Chapter 1: Valara
“Arrival at Veyrith Prime in T-minus ten minutes.”
The ship’s computer voice is calm. undisturbed. It doesn’t feel the tension growing in the room, doesn’t catch the pounding of my heart as I gaze out the view port. But I do. I feel everything.
The world glowers in front of us, a broken world bathed in violet mist, its landscape scarred by wars long finished before we arrived, and yet, their remnants persist. I can feel them against my senses like distant, dwindling throbs.
Fear.
Sorrow.
Desperation.
The emotions of the inhabitants on the ground still cling to the planet’s air, like the marks of an injury struggling to heal.
I take a sharp breath, grounding myself before the weight of it all can pull me under. It’s always like this before a mission before I step into a place weighed down with pain. My ability makes it so. Empathy isn’t just something I feel. It’s something I carry with me.
My hands drift over the vials against my hip, restorative solutions, cleansers, analgesics. Remedies are meant to heal the flesh. But what do I bring to wounds that will not bleed? To the grief that already threatens to hemorrhage in the atmosphere like some unconscious beacon for a savior?
The vessel shudders as we break through the atmosphere, metal groaning under the stress. My body tenses, my mind as well. The nearer we get, the stronger the emotions. Fear, weighing, and suffocating. Hope is fragile and quivering. Pain is limitless and raw. Too much, all of it at once, but I do not close it out. I cannot. To cut it off would be to cut them off, the individuals below, the ones who are counting on me.
I exhale, rolling my shoulders. The weight of what lies ahead presses down on me, heavy but known. I was never meant for war. My hands were made to heal, not to destroy. But healing is more than just closing wounds, it’s about filling in the places others vacate. It’s about standing in the middle of pain and not allowing it to consume me.
“T-minus five minutes.”
I close my eyes, steeling myself against the storm of emotions that are coming down on me. Whether I am ready or not is irrelevant. Someone below will need my services. And I will not fail them.
