The first thing I registered was the cold. It wasn't the biting cold of a mountain pass at dawn; it was a dead, sterile cold that seeped into my bones. I was naked, lying on a surface that felt like polished stone, smooth and unyielding against my back. My eyes fluttered open.
White.
Everything was white. The surface I was on, the walls, the ceiling. There were no seams, no corners, no edges. It was like being inside a bleached-out egg. My cartographer’s brain screamed for a landmark, a point of reference, a crack in the plaster—anything to map my location. There was nothing. Just the low, almost sub-audible hum of recycled air.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up my throat. I swallowed it down. Panic was a luxury. I took stock. My body felt heavy, my limbs sluggish, but whole. I pushed myself up to a sitting position, my bare skin sticking to the surface for a moment before peeling away with a faint, damp sound. My dark hair, usually tied back in a messy knot, was loose, tangled around my shoulders. I ran a hand through it, the familiar texture a small comfort in this place of absolute strangeness. My body, a thing I’d always taken for granted—strong legs that had carried me over miles of rugged terrain, a flat stomach, small breasts—now felt foreign and exposed under the flat, shadowless light.
I was a specimen under glass.
My mind raced, trying to piece together the last thing I remembered. I was charting a remote section of the Andes. The thin air, the burn in my thighs, the setting sun painting the peaks in shades of bruised purple. Then… a light. A sound that wasn't a sound but a pressure in my skull. Then nothing.
A section of the white wall in front of me dissolved, not opening like a door but retracting into itself in a silent, liquid spiral. A figure stepped through.
My breath hitched. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.
He was tall. Impossibly tall, his head nearly brushing the high ceiling of the pod. His body was a collection of long, lean lines, encased in a dark, form-fitting suit that seemed to drink the light. His skin was the color of wet slate, smooth and hairless. But it was his hands that made my stomach clench. They were long, with an extra joint in each finger, allowing them to bend in ways that were fundamentally wrong.
He didn't look at me, not at first. His attention was on a small, silver orb that detached from his belt and floated silently in the air between us. A soft, feminine, and utterly synthetic voice filled the space.
“The specimen is conscious,” it stated.
The alien—the man—finally lowered his gaze. His eyes were large, completely black, and held no warmth, no curiosity, nothing but a flat, analytical stillness. He took a step closer, and I scrambled backward until my back hit the curved wall of the pod. The cold of it shocked my skin.
“You are Luzia,” the orb translated, the alien’s own voice a series of low, guttural clicks and rumbles beneath it. It wasn't a question. “From the planet designated Sol-3. Do you understand this transmission?”
I just stared, my throat tight. I nodded, a jerky, pathetic motion.
“Good,” the voice continued, devoid of any approval. “Cooperation will make this process efficient. You have been selected. Your genetic markers are optimal. You are a candidate for the Hatchery program.”
“Selected for what?” My voice was a raw croak. I hated how weak it sounded. “Where am I? Who are you?”
He ignored my questions. He took another step, and the sheer scale of him was overwhelming. He was a creature of sharp angles and cold purpose. He reached out one of his long, multi-jointed hands. I flinched, pressing myself harder against the wall, but he wasn’t reaching for me. He tapped the floating orb, and a beam of faint, blue light washed over my body, from my feet to my head. I felt a strange tingling sensation as it passed.
“Subject’s physical status is stable,” the orb reported. “Minimal cellular degradation from cryo-stasis. Vitals are within acceptable parameters.”
The alien, Zevkal, as I would later learn his name was, made another soft clicking sound. “Begin viability assessment.”
He moved with a fluid, predatory grace that was terrifying. He stopped just before me, and I had to crane my neck to look up at his face. There was nothing there. No anger, no lust, no malice. Just the detached focus of a scientist examining a microbe. It was somehow worse than any overt threat. It made me feel like I wasn't a person. I was a thing. An object to be measured.
“Stand,” the translator commanded.
