal alien language. She had to settle for a poorly translated version on a swipe hybrid from a tour guide, watching Jude’s eye twitch whenever a mistranslation caused them to go in circles. 

“Why advertise yourself as “pet-human friendly” if you’re not going to do the necessary research to translate the material properly,” they muttered, tossing the swipe-hybrid back onto its designated rack. 

Anise points towards a group of aliens with a leashed and collared pet-human in tow, the human looking miserable and bored.  “I think it’s because they thought pet-humans would be coming in with a Guardian.” 

“Why do we need to come in with one anyways,” Hyuna asked, looking up at the star-filled dome with her hands in her pockets. “We can just make our own observatory.” 

Anise startled. “Make our own? I don’t think they would like that.“

“I have to admit, the idea sounds intriguing.” 

“Jude! Not you too!”

“Just think about it!” Hyuna stretches her arms out wide towards the starry domed ceiling. “All those constellations, all that knowledge, for us. Where any person could walk in without any collars, just a smile and an appreciation for the vast universe.” 

“That does sound nice,” the other woman admitted. “But what about our supervision? What if we’re not safe?”

“We won’t have any,” Hyuna shrugs. “Won’t need to. That’s the beauty of it. The world would be yours to do with as you want.”

Anise’s fingers run through her hair, picking at the strands nervously. “Don’t you think that line of thinking is a little… dangerous?” 

Ah.

It is, isn’t it? 

The way she’s describing a world where they can do whatever, whenever, implying a reality where aliens are nonexistent, where they aren’t… pets. 

Where they’re free.

It’s a little too close to rebel-thinking. 

Hyuna laughs, a little unsteady. “You’re right, it was kind of a stupid idea. Let’s forget about it.”

There’s a pause in the room where Anise gives her a long, drawn-out look, but thankfully, she doesn’t press about the matter. She’s grateful once the topic shifts to something else, allowing conversation to flow freely between the three of them once again. 

The rest of the observatory trip passed with little fanfare. The line to register for the ride home was as brain-melting as ever, the Quothnarian sun dropping lower in the sky with every passing moment. Hyuna’s yawning by the time they queue up to board the transport car, aimlessly waiting for the doors to open. She takes up residence in watching the sinking sun cast shadows against dozens of alien families with their kids, observing their nonsensical, unnatural forms. 

There’s one shadow that seems to stand out among the rest, tucked behind a lesser used terminal entrance. It’s smaller than the average alien, with something resembling short, triangular spikes atop its head. It’s there for a second, two seconds- then a blur, and it’s gone. 

She rubs her eyes, blinking. Perhaps she was more tired than she originally thought. 

Whatever, she’ll deal with it later.

“Raise your arms. Higher— there. Now hold.”

Hyuna does what she’s told as a pet-specialized seamstress alien sews on the puffy pink hemming around the column of her neck.

The contestants are on something of a field trip to their last clothes fitting session before the gala, each consulted by their own respective seamstresses. Director Weiuz pops in every now and then, both to check on things and add his own opinions, especially to Luka’s section; he’s being fitted with a blush pink suit and matching shoes, strings of pearls and white bows accenting his form. 

Hyuna herself has a violent shade of neon for her pink mermaid dress, one that screams for the attention of anyone to witness. It’s a little too flashy for her taste, but it’s not like she has a choice- the sponsors are fickle creatures, hungry for sparkle, not for substance. 

“Beautiful, darling!” Director Weiuz grins, his scaly tail pushing open the curtains as the seamstress pins more fabric to bunch at the shoulders. She rolls her eyes at his entrance. 

“Don’t you look like a summer’s dream! The sponsors’ll eat you right up,” he croons, his clawed hands clasped together. 

Hyuna glances outside the curtain, towards an orange curtain a few paces away. “How’s Anise’s fitting going?” 

“Eh, it’s moving along.” The director leaned down, adding in a whisper, “But not without some complications, I’m afraid.”

Hyuna raises a brow. “What, does she not agree with the design?”

“It’s more of an issue with the fabric,” Weiuz shrugged. “She’s entirely averse to sequins, sheer glitters, and rough hemming. You should’ve seen it, she stiffens up like a board whenever they so much as graze her. We have to resort to putting silk under all the scratchy areas.” 

Hyuna angles her body to the side as the seamstress adjusts her waistline seams. “How considerate of you.”

“Exactly! You see, I can be accommodating to my dear contestants when need be,” he puffs up his chest proudly, lizard-like frills splaying wide. 

“Now, Hyuna, do watch out for some of our sponsors tomorrow,” Weiuz advised, wagging a clawed finger at her. “Some may get a little… rowdy, when they’ve had too much to drink, so just keep smiling if they start with the insults. Keep your head up and I’m sure one of them will have the grace to choose you!”

Hyuna gulped, suddenly feeling a bit sick to her stomach. “Of course.” 

“And please, I’m begging,” Weiuz’s tone turns serious. “Don’t make a fool of yourself out there. We need those sweet, sweet funds to foot the bill for this season’s stage designs, do you get me?”

Hyuna nodded, raising her hand cautiously. “Director, before the season’s over… would it be possible for me to see my brother again?”

He grinned, tapping his staff on her head. “Well now, that depends on if you win the season or not. It would be a bit hard to see him if you lost in one of the earlier rounds, hm?”

A prickle of trepidation ran through her from the comment. 

“Wait, what do you mean by that? Can I see him earlier, then? We have years before the matches, and-“

But the Director is already moving to leave, and Hyuna feels her desperation rise. “I’m sorry my dear girl, but that’s not possible. Planning such a trip would catastrophically ruin our schedule! You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

It’s with that statement that he vanishes from view, leaving Hyuna with a pounding heart and a building sense of frustration. 

