XXVII
I step up to the cage, the air around it humming with a low, electric vibration that crawls across my skin. The bars aren't the kind of metal that I recognize. The cage bars flicker like lightning trapped in a loop, solid one second, translucent the next. It rolled around like a volcanic core made of electricity. Every instinct in me screams to back away, that to touch the cage would hurt, but I force myself closer to see what I had just bought.
Inside, the alien looms.
Tall. Shadowy. Its outline shifts like smoke caught in a storm. Its eyes, those sickly green shards, lock onto me the moment I enter its field of view. Recognition flares in them, sharp and cold. It could sense my tethered soul. It had been there when my spirit had been ripped from my body. It had seen my grand aunt and I disposed of like laboratory trash.
My throat tightens, but I manage to speak.
"How… how did they capture you? Where is your ship?"
The creature tilts its elongated head, the motion disturbingly human. When it answers, the voice isn't sound. It's pressure, a vibration inside my skull, like someone tapping on the back of my mind. Alien telepathy.
"To conserve energy our ship landed. Our vessels only run with half a dozen members in crew. This is enough for most collections. This time our crew was insufficient for safety. Error in sampling."
The cage crackles in response as he touches the bars, limb pulling back with sudden pain.
"Our craft descended to this plane for harvest. Souls at correct degradation levels. Ripe. Faded. Ready for extraction and notation. The research demanded all spirit stage evolutions for vibration comparison. This plane is convenient, as there are many souls of different stages for the sampling vats."
My stomach twists. I remember the tubes. The cold metal. My great‑aunt dissolving like smoke in my hands.
The alien's form flickers as it continues.
"We did not detect the feral ones. The fog, the environment, masked their presence from our instruments. They evaded detection."
Images slam into my mind, not memories, but impressions it forces on me:
Hunched wolf‑shapes prowling the field, long hay-like grasses masking their forms.
Sparse, patchy fur clinging to skeletal frames, hungry eyes glowing a toxic green.
Claws like iron hooks enough to rend apart already faded spirits to reap their cores.
Teeth that tear not flesh, but soul.
"Fog‑beasts," it says. "Degenerated spirits. Mutated by the fog into predatory form."
I swallow hard. "They attacked your landing party? Then your ship?"
"Yes."
Its outline shudders, as if remembering pain.
"They tore through the lesser units. Consumed their energy. We attempted containment."
A pause.
"We failed the collection. Two thirds of the crew could not escape. The others, damaged. The ship left without our landing party. The mutations dispersed at the light of dawn. They will detect my active signature and come to collect me as soon as this cage is gone. The lightning interferes with the instruments."
I glance at the cage. The lightning bars that hummed, the runes carved into the stone floor, the reinforced anchors. Someone went to great lengths to trap this thing.
"Who put you in here?" I whisper.
The alien's eyes narrow, glowing brighter.
"The aristocrats. The ones they call the Shadow Council."
A chill runs down my spine.
"The ones who rule this mirror‑town. They fear us. They study us and cage us as trophies. They use us as bargaining chips and source of income."
It leans forward, and the cage sparks violently as it tests the boundary.
"And they will use you."
The alien's final whisper curls into my mind like smoke.
I walk back and forth in front of the cage like a caged animal. This thing was ridiculously arrogant. Their species used us as lab rats, and it warned me not to be used. Couldn't they see they were also using people? Ridiculously demeaning.
The moment my boot connects with the bottom of the cage, the whole structure shudders, lightning skittering up the bars like furious serpents. The alien's towering silhouette recoils a fraction not in fear, startled in surprise.
Anger burns through me, hot and bright, cutting through the fog‑sickness and exhaustion.
"Hey!" My voice cracks, but I don't care. "We are thinking, feeling beings. We're not your experimental subjects. Show a little respect."
The alien's eyes flare, twin green embers in the dark.
"You took my great‑aunt," I spit. "You ripped me out of my body. You tore my life apart like it was nothing. So tell me—"
I slam my foot against the cage again, harder this time. The lightning bars shriek.
"—what keeps me from having them end your existence right here, right now, you shadow bastard?"
For a heartbeat, the alien is utterly still.
Then its form shifts, it huddles back into the cage, not threatening, but… attentive. Focused. Like a scientist observing a specimen that suddenly bit back.
When it speaks, the voice vibrates through my skull, colder than the fog outside.
"You misunderstand."
The cage crackles, reacting to the resonance of its words.
"We do not harvest because you are lesser."
A pause.
"We harvest because your spirits are valuable. In the universe your spirits are a source of energy, existence after the physical form is done intrigues us."
My hands curl into fists.
"Don't you dare call that value. You take what is not yours. Our spirits don't belong to you. Give me a reason not to end you."
The alien leans forward, its outline sharpening, the lightning bars flaring as they hold it back. It's form shivers in an alien version of a sigh. Cold, clinical, and detached it explained.
"Your soul is still tethered. We have the means to return it to your body. Our research team was lax in its procedure. Your severing from your body was simply a procedural error. Your existence in this form is just accident. This form is a minor anomaly, inconsistent lab procedure caused by circumstances not under our control. Out of procedure. One of our team discarded you to cover up the mistake. By the time the error was discovered your companion relation had dissipated, and your soul signature had been covered by fog"
It shakes it's head as if educating an ignorant child. "You do not understand our methods. The knowledge I have is more valuable than you will ever know. Free me, let me find my ship, my associates. As long as your tether lasts your spirit can be sent back. Our people can use your tether to reunite you with your body and your realm. I swear it on my research."