Hello
796 Words
(POV ANDREW)
Darkness.
It is not emptiness. It is an ocean. A lightless, soundless, boundless ocean. Within it, I float—or drown?—trapped between two realms: the consciousness struggling to return and the instinct that wants to rend everything apart. This is the "stasis." This is the prison I built inside my own skull, the only way to cage The Beast from destroying the world… and myself.
Then, a touch.
Not the first touch. Over the years, there have been needles, electrodes, cold, gloved professional hands. Those touches were intrusions. Annoyances. They bounced off my skin like arrows off bedrock.
But this… this is different.
It is soft. Full of trembling courage. A warm fingertip—so warm, like a single ember in my frozen sea—brushes my scar. Not on healthy skin. Right over the memory of my deepest hurt. The line where a rival's teeth—or perhaps my own claws—once tore.
And this touch… is not afraid.
No. That's wrong. I can feel the fear pounding behind that fingertip, quick as a hummingbird's wing. But there is something else, stronger: curiosity. A genuine desire to understand. That's what makes it different.
The darkness around me shudders. The frozen ocean cracks.
Who?
My buried intellect, which has only observed from a distance until now, jolts awake. My feral instinct, which usually responds only with violence or indifference, focuses its attention—like a wolf lifting its head, catching a foreign scent on the wind.
Then, the touch moves. It tries to pull away.
NO.
My reaction is instant, absolute, and comes from a place deeper than thought. A primal panic—panic at losing the only point of light in this endless dark. My muscles, though they feel locked in concrete, move by the command of a will older than this body itself.
My hand closes.
Warmth, softness, a living, rapid pulse is caught in my grasp. A bolt of lightning energy surges from that point of contact, piercing the numbness that has paralyzed me for… how long? Time has lost all meaning.
And with that energy comes information.
I can feel the frantic rhythm of her heart, the warring drums of fear and curiosity. I can scent her—not with my nose, but with my soul. The smell of simple soap, the cold residue of airplane air, and… bitterness. A deep, fresh sorrow, like wine still lingering in a glass. The scent of someone who has been hurt. The scent of someone who has been discarded.
Like me.
A scream echoes in the hollow of my own mind. My last human word, before the darkness took everything. "RUN!"
I push the word out, though it feels like forcing shards of glass from my throat. Go. Get away from here. From me. Before I can no longer hold back what stirs beneath my skin, what has already begun to sense your presence and mark you as… mine.
But she doesn't run.
She… touches back.
Her smaller palm turns, and her delicate fingers brush against my wrist. The touch is not to break free. It is a solace. A gesture that says, "I am here. I will not hurt you."
Chaos.
Inside my dark ocean, the two warring forces—the man and the beast, Andrew and the Alpha—fall silent for a stunned moment, both bewildered by this small, unexpected gesture. My dying intellect clings to it like a drowning man to a raft. My savage instinct approaches it cautiously, like a wolf approaching the first flame that does not burn it.
For one brief, glorious moment, they agree.
Do not let go.
My thumb moves, pressing against the back of her hand. A stamp. An acknowledgment. I feel you. I recognize you.
Then, the darkness begins to pull me back. This small effort has drained what little energy I have. But now, the darkness is no longer empty. Now, there is a memory trace within it. The trace of warmth. The trace of trembling courage. The trace of someone who came not as a guard or a scientist, but as… a light.
I allow my grip to weaken. Not because I want to release her, but because I must conserve my strength. For the next encounter.
My consciousness fades, sinking back into the sea. But this time, I do not sink alone. I sink with her scent imprinted on my memory, with the feel of her pulse still beating against my fingertips, with the knowledge that for the first time in this silent eternity, something that is not a threat has entered my space.
And in the deepest core of my being, both the man and the wolf whisper the same, undeniable truth:
"Mine."
- Writer