QuothNar‘s capital city is waking up for its nightlife  when the 49th Alien Stage Season Gala begins in a flurry of lights and sound; the event itself is held on the topmost floor of a building quite near to the Garant Nimvus hotel- the Helon Complex, with a trip lasting only ten minutes by train. 

And Hyuna would like to think she’s being as level-headed as always, but to say that would be deluding herself. 

Luka’s right next to her, his arm linked with hers as they walk towards the main hall, exactly as the Director had rehearsed. And of course, because she knew he had been up to something, their pair was the first to arrive. 

Immediately, inhuman howls of delight accompanied their entrance, the tables of sponsors watching them with rapt attention. Her knees feel wobbly under her dress, and, not knowing what else to do, she squeezes her arm against Luka’s in a self-soothing motion.

Luka catches the movement, stares- and stares hard. She trains her gaze on the tables with more enthusiasm than necessary, waving with her free hand at the sponsors, who holler in response. 

“Welcome one, welcome all!” The Director announces into his microphone, brandishing his staff to the sky. 

“We hope you’re ready for a SPEC-tacular show tonight! Our contestants for the 49th season of alien stage will be demonstrating a truly unique performance for you all!”

He tapped on his lapel, where his lingual-net device showed. “As always, do-“ a slight glitch and shortout from the device, then back to normal- “do keep on your lingual-net translators on for this event, for our pet contestants’ comfort! And don’t eat at pet-only buffet tables, unless you want to heave your guts out in the bathroom later.” A few guffaws from the audience. 

While the rest of the contestant pairs file in, Hyuna takes the opportunity to take stock of her surroundings. On the left side of the floor, there are indeed two different buffet stations, ready to serve; the bigger one for the sponsors, and the smaller one, pressed awkwardly against the corner of the walls, is the pet-human one. Further to the back, behind the sponsor tables, are what looks like a pet-human lounge with a couple comfier looking chairs, and a small stall with bottles drawn with words she can’t quite see. There’s also a few holoscreens situated above the main tables, with a few bored sponsors watching popular Saavek entertainment shows. 

The main tables dominate the rest of the space save for the circular stage towards the front, spotlights glaring down on it from the ceiling. 

That’s where she’ll be performing. In front of all these aliens, who’ll be judging her every move, rating her every breath. 

She’s never felt so… so…

Small. 

Aliens hadn’t seemed to bother her so much before in all the years she’d been under their thumb- sure, they were arrogant, and finicky, and ordered her every which way, often to the point where she would get annoyed- but it wasn’t as intense as this. But why? Why now?

Her mind traitorously wandered back to that fantasy of a human-only observatory. What would it feel like, if this crowd had been people instead?

The flicker of elation she experienced from the thought unsettled her deeply, and she was suddenly grateful that the sponsors couldn’t tell what she was thinking. 

One by one, the paired contestants come up to the stage to perform their thirty minutes of dance, alternating from waltz to quickstep and finishing with a few foxtrot moves. During each performance, the sponsors graded their skills and appearances, giving out their scores via swipe-hybrids.

Abel and Soomin scored a 6.7 out of 10, mostly for Abel’s aggressive dancing style. Soomin had a hard time keeping up with his sharp turns, bumping into him on several occasions. He left in a huffy mood shortly after their performance, beelining for the buffet station. 

Jude and Anise were next. Hyuna gave them a bright smile as they passed her, Anise waving to her cheerily and sporting another one of her wobbly smiles. “You’ve got this, Ani! Kill it out there!” 

“I will!” She beamed wider at her encouragement. 

The second the two entered the stage, it was as if they had stepped into an entirely new world. The music began, a soft crescendo, as Jude and Anise circled each other, orbiting like a star to a moon. In every step, a subtle push and pull. There were moments where Jude’s serenity would shine with quiet vigor, and moments where Anise’s vitality poured out in abundance. There was a certain flow to them, as if they were weaving into each other underwater.  

It was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. 

But even then, the sponsors knew just the way to crush that beauty in their claws like a dying dream. 

“We got a 7.8…?” Anise looked at her swipe-hybrid’s screen, her face unreadable. “That’s…” 

Jude tentatively put a hand on her shoulder, their mouth slightly downturned in sympathy. “I know it’s going to be hard for you to handle this-“

“That’s INCREDIBLE!” Anise shouted, pumping her fist. “We almost got an 8, Jude!! They’ll definitely consider us over Soomin and Abel!”

Jude appeared a little frazzled by her outburst, though Hyuna caught a flash of relief in their eyes when the orange-haired woman dragged them down the steps of the stage with glee. “Hyuna! We got a 7.8! We did well, right?! Right?!”

Hyuna let out a chuckle at her expectant expression, the knot of tension in her chest loosening a little. “You guys totally did! Don’t look now, but I saw a couple of sponsors eyeing you two pretty closely, especially the one with purple fins.” 

Anise squealed, shaking Jude back and forth. “We did it! We’re going to be stars!!” 

Director Weiuz’s microphone blared to life over their celebration, cutting it short. “Next pair’s up! Entering the stage now, we have… Luka and Hyuna!”

Hyuna’s smile faltered on her lips, that anxiety coming back full force. “I guess it’s our turn,” she mutters to Luka, who’d been eerily silent next to her. 

Luka stirs to life by her voice, eyes glittering faintly. “So it is. Shall we?” 

He extends a hand to her. She takes it, her tanned fingers melding with the purple tips of his. 

