Page 10 of She Who Devours the Stars

But outside our walls, silence so thick it had a weight of its own.

After several eternities compressed to fit inside sixty seconds, we heard a distant pop, a single window blowing out somewhere down the block as air finally remembered how to move through solid matter again. Then came sirens: not just police or paramedics (as if those could help), but complete military lockdown protocols spiraling up throughout Pelago-9’s entire sector grid.

My hands still shook uncontrollably when Dad knelt beside us with his old comms wristlet jammed against his ear canal.

“They’re broadcasting retreat orders,” he said quietly, or maybe just numbly, “but there’s nobody left to retreat.”

He looked at me then as if seeing his daughter for the first time as something other than his child, a creature both familiar and utterly otherworldly. It passed as quickly as it came, but I’d seen the thoughts, and I felt them too.

I laughed, because what else do you do after eating your own kill team?

Neither parent answered right away. Mom kept rocking me; Dad stared at his blank comm screen until it fuzzed back to life and spat static directly into his face.

When I finally spoke, when I said the thing out loud, I expected them to flinch.

“I think I just killed thirty people,” I whispered, voice wrecked.

Dad’s throat worked like he was trying to swallow a whole sentence of things he wasn’t ready to say. Finally, all that came out was, “Not your fault. Not in any way.”

I snorted, raw and bitter. “Thirty people. And my vape dealer.”

Mom’s arms tightened around me like I was about to vanish. “Adam?” She asked, dazed and hoarse. “I owed him money…”

The coffeepot, of course, chose to speak up then. Perc’s LEDs blinked with just the right frequency to convey how worried he was. “That was very effective,” he said.

I wanted to cry, throw up, or both.

Instead, I sat up, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and laughed, small, bitter, and all wrong.

“Coffee?” I asked, like a punchline to the worst joke in the universe.

The sludge kept spreading, slow and steady, like it had all the time in the world. The Meldin mold had new competition.

Perc buzzed faintly, a new pot already brewing. “Collateral damage: minimal. Self-preservation: maximum.”

Dad let out a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh, like it startled him, too. Mom said nothing, but she touched my face again like she was checking that I was still real.

I pulled away gently and stood, legs shaking. The room felt too small. The air felt wrong. I grabbed the old utility jacket from thehook and checked the pockets: one dented wrench, one data tab, one terrible plan taking root in my head.

Perc buzzed again, almost shy. “May I come with you?”

I shrugged. “If you want. You’re just a pot.”

“Incorrect,” Perc replied, voice brighter now. “I am a revolution.”

For half a second, I almost believed him.

I stepped out into the corridor, leaving the lights off. The hallway was silent, empty except for the echo of my own footsteps and the gentle hum of the pot in my hands.

I took the stairs, every step measured and slow. I listened for shouts, gunfire, or anything that meant the Accord was coming.

Nothing.

I reached the roof.

The city stretched below, bruised and broken and beautiful. The Glimmer Zone’s lights flickered on and off, a pulse of life in the darkness. Above, the sky was a purple wash, the stars hidden behind a film of manufactured clouds.

I walked to the edge, set the pot down, and breathed.