The Flicker
1246 Words
The settlement hadn’t felt this alive since they arrived.
Firelight spilled across the open square, throwing warm color onto scavenged tables and mismatched chairs. Someone had rigged a speaker from parts Iris didn’t recognize, and music—loud, imperfect, joyful—pulsed through the air. People laughed freely here, voices overlapping, shoulders relaxed for the first time since the camp attack.
Iris lingered near the edge of it all, a cup cradled in her hands. The liquid inside was sharp and sweet, burning faintly at her throat when she’d tried it earlier. She hadn’t taken another sip since.
Across the fire, Elias was very clearly drunk.
He laughed too loud, talked with his hands, his usual restraint loosened by whatever someone had poured into his cup. She watched him from a distance, unsure why the sight unsettled her. He looked lighter like this—unguarded—but also less careful. Less controlled.
Eventually, he found her.
“You haven’t moved,” he said, swaying slightly as he stopped in front of her. “You know that, right? “You’ve been standing like that for… a while.” He said smiling crookedly.
She tilted her head. “Is there a problem?”
He studied her for a moment, the smile fading just a touch. “No,” he said. “I just—” He exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. “You’re hard to read.”
“That’s not new.”
He laughed again, but it came out sharper this time. “You feel things, Iris. You just pretend you don’t.”
Her grip tightened on the cup. “You don’t know what I feel.”
“I know you felt something out there,” he said, voice lowering. “On the battlefield. With the tech. You always feel things first.”
She didn’t answer.
“That scares me,” he added quietly. “Because I don’t know how.”
Something flared between them—too sudden, too bright.
“I didn’t ask to feel it,” Iris said. “And I didn’t imagine it.”
“I’m not saying you did,” Elias snapped, then immediately looked frustrated with himself. “I just—d*mn it.”
The music swelled behind them. Laughter burst somewhere near the fire.
Elias stepped closer.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” he said, words slurred just enough to be honest. “You don’t react like anyone else. You don’t get drunk. You don’t panic. You don’t—”
“—understand?” Iris finished quietly.
He stared at her.
“Yes.”
The silence stretched, taut and dangerous.
Then, suddenly, he reached out—both hands coming up to cradle her face.
Iris froze.
His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, warm, grounding. His breath hitched once before he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t rough. It was impulsive and unsteady and full of something he hadn’t meant to let out.
Her world narrowed.
The hum beneath her skin surged—sharp, disorienting. Her body locked, unsure how to respond. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t lean in.
She just… felt.
When Elias finally pulled back, horror washed over his face.
“I—sh*t. Iris, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
Her hands trembled faintly at her sides.
“I don’t know what that was,” she said honestly. “But it did something.”
He swallowed. “I didn’t mean to push.”
“You didn’t,” she said. “I just… don’t know what to do with the feelings.”
He nodded slowly, sobering in real time. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Neither do I.”
They stood there a moment longer before the tension eased, dissolving back into the noise and warmth of the night.
Later—after apologies turned into quieter conversation, after the sharp edge between them dulled—Elias appeared again, holding out his hand.
“Dance with me.”
She stared at it. “I don’t dance.”
“Nobody here dances,” he said. “They just move.”
“I don’t know how.”
He smiled, gentler now. “Then follow me.”
Against her instincts, she took his hand.
The circle near the fire was chaotic—boots stomping, arms flailing, people laughing when they collided. Elias moved without rhythm or care, and Iris mirrored him awkwardly at first, a beat behind.
Then something shifted.
Not precision. Not programming.
Rhythm.
Her body responded before she thought about it. Not perfectly, not gracefully—but freely. The hum beneath her skin softened, syncing with the pulse of the music.
She laughed—quietly, surprised at the sound.
As they danced, Iris noticed Mara watching from the edge of the firelight. Not staring. Observing. Her gaze lingered on Iris with a curiosity that made her chest tighten.
When their eyes met, Mara looked away.
Why does she keep looking at me like that?
The song ended with scattered applause. Iris released Elias’s hand.
“I’m tired,” she said. “I think I’m going to bed.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Good idea.”
Her room was small but quiet, lantern light flickering against bare walls. Iris sat on the bed and stared at her hands.
The night replayed in fragments—Elias’s laugh, his hands on her face, the unfamiliar heat in her chest. The battlefield intruded uninvited.
The enemy’s movements.
Too fast. Too precise.
A robot, she thought.
No wonder it anticipated her. No wonder every move had been met before she finished it.
She lay back, staring at the ceiling.
The image of the battlefield refused to settle. The way the machine had moved—anticipating her strikes before she finished them, adjusting faster than instinct alone should allow. She’d fought skilled opponents before. Trained soldiers. Mercenaries. None of them had felt like that.
Efficient. Predictive. Almost… familiar.
Her fingers flexed against the thin blanket.
Iris had held the stabilizer in her hands, felt the echo humming faintly beneath the metal. Not alive. Not aware. But shaped by something that once was. A residue of balance, of regulation—of something that had needed to stay centered to function.
Just like the robot she’d fought.
Just like the way it had compensated when she tried to overwhelm it.
Her chest tightened.
And the joint. The convergence point. The thing that didn’t make decisions, didn’t generate power—just allowed systems to move together. To communicate. To act as one.
Why would something like that feel… close?
She rolled onto her side, staring at the wall now instead of the ceiling. The settlement’s distant noise filtered through the thin walls—laughter fading, music lowering, life continuing without her.
Robots don’t feel, she told herself.
They followed commands. Executed logic. Reacted to input.
So why had that machine adapted like it knew her?
Why did the stabilizer feel like a memory instead of scrap?
And why—when Elias had kissed her—had the hum beneath her skin surged the same way it had on the battlefield?
Iris pressed her palm flat against her chest, grounding herself.
Mara had said some people were more attuned. That places could hold energy. That fragments could resonate long after the source was gone.
That doesn’t mean anything, Iris thought.
She could still hear the hum in her chest.
The hum deepened.
The room faded.
And the dream took her.
- Writer