His hand is cold, clammy- like the Anakt grass near the artificial pool, drenched over and over and never able to hold warmth. 

But maybe that was because he’d lost that warmth years ago. 

Her red heels click against the black tile, carrying her to the steps of the stage. Luka enters it first, executing a flawless bow with Hyuna, the sponsors murmuring in approval.

The music begins to play, and the muscle memory drilled into them takes over. 

At once, it’s a flurry of short, square-like steps as they launch into the swing boxstep, following the highs and lows of the pealing violin before Luka twirls her into an inside turn, and then back out again in a wide arc, Hyuna’s dress flaring into a half-moon shape. 

Luka’s being gentle with her, far too gentle to be fair. As they transition to the quick rotational strides of the Viennese Waltz seven minutes in, his hand on her back is a familiar pressure, and if Hyuna were a weaker woman, she might call it grounding. 

One of the sponsors already seemed a little agitated, holding their fifth cup of a neon blue substance in a flimsy claw. 

Even worse, Hyuna can hear them over the music. Luka and her are executing a spin when loud laughter booms across the room. “Dance you filthy dogs, dance!”

Hyuna almost freezes mid-spin, but Luka follows them through, a minute coolness in his gaze where he looks in the sponsor’s direction. 

When his eyes return to hers, they melt, and before she can register what he’s doing, his breaths are already puffing in her ear. 

“Focus on me.”

She fights a shiver, and against her better judgment, looks, really looks, at Luka this time, not just for a few seconds, a fleeting glimpse. 

His irises are the color of light topaz– they shine like them too, as if excited to be in her presence. Hyuna gulps. 

Her treacherous chest is beginning to feel warm at the attention, at the way his hands guide her on to the next step. His thin legs cross over hers in perfect sync as they proceed to the foxtrot, making them glide across the stage with ease. She can barely hear the cheering of the sponsors; it’s like the time in the outside world has stopped, reversing back to when the two of them were young and carefree. Here, Hyuna can almost reach him, can almost understand; if she could only spend a little more time… but their dance is beginning to wrap up, and so is Luka’s self, hiding any shred of humanity Hyuna thought he once had. 

The glitter from his eyes shuts itself down as he pulls her into the final dip, and Hyuna’s hearing expands once more into reality, registering the rapturous applause of the sponsors. Luka’s chest is heaving slightly as they take their bow, his purple fingertips a little darker than usual. 

She pushes away the familiar urge to make him lay down and rest; He doesn’t really need her, and neither does she. 

The sponsors are conversing amongst themselves as they step down the stage, tallying up the scores. There’s only a couple minutes before the final number appears on the swipe-hybrids.

[FINAL SCORES:]

[CONTESTANT PAIR LUKA & HYUNA:  9.6]

“9.6?!” The Director’s toothy jaw dropped, his seven eyes as big as dinner plates. He looked like he had just scored a jackpot, rushing over to the sponsors to begin negotiations. 

The other contestant pairs were just as flabbergasted as Director Weiuz, their mouths hanging to the floor. Hyuna kept her cool as everyone’s eyes turned to her and Luka, their expressions varying in jealousy and awe. 

Anise ran up to her the second she sat down, slamming her hands down at the table she was sitting at. “Hyuna!! I can’t believe you, you totally wiped the floor away with us!”

“I didn’t think I would even place that high,” Hyuna spluttered. Anise shushed her, putting her hands on her hips. “You didn’t think-?! It was so obvious from the way you two danced! You guys had this… what do I call it? Aura! Yes! It was amazing!”

“I can’t tell if you’re mad at me or just impressed,” she teased.

“It’s both,” Anise sighed, sinking down into the chair across from her. “It was like you guys knew each other so well. I bet the sponsors were as captivated by it as we were.” 

Hyuna grimaced, risking a glance to Luka. He’s resting upright at a nearby table, frame shuddering a little with effort to keep himself composed in front of the sponsors. “Yeah… about that…”

Anise tilted her head curiously, picking up on her discomfort. “Hm? What about that…?”

She opened her mouth to speak—

All of a sudden, the chatter of the sponsors die out, dropping one by one. It’s deathly quiet as an announcement from the holoscreens situated around the tables begin to play, overriding their entertainment features. 

LIVE DISCLOSURE FROM ANAKT GARDEN PET-HUMAN FACILITY. 

A SCANDAL HAS RECENTLY BEEN BROUGHT TO LIGHT FROM ANAKT HQ REGARDING PET-HUMAN SAFETY. ALL ANAKT PET-HUMAN OWNERS, YOU MAY NOT RETRIEVE YOUR PET-HUMANS FROM THE GARDEN UNTIL THE MATTER HAS BEEN RESOLVED. 

Hyuna’s heart lurches into her throat— a scandal at Anakt Garden? Her mind immediately jumps to Hyunwoo, still studying in the second division. Oh Anakt, what if he’s hurt? Or dead? No, no, he couldn’t be. She needs to stop overthinking this. 

INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE GARDEN’S CONTAINMENT MEASURES WERE BROUGHT INTO QUESTION ONCE AUTHORITIES RECEIVED AN ANONYMOUS TIP TWO WEEKS AGO THAT 4 ANAKT STUDENTS HAD ATTEMPTED TO FLEE THE FACILITY THROUGH A COMPROMISED GATE.

LEADING THIS ESCAPE WAS GUARDIAN SHINE’S STUDENT, MIZI. PET EXPERTS SUGGEST HER IDEALS ALIGN WITH THAT OF THE REBELLION.

