~ ~ ~Chains of Starlight~ ~ ~

Chapter One: The Transfer

The last thing Kyla Johnson remembered was the voicemail.

It had played over and over in her ear—Mira's voice, slightly rushed, slightly breathless, the way it always was when she was excited and anxious at the same time.

"Kyla, I think I found something. I don't know if it's real, but... meet me after work, okay? Don't tell anyone. Just come."

Kyla had been walking home from the late shift, phone pressed to her ear, headphones tangling with the cord of her charger. Her shoes were soaked through from the rain, and she could still smell fryer grease on her coat.

She hadn't even had time to look up.

No sirens. No tremor. No warning.

Just—light.

It didn't streak across the sky. It didn't fall or crackle or boom. It folded the world.

One breath she was on cracked concrete, her foot catching on a sidewalk seam.

The next—nothing.

Silence. Cold. No up. No down.

Weightless.

⸻⸻⸻

She woke up choking on her own breath.

Not because she was suffocating—though that was true—but because something in her instinct screamed that she shouldn't be awake at all.

Air rushed in, recycled and sharp, filling her lungs too fast. She gasped and gagged, her hands clawing at the walls around her—curved, slick, glass. A coffin.

Her fist struck the glass just as it hissed and began to retract.

She fell.

The pod released her with a wet gasp of steam, and she crumpled onto a floor that felt like frozen iron.

Pain shot through her knees, her ribs, her spine. She curled instinctively, blinking through tears that stung her eyes.

The light was wrong.

Too bright, too blue, and flickering in unnatural intervals. The walls around her pulsed—not with electricity but with... life. A low hum vibrated under the floor, like a heartbeat. Or an engine. Or both.

Kyla's breath came in ragged bursts.

Her fingers trembled as she pushed herself upright, slipping in the condensation that pooled beneath her. The air stank of metal and antiseptic. Something burned faintly—like scorched ozone.

She wasn't dreaming. She wasn't dead.

She was somewhere else.

Mira had done it. Despite all the warning Kyla had given her, she didn't stop with sending messages to space. She toyed with fire, and now they were cooking to be the next meal. 

Where is Mira?
Where is my phone? My coat? My world?

She tried to speak, but her voice cracked like brittle ice. It hurt just to breathe.

She turned—and froze.

The chamber stretched into a long, curved corridor lined with dozens of pods. Cylindrical. Glass-topped. Each one glowed with the same blue light.

And inside... people... Women...

Some still unconscious.

Some dead.

Some...

Her gaze locked on the girl in the third pod down—young, no older than her. Blonde hair plastered to her skull, lips tinted blue. The glass fogged and unfogged in a rhythmic cycle, but the girl never moved.