FULL CHAPTER HERE —> AGAINST MY WILL 19

[DANGER]

Green eyes snapped open in the dark, a word blaring past sound and straight into his brain before he even understood he was awake. No volume to it or direction like always, the thought sat complete in his head like he’d thought it himself, only his voice didn’t stretch out and pitch high like that.

Orin remained in the same spot on his mattress, still and unmoving, the ring clenched tight in his hand as he wondered what that [DANGER] could be. The pipes ran above and around him, barely visible with just the hint of green off his finger, no sound coming down off them like he knew there would be in just a few hours as soon as people got serious about showering. The hell is going on?

Somebody’s television came through the vents, a laugh tracked muffled and a half-second behind a joke that probably wasn’t even that funny. Orin’s eyes narrowed as he kept an eye and an ear out, one heel tapping against the concrete floor with the edge of the small mattress not quite enough for him.

Nothing seemed wrong.

[DANGER]

Yes, I hear you! Orin screamed the thought back at the ring, eyes narrowed. But where is the dan—

His own question died as something hissed out through those same vents, the noise enough to lessen the distant TV just a bit. Orin’s head snapped up quick, green light brightening with a thought, and his eyes went wider as something pale seeped through the vent near the ceiling in a slow fog heavy enough to slide down the wall. What the fuuuuu…

He sat up immediately as the gas neared him, the substance curling off the green tight against him, no more than an inch out from his skin. With no seam to get through, the gas just peeled past it before it could even touch him. Huh…

That didn’t seem like danger, exactly.

Hell, he’d been all the way up in vacuum and that would have left him messy and dead in the depths of space. Sure, you could argue vacuum was technically the absence of danger — absence of everything, really — but if his auto-aura could handle smoke fire and the emptiness of space then wha—

“SUBJECT JADE!”

His door burst in.

FULL CHAPTER HERE —> AGAINST MY WILL 19