Chapter 6: Breathing Shadows
The next day, government systems across the country picked up something strange—an unidentified energy signal, untraceable in origin, irregular in pattern, and unlike anything seen on Earth. Military and aerospace agencies locked in immediately. Their satellites couldn't detect the exact source, but they triangulated the general location to a remote region near the forest bordering a quiet town.
That town was Suraj's home.
Teams were deployed under the guise of routine geological surveys. Scientists speculated it could be a foreign satellite or something cosmic, but the frequency carried a pattern—like a heartbeat, like a whisper trying to be heard.
And while the world's top minds scrambled to understand what it was, Yumiko already knew.
She felt the pressure long before it touched ground. Her instincts prickled like thorns, her breath shallow as if the air itself were shrinking. Something was watching. Not a person. Not even a machine. But the whole sky.
She didn't tell Suraj. Not yet. He smiled too softly when they were together. She couldn't steal that peace from him. Not when his eyes had just begun to glow again after everything.
But as days passed, the feeling deepened. She knew the energy signature had been traced, and she couldn't risk him. Not now. Not when things were finally starting to feel like something real.
So one evening—just after sunset—she left.
No words. No explanation. No calls. She disappeared like smoke swallowed by twilight.
---
Suraj's world collapsed.
He searched the woods where they used to walk, called her name again and again until his throat gave out. He returned home only when his body failed him, only to collapse into bed and bury his face in her old jacket—the one she gave him when he shivered under moonlight.
He stopped eating. He ignored his parents. His grades fell, but none of it mattered.
All that mattered was that Yumiko was gone.
And he didn't know if she was ever coming back.
The days felt longer, and the nights mercilessly cold. Every passing hour without her felt like a countdown to something terrible. He couldn't shake the nightmares—visions of her trapped, hunted, or worse.
His parents tried to console him, but he couldn't explain. How could he tell them that the only one who ever made him feel alive, made him feel seen, wasn't even human—and she was gone?
---
Yumiko was hiding in an abandoned communications tower deep in the hills. There, surrounded by twisted steel and silence, she rewired parts of her core bio-reactor to mask her pulse signature. She stayed in complete stillness, listening—waiting—for signs that the network of satellites had given up.
She knew she couldn't keep running. But she had to buy time. Time to keep them away from him. From Suraj.
It nearly killed her to stay away.
But it would have killed her more to see him hurt.
Each night she sat under the fractured glass ceiling, watching the stars. They looked so far away now. Her home—Hakagiri—felt like a forgotten echo. A place she once knew, but no longer belonged to. Suraj had become her world. The thought of losing him was more terrifying than anything she faced back in the void of space.
She remembered the first time he smiled at her.
She remembered the way his voice shook when he told her he loved her.
She remembered everything.
---
Five days later, on the edge of collapse, Suraj sat on a swing behind his house, his eyes hollow, his heart drained.
He stared into the woods, as if by sheer will he could bring her back.
And then—
A silhouette. A ripple in the shadows.
Yumiko stepped forward slowly, her face tired, her hair flowing behind her like ink in water.
Suraj blinked. He didn't move.
Then, as if reality shattered—he ran.
He collided into her arms, holding her so tightly it felt like he was trying to fuse their souls.
"Why did you leave?!" he screamed, sobbing. "Why?! I missed you so much—I thought—I thought you died—I—"
Yumiko wrapped her arms around him, tears falling from her eyes for the first time in what felt like centuries.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't want to. But I had to. I had to protect you."
He pulled back, his face red, voice shaking. "What do you mean? Protect me from what?!"
"I was being traced," she said quietly. "The signal—it's too strong. If I stayed close, they would've found you too. I had to vanish before they made the connection."
"But I don't care about any of that!" he snapped. "I care about you. I can't lose you. Don't do this again, Yumiko. Ever."
She touched his face, her fingertips soft. "I promise. I won't leave again. No matter what."
That night, Suraj held her hand until he fell asleep. She stayed awake, watching the stars. Something inside her told her this was the calm before a storm.
---
The next morning, news broke quietly in town: a group of late-night hikers had reported a strange object glowing in the woods—something not of this Earth. Police were dispatched, then scientists. Photos were leaked online. A strange dome-shaped craft partially hidden beneath the roots of trees. Cold metal that pulsed like it was alive.
Yumiko's ship.
She felt it instantly, a thread snapping in her chest.
Her ship had been discovered.
The camouflage had deteriorated during her long absence. The pulse dampeners had weakened. Someone must have gotten close enough to trigger the residual bio-lock signal.
She stared at her reflection in Suraj's window, eyes wide with fear.
She turned to him. "Suraj… something's happened."
"What is it?"
"They found my ship."
His heart stopped. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she whispered, "they'll be here soon."
As panic bloomed in his chest, he saw Yumiko's gaze change. Her breath slowed. Her body tensed.
She was preparing for war.
---
Across the region, black vans began to mobilize. Agents prepared infiltration kits, masking themselves as geological surveyors. News was suppressed. The public was told it was a military exercise.
But the truth moved like a shadow. Faster. Meaner.
And it was coming for Yumiko.
Meanwhile, a lone patrol officer revisited the site that evening. The metal surface of the ship glowed softly, almost inviting. He took a cautious step forward, flashlight pointed at the mass.
And then the light went out.
A faint whisper echoed through the trees.
Not in words. Not in sound. But in thought.
Leave.
He stumbled back, adrenaline pumping. But before he could even radio for backup, the craft pulsed once—softly—and vanished beneath a blanket of root tendrils, folding into the ground like it had never been there.
The ship was alive.
And it was listening.
Back in Suraj's room, Yumiko closed her eyes.
"They've touched it," she said. "It's awake."
Suraj swallowed. "What do we do now?"
She turned to him. Her eyes pitch black. Her voice steady.
"We survive."