Page 2 of Bound to the Marak

A cylindrical enclosure, maybe two meters across. Bars smooth and metallic, faintly warm to the touch. There was no lock. No hinges. The floor was seamless with the walls.

Her pulse spiked.

She scrambled to her feet, pressing her hands to the invisible seams. “Hello?!”

No answer.

“HELLO!” she screamed, her voice ricocheting off distant walls she couldn’t see. “IS ANYONE THERE?!”

Nothing but her own echo.

She slammed her fists against the bars. They didn’t rattle. Didn’t move. They weren’t bars at all—just solid, seamless columns of something like metal, humming faintly.

Her breath came faster now, chest tightening.

She was alone.

She was caged.

And Alfie was gone.

“Please,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Please, someone?—”

But the only response was the low, constant thrum beneath her feet, pulsing through the walls. Like a heartbeat.

Or an engine.

Or somethingalive.

She curled into herself, shaking. Cold. Angry. Terrified.

This wasn’t Earth.

This wasn’t anything she knew.

And something had taken her.

Two

Ametallic clank cracked through the corridor like a gunshot.

Leonie jolted upright, heart thudding against her ribs. The sharp movement sent a wave of pain through her neck—raw and tender where the collar had already bruised the skin. It wasn’t just heavy; itbitinto her, as if it had a will of its own.

The lights in her cell flickered—pale blue one moment, flickering red the next. Long shadows crawled across the curved walls. Then the far panel of the cell—smooth, featureless—shimmered like heated metal and peeled open without sound.

What stepped through wasn’t human.

It was shorter than she expected—barely chest-height—but squat and powerful, like a living slab of muscle and stone. Its green skin gleamed wetly under the stuttering lights, like polished jade slick with oil. Thick arms swung heavily at its sides, each tipped with blunt, clawed fingers. Its eyes—completely black, without whites or irises—reflected no light and showed no emotion. It stared at her as if weighing her on some internal scale.

Leonie scrambled to her feet, trembling. “Where… where am I?” Her voice cracked. “What do you want from me?”

The creature didn’t answer.

It tilted its head to one side. Its ears—jagged and pointed—twitched once. Then came a sound: deep, rattlingclicksfrom its throat, layered and inhuman. The noise sent goosebumps across her arms. It wasn’t language—it was a warning.

And then it pressed something on its belt.

Painexplodedthrough her neck.

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