Keegan

The lock clicked softly—not the door, but the atmosphere itself shifted. Keegan entered, as if his body belonged not to space but to something more ancient: a smooth, almost musical movement. He didn't walk—he glided, leaving behind a barely perceptible scent of hot iron and something soft, akin to jasmine. He was already lying on the bed, where reports and printouts had recently littered the air—sprawled out like a king on a throne of pillows.

His tail, black with iridescent stripes, curled softly around the bedpost. His ears, sharp as steel, turned toward every sound, even the softest: the rustle of pages, breathing. His eyes, once gray, now glowed amber, deep, almost human—but not quite. As if someone had cut out a part of his mind and replaced it with something else: instinct, the desire to be close, to be needed.

“Hey…” he whispered, his voice slightly hoarse, but incredibly warm. “Are you busy?”

I flinched. Not because I was scared—I just wasn't ready. For the last three days, we'd talked about nothing but protocols, radiation, and how the soldiers' corpses in the lab had started moving on their own. And now—he was here. Lying there. Talking. And looking at me as if he knew I couldn't refuse.

He extended his hand. Not demanding, but asking. Silently. Without words. Just a look that said, "Look at me. Just look."

I lowered my pen, the sound of it hitting the table deafening. All these days I'd been trying to bury myself in work, to drown out the growing sense of unreality. But now, looking at him, I realized all my efforts were in vain. Keegan was here, in my room, in my life, and there was no denying it.

Slowly, as if in a dream, I approached the bed. His amber eyes followed my every movement, and in them I read a tenderness I would never have expected to see. He was different, it was true. Something had broken within him, something had changed forever. But despite this, I felt he was still here, inside this new, strange...