By H.R. Parker

Kyris clutched the child in her arms as she ran from the exo-pod to the base unit for Titan Trove Mining Company. She burst in, running down the short corridor to the infirmary, and gently placed the small girl, who was in and out of consciousness, on the exam table. Child secured, she called for the medic. “Regan! I need you!”

Heavy footsteps pounded down the hall, and Regan clamored into the infirmary, green eyes wide. “What happened?” She stopped short as she laid eyes on the girl, hand to her mouth in shock before springing into action with an oxygen mask. 

“I was surveying cave #137,” Kyris began in between snatches of breath. “And she was…just in there, all alone!”

Regan nodded, already slipping an IV into the girl’s arm for fluids. “Step out, I need to examine her and run some tests. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

***

“The child is sickly, Kyris.” Regan, the medic, sighed, still staring at the data on her comm screen. “Her organs are shutting down. I think she was exposed to radiation in the caves where you found her. What I can’t explain is how she was breathing in this thin atmosphere without an apparatus of some kind.” Regan looked through the small window at the girl, who sat nibbling on a nutrition bar and sipping water. 

“But what about those symbols on her skin?” 

“Symbols? What are you talking about?” Regan asked, looking over at Kyris, eyes uneasy. “I didn’t see anything on her when I examined her.”

Kyris stared at Regan in disbelief. “You don’t see the symbols on her skin? They’re glowing!”

“No! Kyris, I’m worried. Maybe I should examine you —”

Kyris, not waiting for her to finish, burst into the small room she and Regan shared at the mobile base, startling Runa. She knelt and took the child’s hands. 

“Why do I see the symbols on your skin, but the medic can’t?” 

Runa smiled, her eyes sad. She touched Kyris’ cheek, an almost motherly touch. “Your soul is pure. Worthy. It’s so rare to find.” Her eyes seemed ancient, infinite. 

“Worthy?” The word tumbled out of Kyris’ mouth as the girl stood, still holding her hand. “But what are the symbols? What do they mean?”

Runa nestled on Regan’s cot and beckoned to Kyris. Kyris leaned forward, the girl’s moth wing lips fluttering against her ear. “They are…the code…” Runa’s weak voice faltered. 

“The code to what, Runa?” Kyris whispered, pleading. 

“To the universe.” Runa’s voice grew raspy. “I’ve had the secrets far too long. I am fading, Kyris. The secrets are yours now.” A glow illuminated Runa’s hand, spreading to Kyris’ as she held the child’s hand in her own. 

Kyris gasped as the warmth emanated from the girl’s hands into her body, spreading up her arms, into her chest. The symbols on the girl’s body dimmed, but now they were being etched into Kyris’ skin by some invisible hand, its quill dipped in starlight ink.

“I’ve searched for you for so long…” the girl murmured, still holding Kyris’ hand, her strength weakening. “But now you must search for the next soul, one who can see the marks, like you. You cannot hold these secrets forever. Pass them on before death claims you, or the knowledge will destroy your fragile human body, like it has destroyed mine.”

Kyris could only listen in astonishment as the torrent overtook her body, an immense flood of light and dark, fear and joy, pain and pleasure, cold and heat. She cried out as she fell to the floor.

“Go, Kyris. Search. You must not tarry.” The girl’s head fell back, eyes open, vacant. 

Kyris sat up with a gasp, holding her hands out in front of her, turning them over, pushing up her sleeves. The symbols that had once been on Runa’s skin now decorated Kyris’. In a panic, she unzipped her jumpsuit, exposing her chest. “They’re everywhere! Regan, do you see the symbols?”

Regan pulled down Kyris’ jumpsuit to her waist, looking over her skin. “Kyris, there’s nothing on your skin! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

She pushed Regan aside, gazing at the girl’s body. Runa’s ochre skin was smooth, unmarked. “She said I had to search for the next one, who could see… and it’s not you…” Kyris’ voice drifted off as she turned to Regan, but her vacant eyes didn’t really see her. 

“Kyris, I think you’re hallucinating!” Regan grabbed her upper arms, shaking her. “There must’ve been radiation in the cave that killed Runa and it’s causing you to hallucinate. You’re not making any sense!”

“I have to go,” Kyris said, her wild eyes still unfocused, as if already far away. She grabbed her duffel, cramming provisions into it with frantic haste. Helmet in hand, she looked around once more.

“I have to go, Regan. I’m taking the exo-pod to get off planet.”

“Kyris, you can’t leave me here like this! Where are you going? I think you’re having a mental crisis! You need help!”

But Kyris didn’t hear her. She had to go. Where, she had no idea. She only knew she had to find the next worthy soul, whatever that meant. The urgency burned within her, the way the sigils burned her skin. It propelled her forward, giving her a reason to live, to feel hope for once.

As her pod sailed out of the atmosphere, Kyris felt the universe beckon, the sigils tingling on her skin.

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