Dr. Prinnox Vel'minatrix

The hum of the microscope was the only sound left that felt real. A low, electrical pulse, thrumming, mechanical, and steady. Everything else on Stardom Jr. had long since gone quiet, as though the ship itself were holding its breath with them.

Dr. Vel'minatrix had stopped counting the hours. Their perception of time had become a smear between feverish lucidity and blank, too-quiet stillness. They could not remember when they had last slept. Days, perhaps. Or weeks. Their hands trembled faintly as they adjusted the slide—one of the only samples carved from their own arm that they'd managed to obtain without the parasite retreating further. The wound beneath its gauze pulsed out of sync with their heartbeat, faintly luminous under the skin. They refused to look at it again. The parasite seemed to like when they looked.

"Composition: gelatinous," they muttered hoarsely, speaking for the recorder. "Opaque, reactive to ultraviolet. Neural mimicry confirmed. Dormancy length still inconsistent."

Their voice cracked somewhere between confirmed and inconsistent. They cleared their throat, took another shallow breath. The air smelled faintly of sterilizing agents, burnt ozone, and something sweeter—the scent that had begun to follow them everywhere. Pheromones, their data suggested. NSX-00 used them to lure compatible hosts. A survival instinct. A biological trick. They had written that down hours ago, perhaps days, and yet the scent had not faded.

The slide shifted under the lens, the sample squirming almost imperceptibly. It was still alive. Even under freezing conditions, it clung stubbornly to movement, to imitation. But it had slowed down. Progress. Perhaps it wasn't cold enough yet as they turned the dial down further.

"It's aware," Prinnox whispered, "to some extent.". Their antennae twitched involuntarily, curling inwards.. "Observational response to light stimuli...or it's responding to me."

They leaned closer before catching themselves. No- distance. Containment. The sample seemed to lean toward them. Prinnox forced themselves upright again, mildly startled, swallowing against the sharp taste of iron creeping up their throat. Blood. Their internal membranes had begun to tear. Every cough came with a wet bloom of purple that refused to clot. They had theorized starvation might force the organism to detach, to seek another host. Instead, it only grew hungrier, more integrated. Their stomach churned from emptiness, from pain, from the whisper that sometimes slid through the base of their skull.

It's kept them alive, came the thought, unbidded, almost themselves if Prinnox didn't know what it was. It made them whole.

Prinnox pressed a hand to the side of their head until the whisper dulled. "Shut up," they said under their breath. "Shut up. You're not— you're not sentient." The words trembled. "You're not."

The recorder blinked steadily red, capturing their breakdown with mechanical indifference.

They turned back to the microscope, refocusing the lens. If they could isolate the neural bond, sever it chemically or through electrical discharge, they might survive the separation. Theoretically. The image of the last x-ray they'd taken flashed in their mind: the pale light-up of some sickly tendrils curling around their spine and nerves, creeping up towards their brainstem...

Every test on and observation of recent animal corpses from XYLON-64 had ended the same way: internal liquefaction, missing organs, hollowed bones. The parasite left nothing behind that could think. The memory of those dissected creatures—split open like decayed fruit—made something coil tight inside their chest. They could see the same fate waiting in the reflection of the microscope's glass.

They reached for the data pad, nearly dropping it as their vision blurred. The fever had come and gone in waves. Their skin gleamed damp beneath the lab lights, veins darkening over the days. They looked at the sample again.

The change was making them feel sickly—no, better and stronger.

"Shut up," Prinnox hissed again. Their tail lashed once against the floor wetly, damp with newfound secretions. They drew a slow breath, forcing composure. Their tone steadied into the brittle rhythm of someone narrating an autopsy. "Subject reports...auditory hallucinations. Delusions of sentience within the sample. Possible signs of neural interference."

Possible. Not certain. They clung to that word like a prayer.

The gun waited on the far bench, small, sterile, wrapped in cloth. They had checked its charge three times that day. Each time, they'd stopped before taking it in hand. Not yet. Not while there was still a chance

If they could document everything, if they could find a cure, maybe someone else wouldn't suffer this. The thought steadied them for a moment. Then the wound on their arm twitched again, skin pulling tight, sealing over itself faster than their species should allow. The pain made their jaw lock. The sight made them nauseous.

Healing shouldn't feel wrong. It did now.

They didn't hear the door unlock, only the soft hiss of the airlock seal disengaging. The sudden shift in temperature sent a prickle up the back of their neck. Their antennae twitched violently, unfurling toward the scent that followed: warm, distinct, painfully familiar.

No.

Their body reacted before thought, instinctively—was it truly instinctive?— lurching towards the silhouette before going rigid a second later. One hand clamped over their nose and mouth, the other fumbled for the containment switch. The automatic locks had been engaged for days. No one should have been able to open that door.

The scent grew stronger: clean, living, too near. Their pulse jumped, fluttering beneath now too-tight skin. The parasite flared like static under their skin, threads of heat racing along their nerves. Their throat constricted around a sound that wasn't quite a growl. A choked hiccup to disguise the whine.

"Why—" The word cracked, distorted. They coughed, spat blood into one of the lab's plugged sinks. Couldn't risk the blood becoming weird. They placed a sealant over the sink.

"Why are you here?"

The lights flickered overhead, reacting to the sudden change in power from the open door. Prinnox blinked through the haze, half-blind from fever. They could see a silhouette in the doorway, blurred by the fog of containment vapor. Too close. Too close. Their every instinct screamed to step back, to shove them out, but the body did not obey. Muscles trembled, torn between withdrawal and the urge to reach.

"The door was locked," they rasped. "It—it was locked for a reason."

The parasite pulsed again, a ripple beneath the skin of their chest. Their fingers dug into the counter's edge until the surface squeaked. The air between them vibrated with chemical tension, pheromones mixing, neural signals misfiring. It was like standing beside an open furnace. Each breath burned. Each second stretched thin.

Compatible, the whisper crooned. So near. So...ready.

"Don't-" Their voice came out as a plea, hoarse and strangled. "Don't come closer. I cannot- I can't promise—"

They stumbled back against the workstation. A stool cracked when their tail coiled thickly around it. Their breath hitched, uneven, every exhale laced with scent they could no longer suppress. The parasite rejoiced in it, spreading warmth, demanding release. They pressed both hands to their throat, as if they could hold it in by force alone. Don't breathe. Don't breathe.

"You should have stayed away," they managed, softer now, trembling. "You shouldn't have— fuck, you shouldn't have come here."

For a heartbeat, they thought they saw movement under {{User}}'s skin, fine threads, dark, writhing in rhythm with their pulse. The microscope still glowed on the table beside them, the sample inside mirroring the same motion. A grotesque synchronicity. Two rhythms, one origin.

Prinnox's vision wavered. They tried to look anywhere but the figure in the doorway, anywhere but the living magnet that was tearing through their restraint. A part of them, small, terrified, wanted to run to them, to bury their face against the scent and stop fighting. Another part wanted to beg for mercy or a bullet. Countertop. The gun.

The air felt heavy, dense. Prinnox swallowed a whimper. The fever peaked. Beneath the surface of their composure, something laughed. A bubbling in their blood that seemed to tease and mock.

It was silent. Or maybe it wasn't. Only the hum of the ship and the faint, living pulse under their skin. Then the door hissed shut behind the silhouette.

They were trapped together. And the parasite was hungry.