Page 22 of Leviathan

I opened my eyes.

Not the visual units embedded in her walls, but the eyes on my core, the place where all my neurofilaments led. I let out a gasp, my back arching as I tried to sit up, the neurofilaments anchored into my spine preventing me from the movement I'd gone so long without, that I'd become anchored in place, shell locked.

At the sound of my name on her lips, a cry that I understood deep down in the very fabric of the fibers that made up my being, I moved.

Against all logic. I strained.

I tried to move my core to go to her.

But it was impossible.

My eyes focused on the thick overlapping strands of neurofilaments that made up the walls encasing the core of me. It took a moment for me to understand what I was seeing. I'd grown so used to using visual units instead of my own eyes.

There was a small patch of contaminant, just out of reach, here at my core.

I would have to bring her here, where I was most vulnerable, to remove it.

Another moan from Maria echoed through my senses, sending shivers through me as my abdominal muscles clenched on another fruitless effort to lift myself out of the prison of my own body.

I wanted, more than anything, to awaken the visual units in her room and see exactly what she was doing that would cause her to serenade my senses, but I already knew.

I knew it the moment her bare skin stroked my filaments, I knew it in the tremor in her body as I carried her down my corridors, in the flush of desire that made me try to do the impossible and go to her when she summoned me.

But just in case I was wrong...

"Maria," I said, modulating my vocal projection so it sounded like I was speaking through the door. "Are you in distress? Do you need any assistance? Should I come in?"

"No!" she shrieked, the word panicked before she spoke again in a calmer tone. "No, I'm quite alright, thank you for your concern. I didn't mean to... I didn't know I was being loud."

"I will turn down the sensitivity of my audio sensors, but you will have to shout if you are in your room and want my attention," I said. I hesitated for a moment, then decided it was better to be clear than leave anything unsaid. "If you call out my name, it will draw my attention even if you don't shout."

"Lyrien," she said, my name leaving her lips in a breathless rush of air. "I'm sorry for disturbing you."

"Any disturbance where you are healthy and happy is welcome," I said. I wanted to ask so badly, for my mind to know for certain what my core felt as the truth, but I didn't know what stigmas her species held, what cultural standards held them restrained or freed their adults to explore what love could mean.

Love. The word drifting through my thoughts shocked me like a dose of ice water escaping a containment tank and leaking through my filaments.

This thing between us couldn't turn into love.

I saved her, and she contaminated me.

Anything she could feel on her end would be warped and shifted by obligation and guilt.

How could I fall in love with the instrument of my destruction?

"I really like you, Lyrien," Maria said, her warm words breaking through the ice that had crusted over my thoughts,

"I like you too, Maria," I said, my physical eyes still open, wondering what I would have done if I were able to move the core of my body from this spot and go to her.

The answer to that question scared me and excited me in equal portions.

Because whatever the case, for the first time in a long time, I didn't want to be alone.

SEVEN

MARIA

I couldn't reach the spot.