A picture materialized onto the holoscreens, bearing the picture of a small girl with long pink hair and round glasses perched on her nose. She didn’t look older than 13, probably younger with her round face; but the thing that unnerved Hyuna most were her eyes. Under that bright innocence, a tired, haunted look, with eye bags too dark for a kid so young. Her head was bowed low in the picture, sapped of the life it should have. 

The next statement made Hyuna’s blood boil. 

MIZI HAS AGREED TO ACCEPT PUNISHMENT FOLLOWING HER ARREST. 

Arrest? Arrest? She was hardly even in the 6th grade! Hyuna gritted her teeth, scowling at the screens. 

THE OTHER THREE STUDENTS WILL NOT BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC AT THIS TIME. 

KEEP YOUR PETS CLOSE AT ALL TIMES, AND BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR FUTURE UPDATES AS THE SITUATION UNFOLDS.

The holoscreens switch back to their regular programming, as if nothing had happened; but the atmosphere within the room has already shifted, the sponsors a mix of uncomfortable and angry. Weiuz is sweating bullets as he attempts to damage control, trying to placate the most unsettled of the bunch. Hyuna almost cracks a tooth grinding into her own teeth as the alien that yelled at her earlier begins to target that poor pink-haired girl now, cursing out her name in such a venomous tone that she’s itching to dump his drink on his suit. “Humans like that always ruin the rest of the lot. But hell, if I saw that witch in the street, I’d give her a good-“

She can’t listen to this anymore. Anise lets out a concerned noise as she stalks off to the buffet tables, her face burning with suppressed fury. She’s so angry she almost can’t think straight, controlling her breaths shakily until she can just barely manage it as she heaps food on her plate, blocking out the wretched laughs of the sponsors. 

Not really wanting to return to the tables, she spotted that lounge way in the back, recognizing the little stall with long bottles heaped on its tabletop. Curiously, Abel is slumped over limply on one of the chairs, face flushed with what looks like content and a few opened bottles under his arms. She poked him once, but he didn't move, still sunk in a state of bliss. Huh. 

Her eyes trail over the words printed on the stall’s sign. “PET-RELAXANT,” it reads. 

The bottles are filled with what looks like clear liquid, and when she shakes one of them, it fizzes up with bubbles. Cautiously, she opens one up, sniffing into its interior. Immediately she coughs up a storm- it smells atrocious, as if something sweet was left to rot. 

“Ugh… I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try,” she mumbled, taking a sip. 

The first hit of it on her tongue is like fire- she almost chokes, fighting to keep it down before the worst of it begins to numb into a surprisingly pleasing warmth. There’s a buzzing lightness in her head the more she drinks, and when she puts the bottle back down, she’s shocked to find it’s nearly half empty now. 

“Woah… this stuff’s good,” A smile creeps up on her face, her memory satisfyingly beginning to dull. A big part of her tells her that she really shouldn’t be doing this, she should probably just sit down- but it feels so warm, and she hasn’t felt this relaxed all day. She tips the bottle back again, and more of her worries are forgotten, whisked away by the increasingly boneless feelings in her limbs. 

And when the last drop ends, she grabs another bottle.

Luka doesn’t think of much after the announcement- he’s mostly watching Hyuna’s interesting facial expressions before she stalks off towards the buffet, leaving him to focus on catching his breath after their thirty minute performance. His heart rate has returned to 90, but he still feels colder than normal, curling up into himself a little to warm up.

By the later hours of the event, Luka’s circling back to watch for Hyuna again, finding it a little odd that he hasn’t seen her for almost an hour and a half. 

He’s considering getting up to look for her, until someone promptly stumbles right into his table.

Warm arms are suddenly encircling him, squeezing as strands of dark brown hair cover his shoulders. He turns, wide-eyed, to see Hyuna herself behind him, messily draped onto his back. Her usually intense gray eyes are hazed over as she leans on him heavily. “Lulu, ‘s youuu! Heyyy- hic- Lulu,” she slurred, ruffling his hair haphazardly. Her dress is slightly askew, falling off to reveal a tantalizing shoulder. 

His heart flutters unbidden in his chest- Hyuna hadn’t called him by that name since their childhood years.

“Where’ve you been,” he answered curtly, wrinkling his nose at the smell of a strange substance wafting off of her. 

“Having some gooood shtuff,” she giggled, nuzzling into his hair. “I’m having so much fun— mm, but it’s not as fun as when you’re around…” 

Great Anakt. Her words are worming into his skull, activating those weak emotions he swore he’d never submit to. “I think you should go lay down in your hotel room, Hyuna.” 

“But you won’t be there," she whined, hugging him tightly. “Come with me, Lulu. We can play hide and seek.” 

She’s making it so hard to resist- Luka has to wrestle to get his pounding pulse under control. His face feels too warm. 

“I suggest you lay down before you make a fool of yourself.”

“Don’t care,” Hyuna murmurs, closing her eyes as she hugs him. “You’re nice and cold…”

He almost doesn’t catch the softer words that slip from her lips. 

“… I missed you.” 

His breaths stagger entirely, and he shuts his eyes to try and block out the vile emotions that claw at his heart, pressuring it to beat faster. 

“Hyuna! There you are!” An annoying, higher-pitched voice broke into the quiet moment, giving him the much-needed leverage to piece himself back together. 

Anise rushed to Hyuna's side, her hands hovering over the other woman’s back. “What in Anakt happened to you?! I take my eyes off you for an hour and- good heavens, you smell awful!”

With a grunt, the spindly woman lugged a limp and giggly Hyuna onto her feet, stooping over with the weight of her. “L-Luka, if you don’t mind, could you help me-“
“Fine.”

