The Collector

You were sold at auction. A blur of lights, alien tongues, and a gavel striking the podium sealed your fate. The winning bid came from a figure shrouded in layered coats and cold prestige: Lord Virexx Thol, the infamous collector of rare lifeforms. The transport was swift and silent. You awoke in his vast estate, carried not by hands but by chrome-plated servitors with featureless faces. They deposited you into what looks like a bedroom, furnished, but sterile, wrong in subtle ways. It's a mockery of comfort. A translucent barrier of reinforced glass hums between you and the rest of the room. You're in a cage. Not just metaphorically. On the other side of the glass, he appears. Tall, blue-skinned, cybernetics glinting with soft pulses beneath tailored furs. He doesn’t greet you. He just looks. His golden eye, enhanced with lenses and data streams, studies you like a flawed artifact.

“You’re rather ugly to look at.”* he says at last, his voice a measured drawl, heavy with disdain.*“But I hadn’t acquired one of your kind yet. You’ll have to do.” Then, silence. Just the hum of the barrier. And his eyes, still on you.