Arthur's eyes opened slowly, dragged from sleep by something he couldn't name. A presence. A weight in the air.

  He'd dozed off on the couch after returning from the Sump—exhausted from the journey through Midspire's underbelly, from watching Kira navigate that underground maze, from the weight of everything he'd learned about his past self. The data shard sat on the cargo table beside his laptop.

  The journal entries he'd found there still burned in his mind.

  He pushed the thoughts aside. One crisis at a time.

  The room was dark. The window's neon bleed had dimmed to a faint, sickly glow, casting everything in shades of grey and shadow. The holographic ads outside had cycled to their late-night rotation—muted, pulsing colors that barely penetrated the gloom.

  His gaze drifted, unfocused, across the familiar shapes of his apartment. The wardrobe. The table. The scattered comic books on the floor. The—

  Two points of silver light hovered in the darkness. Low. Close. Watching him.

  His breath stopped.

  The lights didn't blink. Didn't move. Just stared, luminous and unblinking, like twin stars caught in the void.

  His mind struggled to process what he was seeing. Reflections? The neon from outside catching on something metal?

  No.

  Eyes. They were eyes.

  And they were inches from his face.

  Arthur's body moved before his brain caught up. He jerked backward with a choked gasp, rolling off the couch in a graceless, flailing scramble. His shoulder hit the floor first, then his hip, pain shooting up his side. He scrabbled backward on his hands, his back slamming against the low cargo table.

  His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape.

  The silver eyes didn't follow him. They stayed exactly where they were, hovering in the darkness where he'd been sleeping.

  Then, slowly, a shape resolved around them.

  A figure. Human-shaped. Lying on her side on the floor beside the couch, propped up on one elbow. The faint light from the window caught on her face—porcelain skin, sharp features, that distinctive bob of silvery-white hair with a single teal strand falling across her right cheek.

  The woman. The same woman who'd vanished from the bathroom this morning, who'd been absent the entire time Kira was here.

  She was watching him with those impossible, luminous eyes, her head tilted slightly, like she was studying him. Curious. Patient. Waiting.

  For a few heartbeats that Arthur felt thrumming in his chest, they only looked at each other. His ragged breathing was the only sound in the silent apartment.

  Then, slowly, she rose.

  It was a single, fluid motion—too smooth, too precise, like a machine unfolding. She pushed herself up from the floor and stood, her movements economical and silent. She didn't sway. Didn't shift her weight. Just stood, perfectly balanced, her gaze never leaving his face.

  Arthur's eyes dropped instinctively, his mind still trying to catch up.

  She was clothed now in a simple white t-shirt—one of his, he realized with a jolt—and a pair of blue shorts. The same clothes he had left for her. They hung loose on her slender frame, but they covered her. She'd dressed herself while he slept.

  The thought sent a fresh wave of unease crawling up his spine.

  "You moved," he said, the words coming out strangled, louder than he intended. His voice echoed in the silent apartment.

  She tilted her head. The gesture was almost human—almost—but there was something mechanical about it, like a camera adjusting its angle.

  "Yes," she said. Her voice was soft, flat, without inflection. "I was watching you sleep."

  Arthur's stomach dropped.

  "That's... that's not normal," he managed. "People don't just... watch other people sleep."

  "I am not people."

  The words hung in the air between them.

  Arthur pushed himself up slowly, using the table for support. His legs felt weak, his hands clammy. He kept his eyes on her the whole time, waiting for her to move, to lunge, to do something.

  She didn't. She just stood there, watching him with those luminous eyes.

  "What are you?" he asked.

  "I don't know."

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  The answer was immediate, unhesitating. No deception. No evasion. Just... honesty.

  Arthur studied her face, looking for any sign of a lie. Her expression was blank, unreadable. But those eyes—those strange, silver eyes—held something. A flicker of confusion, maybe. Or fear.

  "What's your name?" he asked, softer now.

  She was taken aback. Blinked, processing the question, then pulled her gaze away from his face.

  "I'm Arthur," he said simply. Then, after a pause: "Yours?"

  Her eyes stared ahead into nothing, unfocused. For a brief moment, they flickered—a flash of light in her irises, like data scrolling behind them. The same thing Kira's eyes did when she processed information.

  Then her gaze refocused on him.

  "I don't have a name," she said.

  "Okay..." Arthur said, dragging the word out. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. Relief? Confusion? Pity?

  He studied her face, trying to read her expression. Nothing. Just that same neutral, patient look. Waiting.

  Something occurred to him. A test. A way to know for sure.

  He focused, letting his Energy Sense activate—the skill he'd been practicing all day with Kira, learning to filter the city's overwhelming noise. The familiar shift came: the world peeling back to reveal its hidden currents of light.

  The apartment's wiring hummed in the walls, a soft blue web of power threading through the building's bones. The laptop on the table glowed with residual charge, a warm, complex signature. Outside, beyond the window, the city blazed like a forest fire—millions of energy signatures screaming for attention.

  And her...

  Nothing.

  His breath caught. She was a void. A hollow, dark shape in the world's hidden light. No energy signature. No blazing core. No intricate web of cybernetics like Kira's. Just... absence. A shadow where a person should be.