My legs trembled, but I forced myself to obey. Some primal instinct told me that defiance here would be pointless, and possibly fatal. I stood before him, naked and shivering, my arms crossed instinctively over my chest.
He produced a set of instruments that unfolded from a device on his wrist. One was a pair of cold, metallic calipers. He placed them against my hips, the metal prongs pressing into my flesh. I gasped at the cold shock of it.
“Pelvic girdle width: optimal,” the orb stated, translating his low murmur. “Sufficient for unassisted parturition.”
My blood ran cold. Parturition. Birthing. The word hung in the sterile air like a death sentence. This wasn't a random abduction. It was procurement.
His strange, gray fingers, cool and dry, touched my stomach. He pressed down, his touch firm and impersonal, assessing the muscle tone. He slid his hand down, spanning the width of my thigh. I had always been proud of my legs, the strength in them earned from years of hiking and climbing. To him, they were just breeding stock.
“Musculature density: acceptable. High probability of carrying a hybrid fetus to term.”
Every word was a nail in my coffin. I felt a surge of hot, useless rage. “Get your hands off me,” I snarled, the words feeling brittle and small in the silent room.
He didn't even react. It was like a fly buzzing at a mountain. He moved on, taking a smooth, silver tool and gesturing toward my mouth. “Open.”
When I hesitated, his gaze sharpened for the first time, a flicker of impatience in those black depths. I opened my mouth. He examined my teeth, his tool scraping lightly against the enamel. It was profoundly, elementally humiliating. I felt like an animal at a market, being inspected before purchase.
“No significant dental decay. Nutrient absorption appears efficient.”
He retracted the tool and his gaze traveled down my body again, slow and methodical. I felt stripped bare, not just of my clothes, but of my identity. I was no longer Luzia, the cartographer, a woman who mapped the known world. I was a collection of parts. Pelvic girdle. Musculature. Teeth. Womb.
His eyes paused between my legs. My thighs clenched together on instinct. A low rumble came from his chest, and the translator interpreted it with chilling neutrality.
“The specimen is displaying pointless resistance. Cease.”
He reached down, and before I could react, he pushed my thighs apart with one hand. The strength behind the gesture was absolute, effortless. I was a doll to him. With his other hand, he reached for me. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for pain, for a violation that would tear me apart.
But his touch was clinical. His long, cool fingers brushed against the dark curls of my pubic hair, parting them with the same detached precision he’d used to examine my teeth. My entire body went rigid. Every nerve ending screamed. This was it. The absolute boundary. A place no one touched without permission, without intimacy.
He wasn't being sexual. He was just… checking. One finger pressed lightly against my clit, a single, clinical touch, and then slid down, tracing the seam of my lips. My skin was slick with the sweat of fear, but as his finger brushed over that sensitive flesh, something else happened.
A jolt.
It wasn't pleasure. It wasn't desire. It was a raw, biological short-circuit. A hot, shameful shock that bypassed my brain and went straight to my cunt, making the muscles there clench. A tiny, involuntary gasp escaped my lips. My body had betrayed me. In this moment of ultimate terror and degradation, it had responded with a flicker of electric awareness.
His finger stilled. He looked up, his black eyes meeting mine. For a fraction of a second, I thought I saw something new in their depths. A flicker of data being processed. He saw what had just happened. He knew. The humiliation burned hotter than the fear.
He withdrew his hand, the brief, shocking contact leaving my skin feeling cold and overly sensitized. He stepped back, making a few more notations on his wrist device. The examination was over. The air felt thick with my shame. I stood there, trembling, my legs weak, violated in a way I didn't have words for.
He turned his back on me as if I no longer existed, his attention focused on the results of his assessment. He addressed the empty air, or perhaps some unseen communication system. His clicks and rumbles were brief, decisive.
The silver orb translated his final verdict, its placid, female voice delivering the words that sealed my fate.
“The specimen is viable. Prepare her for Priming.”