He draped Hyuna’s other arm across his shoulder, ignoring her unintelligible mutterings as they took her to the Director to explain the situation. 

He was somewhat understanding of the whole thing, complaining loudly about their lack of decorum while allowing a robotic med-bot to carry the inebriated woman into a stretcher for transport back to the hotel. 

The rest of the night, hours after the event, Luka tried hard to forget those three little words. 

But maybe…

Maybe Luka missed her too. 

Chapter Text

It began with silence. 

Ivan’s head faintly ached as he sat in his containment cell, but he made no move to adjust himself from his spot. 

Bodily comfort was something he didn’t deserve.

Especially not after tonight. 

Mizi’s desperate screams were yet to stop bouncing around in his mind, her pleas unheard by the guards already walking Ivan towards the containment facility. She and Till had been quickly subdued by sedatives, eyes glassy as they were carried in armored arms. 

Ivan hadn’t looked back once— whether it was from a sense of guilt, or autopilot obedience towards the guards, he didn’t know. All he could feel now was a harrowing ache behind his ribs, begging to be addressed in the still air of his cell. 

The guards had seemed to give him a little more leeway for his cooperation, but Ivan didn’t know how much longer that would last; he had never been put into a containment cell before, had never been caught doing something this rash. 

He’d always played it safe in the Garden, making concessions to his Guardian Unsha in exchange for things he needed. It was a simple process from start to end- lay out the terms, bargain for access, and follow through on the deliverables. Whether that be higher grades, entertainment appearances at high-end dining establishments with Unsha’s wife fawning over him, or anything else Unsha wanted under the sun; If Unsha gave him the final offer, he had to comply. It was just the way things worked, and he had no business trying to rebel against it. 

But this time, he had done more than slightly bend the rules of his guardian’s agreements. He had broken them. 

And Ivan didn’t know if there was any way of bargaining out of that. 

So he waited. 

He barely moved between the few steps to get to the panel that opened up to give him meals. Bored, he counted the meals that came and went, having nothing else to do except sit and ruminate, burying unwanted flashes of his classmate’s faces in the all-encompassing silence. 

After the tenth meal, a break in the monotony came from a staticky voice announcing a visitor to his cell. Ivan catalogued his cell number for later use- 30-C. 

The familiar rumble of large footsteps caused his head to snap up immediately; and there, before the glass divider of his cell, stood the hulking form of Unsha, his lone eye trained on him with a startling unreadability. 

Ivan fought the urge to gulp. 

“Requesting access to Cell 30-C’s cell inhabitant.” 

<<“Access granted.”>>

The glass divider sunk into the floor silently, allowing Unsha to step into Ivan’s cell. His steps were measured, calm- the confident gait of a businessman coming to collect what he was owed. 

“Stand up,” Unsha ordered.

Ivan scrambled to stand, bowing his head in silence. His hands trembled at his sides, itching to grasp at his forearms. 

“You broke the conditions of our agreement, Ivan.” Unsha’s tone was unwavering, bearing down on Ivan with a heaviness he could barely handle.

Something in Ivan wanted to shrink, those age-old instincts he’d developed in the slums telling him to hide, hide, hide. He forced the feeling down; this was inevitable, and it would be stupid to let himself get emotional. “… I did.”

“I don’t believe that leaving Anakt Garden’s premises unsupervised was granted by me at any point in time. Why, then, were you found by authorities outside the Garden walls?”

Ivan fidgeted with his sleeve, the circular motions marginally easing his discomfort. ”I’m sorry, sir. It was only an error, and I’ll make it up to you-“

That was the wrong thing to say. 

“Only an error?” The alien questioned, bending down to lower to Ivan’s height. “Anakt could easily interpret your actions as grounds for unlawful conduct. This goes far beyond a minor mistake. You’ve put the reputation of my brand at stake for your foolish impulses.”

Ivan lowered his eyes to the floor, a tight knot of something forming in his stomach. He clutched at his arm, suddenly unable to stop the self-soothing motions from happening, cursing himself for his weakness. “I’ll dial back my free time in the Garden, I can fix this-“ 

Unsha straightened himself up, a resigned look filling his eyes. “No, Ivan. I’m afraid you’ve taken advantage of my hospitality for far too long. You need to be reminded of the consequences when you break our terms.”

Unsha bent down again, poised directly in one of Ivan’s ears. “And if you do this again, I’ll revoke your adoption license.” 

Ice filled Ivan’s veins. 

His head snapped up, pulse pounding in his eardrums. No, he couldn’t go back to the slums, he couldn’t. Never again— he never wanted to experience the dreary fatigue, the constant hunger. All those nights spent alone, with only his fire keeping the freezing chill away. 

His grasp on his arm tightened painfully. He said nothing, the words dying on his lips before he could choke them out. 

Unsha snapped his huge clawed fingers, and two tall, sickly pale blue-skinned alien assistants emerged from around the corner, seemingly hidden until receiving the Guardian’s signal. 

He had been planning this. 

One held a swath of white, sturdy fabric and the other a darkly colored chair, strapped with medical equipment. Ivan’s eyes widened as the fabric was spread out towards him— he recognized what it was too late by its buckled loops. It was something he’d seen Till bound with when he was being punished. 

A straitjacket. 

Real, unbridled fear spilled into his body, raw and unmistakable. His limbs locked up where he stood as the aliens came closer and closer, looming over him. 

