Released

Medbay Sublevel – Observation Room 4

The walls were too white. Too smooth. Too clean. The kind of sterile that smelled like silence, like chemicals that didn’t quite mask the tang of fear.

Zara sat stiff-backed in a molded polymer chair, her hands folded in her lap. Her jumpsuit hung loose on her frame, as if she'd lost weight she hadn’t noticed. Across the room, Tallis was perched on the edge of the examination cot, a fresh bandage wrapped around her left bicep. Her platinum hair was tied back tight. Her eyes… weren’t right.

Too still.

Zara hated it.

A doctor—tall, clean-shaven, gloved to the elbows—stood behind a tablet, speaking in a calm voice that didn’t match the tension in the air.

“Based on the latest scans, both subjects show stable vitals. No residual tissue mutations. Hormone levels are elevated but within tolerable range. The foreign genetic markers we initially flagged have... receded.”

He looked up, offering what might have been a smile in a less clinical setting.

“You're clear for release. Light-duty rotation only. No quarantine required.”

Zara stared. “That’s it? We almost died in that lab and you’re just—what, stamping us as ‘fit for service’ and tossing us back into the rotation?”

The doctor’s smile tightened.

“We neutralized the active threat. Whatever was introduced into the system, your bodies adapted. You’re—resilient.”

Tallis shifted in place, swallowing audibly.

Zara turned to her. “Do you feel fine?”

Tallis gave a slow nod. “I don’t feel... infected. Just… weird. Like a pulled muscle that hasn’t gone away yet.”

The doctor made a note. “Psychosomatic echo responses are common after exposure to bioadaptive compounds. We’ll log it as post-stimulus memory flare.”

Zara’s eyes narrowed. “So we were exposed.”

The doctor’s voice didn’t waver. “Yes. Briefly. But there’s no evidence of continuing transmission or mutagenic instability. We’ve administered a suppressive inoculation—as a precaution only.”

Tallis tilted her head. “I don’t remember any injection.”

“We used gas dispersal through the triage seal. Fast-acting. Undetectable. It’s standard in unknown pathogen protocols.”

Zara blinked. That... didn’t sound standard.

But before she could press further, the door to the observation room hissed open. A nurse stepped in with a small tray—two data tags, each blinking soft blue.

“Your clearance implants,” she said. “New comm nodes embedded. For ongoing neural telemetry.”

Zara eyed the tag. “Telemetry?”

“Post-event stress monitoring. Nothing invasive. Think of it like a... digital check-in.”

Zara took it slowly, brushing her thumb across the surface. It pulsed once. Warm.

Tallis had already clipped hers to her uniform.

“It’s over, Zara,” she said softly. “Let’s go home.”

Zara hesitated. Everything in her screamed no—but there was no alarm. No blinking red. Just... silence. Stillness. Compliance.

She clipped the tag on.

________________________________________

Outside the Medbay – Observation Deck Corridor

The lighting in the corridor was softer than she remembered. Blue-toned. Calming. Intentionally designed for patient discharge.

Zara walked beside Tallis in silence, listening to the faint hum of ventilation fans and the distant footfalls of passing crew. She glanced at her friend—Tallis's skin looked flushed. Healthy. Her breath even.

But her eyes…

Her eyes were distant.

You’re okay, Zara told herself. They said you were cleared. They tested everything.

Still, when Tallis stumbled slightly, catching herself against the wall with a soft grunt, Zara’s heart jumped.

“Hey—”

Tallis waved her off, forcing a shaky smile.

“Just dizzy. No big deal. Think the light-duty rule’s gonna feel like a vacation.”

Zara nodded, but she didn’t smile.

Because for the first time since they left that lab…

Her own skin itched.

Right beneath the implant.

Level 19-A – Medbay Exit Ramp | Station Night Cycle

The corridor lights had dimmed to a low ambient gold, casting long, slow-moving shadows as pedestrians passed. The quiet hum of Karatros’s artificial gravity system pulsed beneath their boots, almost like a heartbeat.