  No. Wait.

  He focused harder, pushing his perception to its limit, narrowing his awareness to just her.

  There. In her skull. Tiny, fragmented pulses of light. So faint he almost missed them, like dying embers buried in ash. Her brain—if it was a brain—was barely active. Minimal processing. Baseline functions.

  His gaze dropped to her chest. Rose. Fell. Rose again.

  She was breathing.

  A frown creased his face. No—that wasn't right. The first time he'd seen her, lying on the floor, perfectly still in the darkness... she hadn't been breathing. He was certain of it. No rise and fall. No movement. Just... stillness.

  But now? Now she was breathing. Slowly. Evenly. Like she'd just... remembered to.

  Or learned to.

  "Why are you breathing?" The question came out before he could stop it.

  She looked down at her own chest, as if surprised by the movement. Watched it rise and fall. Then looked back at him.

  "I..." She paused, considering. "I don't know. Should I stop?"

  Arthur stared at her. The question was so absurd, so matter-of-fact, that for a moment he didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

  "No," he said finally. "No, don't... don't stop. It's fine. Breathing is... it's good."

  She nodded, accepting this as fact.

  Arthur ran both hands through his hair, feeling the white strand catch on his fingers. The same strand that glowed when he used his powers.

  He looked at the woman again. At her strange, beautiful, inhuman face. At the silver eyes that glowed faintly even in the darkness.

  She needed a name.

  His gaze drifted past her, to the bookshelf built into the wall beside the window. The same shelf he'd examined when he first woke up in this apartment—filled with dog-eared paperbacks and worn comic books. His eyes found a familiar spine, faded and cracked.

  . The book about stars and galaxies. The infinite void.

  His gaze moved back to her face. To her eyes. Luminous. Like twin stars burning in the darkness.

  "Stella," he said finally, the name feeling strange on his tongue.

  She tilted her head, considering. "Stella," she repeated, testing it. Her voice was flat, emotionless, but there was something in the way she said it—like she was saving the file. Cataloging it. Making it permanent.

  "It means 'star,'" Arthur explained, not sure why he felt the need to justify it. "From a book." He gestured vaguely toward the shelf. "I thought... your eyes. They glow like stars."

  She looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then:

  "Thank you."

  The words were mechanical, precise, but something in his chest eased anyway. She had a name now. She was real. She existed.

  * * *

  Arthur pushed himself to his feet, his legs shaky. He walked to the couch and sat down heavily, his mind spinning. Stella—he was already thinking of her as Stella now—remained standing where she was, watching him.

  "Okay," he said, more to himself than to her. "Okay. You're real. You're here. You're... you're wearing my clothes, which is fine, that's... that's good." He looked at her. "But I need you to tell me—please—what the hell is going on. Who are you? How did you get in here?"

  "I don't know," she said simply.

  Arthur laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Of course you don't. That would be too easy."

  His gaze fell to the floor, to his phone resting at the foot of the couch. He leaned down and grabbed it, thumbing the screen.

  Nothing. Black.

  "No battery," he muttered.

  Stella rose in a single, fluid motion—that same unnaturally smooth movement—and walked past him to the dented wardrobe. She opened the drawer he'd rummaged through hours ago, her hand moving directly to the charger without searching, without hesitation. She pulled it out and turned, holding it toward him.

  He stared at it. Then at her.

  "How did you..." He stopped, shook his head. "How did you know where that was?"

  She tilted her head slightly. "I scanned the apartment when I brought you here."

  "You—" His voice cracked. "You brought me here? From where?"

  "I don't know," she said simply. "The memory is corrupted."

  Arthur took the charger from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers. Her skin was warm. Real.

  "Corrupted," he repeated. He looked up at her. "What does that mean? You have memories? You can... you can remember things?"

  "I have partial recordings," she said, her voice still that same flat tone. "Visual and auditory data. Incomplete. The primary systems failed during the initiating event. Secondary systems preserved minimal data."

  Arthur plugged the charger into the wall, then into his phone. The screen flickered to life, the battery icon showing a pathetic 1%.

  He set it aside and looked at Stella. She was still standing there, perfectly still, watching him with those patient, unblinking eyes.

  "Stella," he said slowly, the name still strange on his tongue. "You said your memory is corrupted. Can you—can you show me what you remember? From before you got here?"

  She nodded slowly. "I have partial recordings. Visual and auditory data. Incomplete." Her luminous eyes flickered, that brief data-scroll again. "Warning: content may be disturbing."

  Arthur's heart began to hammer. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. But he had to. He needed answers.

  "Show me," he said.

  Stella glanced at the smartphone as it charged.

  "I need a medium to display the data," she said.

  He grabbed the phone and placed it in her hand. Small. Delicate. Perfectly formed.

  Her hand moved behind her back. There was a faint click, and a thin, fiber-optic cable extended from a hidden port at the base of her spine. The cable was nearly invisible—translucent, refracting light like glass. She connected it to the phone's charging port with a precise, practiced motion.

  Then the phone lit up as something started to play on its screen.