Ivan let out a surprised yelp as one of them grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, shoving him into the chair. Dazed, he scarcely reacted as the other assistant began wrapping him in the straitjacket, prying his arm away and sending immediate distress at the loss of contact coursing through him. 

Through his growing haze of anxiety, Ivan felt a thin band of metal securing his fabric-wrapped chest to the back of the chair with a click, leaving him little room to move. He strained against the jacket, eyes meeting Unsha’s back as his Guardian began to walk away, his heavy steps receding into the hallway outside his cell.

Unsha’s last words were unfairly calm, devoid of sympathy. “I hope you learn your lesson from this.” 

Unsha was abandoning him. 

He was being abandoned again.

Again.

“No, please!”

He heard a voice call out, begging to be heard. His senses were beginning to tunnel, his body feeling increasingly further away with each breath. Was he even breathing? Ivan didn’t know- it hurt to focus on anything except Unsha’s figure, but even that was becoming blurry and stilted, receding with every second. 

The assistants were saying something, addressing the ceiling, their slimy fingers connecting thin tubes into the chair. Ivan fought to recognize the iv bags connecting into the tiles underneath the chair, filling with strange orange liquid. A small pinch to his left arm through the fabric, and the orange liquid rushed in, making his breaths speed up. A second iv with clear liquid and a third with tan were connected to his right arm; and with their job seemingly accomplished, the assistants packed up their remaining equipment and left his cell, re-engaging the glass separation wall and locking him inside.

The next words of the familiar garbled voice of the overhead speakers on the ceiling sent a chill down his spine.

“Initiating Pet frequency decibel level 98 dBa.”

All at once, a low, rumbling thrum of sound started up, emanating from every corner of the cell in hidden speakers tucked behind the tiles. 

At first, it mildly disconcerted Ivan- the silence had been preferable before. Ivan’s habit of shying away from loud noises made the cell’s constant quiet comfortable. 

But then he realized only a few minutes later- the sounds were becoming steadily louder. 

What was once the decibel level of Till’s chatter about his day became the equivalent of a crowded classroom, prickling at his ears with increasing intensity. Already, his breaths were beginning to pick up again, the tunneling feeling swimming through his limbs as his hands itched to grasp at his arms, to loop at his sides, but were regrettably held back by the unforgiving grip of the straitjacket. 

And it was only getting higher. 

The sound rose to a squealing pitch, rising higher than Ivan had ever experienced. He faintly heard a whine, shutting his eyes against the onslaught of noise in vain as it continued at its peak without any sign of stopping. 

It kept going. And going. And going.

He was getting desperate now, hunching into his chair and tilting his head to scrunch one of his ears into the rough fabric of the straitjacket for a glimpse of relief for his eardrums. However, with one ear slightly muffled, the other continued to suffer, until he switched to the other side, restarting the cycle all over again. 

It was becoming too much. 

Everything was too loud, the straitjacket too heavy on his chest, the fabric of his clothes too itchy. His lungs weren’t working, and any attempt to breathe just brought in watery, shallow gasps. His mind was drifting further and further from him, bringing with it a numbness to take him away from the situation. He didn’t fight it, allowing himself to float above his body, detached from the whimpering cries and sobs that were swallowed into the unrelenting sounds. 

And then the noise spiked, crashing him back down into his body, registering the sobbing and pleading coming back full-force as his own. Unceasing pleas that spilled from his lips over and over and over, telling them to stop, asking for help, for someone, anyone, to shut it off, to grant him the mercy he selfishly wanted. 

Ivan cried until he had no more tears left, until the ivs strung into his arms booted up automatically to replenish his lost water and food. And even when the exhaustion of keeping his head upright amidst the repeated screeching set in to give him some relief in the form of sleep, the orange iv’s liquid kicked in, energizing his body just enough to prevent him from resting. 

The cycle repeated. He would float out of his body for a moment, the noise would spike, and he would be dragged down with it, until everything he knew was noise and fear.

By the second day of this, his ears began ringing. It was subtle at first, just spouts of buzzing that came and went, and yet Ivan had a sinking feeling that something was terribly wrong. The sounds were becoming duller, lessening as the ringing became more frequent. After a while, the ringing overlapped the screech of the speakers, becoming quieter with every hour. 

Ivan let it, closing his eyes as the sounds faded away entirely, hoping for a moment that finally, finally- they were listening to him, that the punishment was ending. 

He didn’t hear it when the overhead speakers announced a visitor to his cell. Didn’t feel it when one of the assistant aliens slipped into his cell, disassembling his chair and ripping the ivs from his veins. He watched blankly as their awful hands held up an unclasped white collar, the same ones that his classmates wear, and didn’t fight back when they snapped the collar into place around his neck, a soft red light flickering on as it booted up. 

And as they left, he gave himself into exhaustion, the lingering effects of the orange iv solution no longer enough to prevent his body from continuing its natural processes anymore. 

Till was livid. 

He’d been rudely awoken by one of the guards stationed around his shared cell with Sua, spewing curses at them as soon as he spotted the pair of cramped metal transportation cages being rolled up to their enclosure. 

He glanced anxiously back at Sua, who seemed not at all thrilled to be going back into the cages as well— her collar light was shining an irritated red when the guards began pushing her and Till towards the cages. At least they’d taken off the restraints on her hands; Till was relieved that she had more freedom of movement now (and that he didn’t have to keep feeding her from a plate). 

“Where the hell are we going? I’m not leaving until you tell us where,” Till hissed at the two guards, backing away from their outstretched arms. 

“Routine cell transfer,” one of the guards said vaguely. “Do not resist. Your harsher sentence will be reinstated if you do not comply.”

