Anya tilted her head. “Time doesn’t move the same when you’re a secret. But it feels heavy. Like wearing a coat made of goodbyes.”
She ran the container’s ID through the ship’s black market manifest—the one the captain thought no one knew about. JUY 217 wasn’t fungal samples. It was a salvage claim from the edge of the Kessler Rift, where time bled like a wound. The cargo had been listed as “biological preservation, unknown origin.” The buyer: a private collector of impossibilities. juy 217
Elara felt tears she hadn’t shed in years burn behind her eyes. “How long were you in there?” Anya tilted her head
“You’re late,” the girl said. Her voice was soft, but it filled the cargo bay like a bell. “I’ve been counting. Two million, three hundred thousand, eleven seconds.” Like wearing a coat made of goodbyes