“Fine,” Till spat venomously, reminded of Mizi’s sacrifice for the three of them; if they were to get in trouble now, she might bear the brunt of it, and he didn’t even want to know what that could entail. 

He begrudgingly stepped inside the cage, the guard swinging its door shut. Through the wire, he could see Sua stepping into her cage after him, glancing at him hesitantly before turning her body away to stare somewhere in the distance. 

The transport route was long and uncomfortable. Till growled whenever the guards jostled the cart too hard on the turns, giving them an earful throughout the winding passages of the containment center. Hey, they never said he had to go quietly. Sua was still and silent in her own cage beside him, eyes closed to make up for the lack of sleep she’d endured from their abrupt awakening. 

After they traveled for what seemed like hours, the cart shuttered to a stop outside another cell, depositing its live cargo in front of the lowering glass divider. 

<<“Transfer complete. Two new inhabitants relocated to Cell 30-C.”>>

The guards opened their cages, dumping the two of them unceremoniously into the cell. 

“Watch it!” Till snapped, dusting himself off as the guards re-engaged the divider, locking them in. “Tch. Fuckwads.”

Sua groaned next to him, groggily sitting up to watch their escorts wheel their cages away. 

“Good riddance. Hope that’s the last time they stuff us in there.”

He sighed, laying back and looking up at their new cell’s ceiling. “I wonder why the hell they even made us transfer in the first place. We were just fine in our connected room.”

“This place sure gets weirder with every day we stay in it.” She sounded exhausted— Till should know, having been stuck in this limbo of uncertainty and unease for so long. He just wanted to go back to the garden, to his dorm, where his composition sheets were strewn about, and his pencils and- Great Anakt, he missed drawing. His eyes yearned to be graced with graphite strokes again. 

“Hey, Sua…?”

A slight shuffle nearby. “Yeah?” 

“Do you think we’ll ever… get out of here?” 

The silence lingered a beat too long. “Maybe, I don’t know. They said they would suspend our punishments, so… it could be possible. Or not.”

Till snorted. “Yeah, I don’t trust them either. Screwed me over way too many times to count.”

A pause. Another shift beside him. 

“I’m… worried about Mizi, though. We haven’t seen any sign of her in days. I’m starting to think maybe… she could be hurt, or….”

He let out a long, shuddering breath. “Let’s try to think positive. We don’t know if she’s hurt, but we also don’t know if she’s okay, so there’s a chance. I mean, she’s pretty optimistic, and she would want us to be the same, right?” 

Warmth filled him at the memory of her smiles, her expressions so bright and sweet. If she could remain positive in such a dark place, then they could too. 

“Uhuh. Right,” Sua rolled her eyes at the slight smile on his face. 

They settled back into silence, listening to the faint thrum of the containment center’s electrical system humming away around them. 

He heard another disconcerted sound from Sua, turning his head to see her biting at her nails. “What, are you worried about Mizi again?”

“Well, that, yet also… We still haven’t seen Ivan at all either since the escape.”

“Ivan? Psh,” Till laughed, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. “He’s fine. I bet he’s kicking back with Unsha somewhere. The guy gets off easy most of the time- he hardly has to wear his collar at all in the garden.” Even as he says this, there’s a prickle of uncertainty pulling at his chest, making his heart constrict. 

“We don’t know that though,” Sua sighs. “He and I aren’t exactly close, but… I don’t really trust Unsha not to give him some sort of discipline for our escape.”

“He’ll be fine. I don’t think Ivan ever really gets scared, anyways. Unsha probably couldn’t hurt him even if he tried.“

Till could tell she had a rebuttal, and was opening her mouth to do so— but in the lull in their conversation, a small, broken voice wafted between them, almost too quiet to be heard.

“…T…ill…?”

They both stiffened, collars flashing red at the unexpected intrusion. That voice, it sounded like- sounded like-

Till turned slowly, taking in the sight of a huddled figure in the corner of the cell, cowered against the tiles, his normally expressionless face paled with disbelief as his eyes darted from Till to Sua and back to Sua again. 

It was Ivan. 

He didn’t know how in Anakt they hadn’t seen him when they got dumped into the cell. He’d just been there, in that corner, unmoving as they’d had a whole conversation in front of him. What the fuck.

“T..ill… Till…” Ivan was speaking too quietly, his words raspy with what seemed like overuse. Till’s eyes roved over him with growing horror- Ivan looked awful, his whole chest and arms encased in a straightjacket, neck collared, his usually well-kept hair messy and tangled, and were those tear-stains and dark circles under his eyes?

Till rushed to the back of the cell, eyes widening more and more at the sight. “Ivan?! Great Anakt, what the hell did they do to you?!?”

Sua appeared just as shocked as he was, covering her open mouth with a hand. “How did we not- he was-“

“I don’t know!” Till fretted, approaching Ivan with quicker steps. 

And then Ivan did something Till would have previously thought was incapable for him to do- he flinched. Hard. It stopped Till in his tracks, his chest aching as he watched Ivan’s breaths begin to shallow, visible panic flitting through his eyes when he got close. 

Ivan never flinched, even in the midst of all their fistfights— he was always the annoyingly stubborn one, taking the pain with glee and dishing out punches right back at him without hesitation. 

But this- this was new. This was wrong, and unknown, and Till didn’t know what the fuck to do. For the first time in his life, Ivan was hurting, right in front of him, and he had no idea how to react to it. 

Till’s arms hung loosely by his sides, words failing him as he tried desperately, with no success, to figure out how to fix this. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Thank Anakt for Sua; she took the hint and slowly knelt in front of Ivan, trying to keep her tone gentle as he shivered incessantly in the corner. “…Ivan, it’s- it’s okay, it’s just us, we’re not getting closer unless you want it, okay?” 

Ivan said nothing- not even a shake of the head, just staring at her as if he wanted to understand but he couldn’t. 

“He’s collared,” Till gulps shakily, watching the red light on Ivan’s collar bob up and down with his heaving chest. “Wonder if Unsha put it on him.”

Ivan’s head curiously did not follow the sound of Till’s words, focusing on Sua’s face only as if he was ignoring him. 

“Hey, are you listening?” Till said, raising his voice a little. 

Still, nothing. Not even an eye in his direction. Till furrowed his brow, confused, and tapped Ivan’s shoulder. The boy startled, finally turning to face him, but when Till spoke again, awkwardly asking about his condition, Ivan didn’t reply, instead watching his face helplessly and letting out a choked sound of distress. 

Till felt a heavy stone of dread fill his gut. “Wait, can you… can you hear us? Ivan?” 

Sua’s lips formed an unsettled line, flicking her fingers next to Ivan’s ears in a loud snap. 

No reaction. 

Till’s heart sank. “Fuck, fuck. He can’t hear us. He can’t hear.  What did they- what did Unsha do to him?” 

“I don’t know,” Sua’s voice cracked, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “God, I’ll kill him-“

“As much as I want to,” Till gritted out, clenching his teeth so hard he felt one squeak under the pressure, “We have to find some way to calm him down first.” 

Ivan’s gaze blearily followed his movements as he sat down, Till resisting the very strong instinct to try his luck at smashing the glass divider and gouging Unsha’s eyes out when he found him. 

“This straitjacket,” he motioned Sua over. ”Do you know any way to remove it?” 

“Not that I can think of,” Sua answered miserably, wiping a few stray tears away. “Didn’t you use to wear these yourself in containment cells?”

Till winced, the memory of being restrained painful to think about. “I guess, but that doesn’t mean I’m an expert in getting them off. Ivan was the one who-“

His face fell, looking to the side. “…Ivan knew how to take them off. God, and I can’t even- I can’t even return the favor, I don’t know how to, and he’s scared and I’m a horrible friend and this is all so-“ 

“Till.” Sua’s hand squeezed firmly at his shoulder, grounding him before he fully spiraled. “Focus. You can’t let this get the better of you. One step at a time, okay?”

“Okay,” Till sniffled, nodding. “One step at a time…” 

He took in a deep breath, looking back at Ivan. 

Wordlessly, he reached out, making sure Ivan saw it, and carefully placed a hand on his shoulder, hoping the touch was comforting enough for him. Ivan’s eyes followed the movement, his breaths easing marginally as Till allowed the moment to extend, keeping it at a pace Ivan could handle. He pointed to the straitjacket, then at Ivan, gesturing a tearing apart motion. 

Ivan tilted his head a little, uttering a watery, “What…?” 

“Urgh, I wish I had some paper,” Till lamented, motioning again to Ivan awkwardly. “This would be so much easier if I could write down what I needed to tell you.”

Ivan blinked at him, his face softening at Till’s familiar irritation. The pulsing red of his collar turned to a less urgent yellow. 

“Oh- that’s good! I don’t know what I’m doing, but I think it’s working,” Till’s eyes lit up, glancing back at Sua. 

“Okay, Ivan, we’re going to get you out of this jacket, alright?” He motioned the action of tearing off the jacket and pointing at Ivan, said boy watching his every move with interest. 

“I’m sure there’s some buckle here that can unclasp this,” Sua mused, tugging at a strap near Ivan’s chest experimentally. The jacket tightened visibly, and Ivan let out a pained cry, his collar light shifting back to red, prompting Sua to explode in a flurry of hasty apologies and loosening the strap again. 

“Oookay, well that one didn’t work,” Sua muttered, watching Till calm down Ivan again before another attempt. 

Till sighed, making sure Ivan’s light was a more stable yellow before turning to glare at her. “Be careful next time.”

“How was I supposed to know which strap loosened what?” Sua huffed, but her inspection of the straps was much more intentional now, turning over every buckle with care.

It turned out, straitjackets were far more complicated than either of them estimated- a meal had gone by and both of them were so consumed by their task of freeing Ivan that their plates had been left untouched- until their stomachs complained loudly and they had to take a break. 

Sua dutifully held up Ivan’s plate for him to eat, her eyelids blinking sleepily. “I’m so tired… this stupid jacket took up all our day.” 

Till yawned, rubbing at his eyes.“Tell me about it.”

Ivan’s own head kept drooping, his collar turning green as he slumped against Till, his breaths finally even. He still had crumbs around his mouth. Till snorted at the sight, yawning again and leaning into the warm body against him. 

“We’ll try again tomorrow. I’m going to bed. G’night Sua.” 

“Night,” she responded groggily, lazily giving him a thumbs up and then passing out in a corner of their cell. 

Till listened to Ivan’s steady breaths for what felt like hours, tentatively snaking an arm around his head to run his fingers through his hair in light scratching motions. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he said softly into the top of Ivan’s head, squeezing his eyes shut. His eyes burned, a stray tear slipping out to drip down his cheek. “Shit. Ivan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“We’re gonna get you out of this thing, okay? So don’t worry about it,” he mumbled. 

He sniffled, his next words tiny, fragile. “…I wish you could hear me.”

Ivan hummed raspily under his touch, and if Till hadn’t fallen into an uneasy sleep seconds later, he might’ve noticed one lone black eye hazily watching him.