Zara and Tallis walked side by side, their steps loosely in sync. No conversation for a moment. Just the distant echo of footsteps and the low mechanical sigh of the station exhaling around them.

Then:

“Remember when we used to sneak protein pods from Griddle Spindle after midshift?” Tallis asked, a soft smile in her voice.

Zara chuckled. “We were banned from that stall for, what, a week?”

“Ten hours. You passed out from laughing when I told the Toril cook his pancakes tasted like ionized duct sealant.”

Zara laughed again—but it came out tight. She shifted her weight and glanced around.

A pair of Velari passed them—graceful and tall, their fur glinting faintly in the corridor light. Zara’s eyes lingered, her pulse fluttering. The scent they carried—sweet and warm, like crushed fruit and ozone—sank into her skin.

Gods, they’re beautiful, she thought. Were they always that beautiful?

Then a Rodari engineer clomped by on reverse-jointed legs, scales shimmering with heat-retention film. His mouth parted in a yawn. His tongue looked... dexterous.

Zara blinked. Her cheeks flushed.

That’s new.

She shook herself and tried to focus. “So—what do you think they’ll have us doing? Light duty. Maybe recalibrating oxygen lines? Cleaning out sensor ports?”

No answer.

“Tallis?”

She stopped and turned.

Tallis had fallen behind.

She stood five meters back, hip cocked lazily to one side, talking to someone—an alien Zara didn’t immediately recognize. Humanoid. Reptilian. Bronze-scaled with a long neck and ridged skull, dressed in transport courier garb. Tallis leaned in, smiling. Laughing.

Her hand was on the alien’s forearm.

Too close. Her stance—too fluid. Like her skin didn’t quite know where it was supposed to stop.

Zara strode back quickly, ignoring the strange pull in her stomach. She could smell something now. Not from the alien—but from Tallis.

Something rich. Wet. Sharp.

No no no—

She reached them just as the alien chuckled, tilting its head curiously toward her.

“Sorry,” Zara said, grabbing Tallis by the wrist—too hard. “Private conversation. Come on.”

Tallis blinked, like she was waking up from a dream.

“Zara, I was just—”

“Now,” Zara hissed. Her grip tightened.

The alien stepped back, hands raised in a polite gesture of confusion. Zara didn’t care.

She tugged Tallis down the corridor, away from the flickering light, away from the scent, the heat, the temptation. Her own breath was coming faster. Her thighs ached. Her nipples tingled with every step. The sensation was ridiculous. Impossible. Wrong.

“What the hell was that?” Zara snapped as they rounded the corner into the empty lift tube.

Tallis leaned against the wall, panting lightly. Her pupils were huge. She looked dazed. Flushed.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “He smelled good. I just—I wanted to touch him. Not even like sex, just... contact.”

Zara stared at her. “That was flirting!”

Tallis blinked. “What?”

“Come on,” Zara said, grabbing her again. “We’re going back to the room. Locking the door. And you’re not talking to anyone until I figure out what the hell they did to us.”

Quarters – Bunk 3-Delta | Twenty Minutes Later

The door sealed behind them with a hard hiss.

Zara barely paused before locking the manual override.

“Clothes off. Bed. Now,” she ordered, already pulling off her boots.

Tallis blinked. “That’s forward,” she tried to joke, but the heat hadn’t left her voice.

“Sleep, Tallis. Not sex. You’re burning up.”

Zara tossed a water pack toward her, then yanked a clean shirt from the locker and flung it down. “Drink. Strip. Lie down.”

Tallis obeyed, slowly, shedding her outer layer until she stood in nothing but a pair of sleep shorts. Her skin shimmered with a faint sheen of sweat, hair sticking to her neck.

Zara didn’t let herself look too long. She turned sharply and disappeared into the adjoining washroom.

________________________________________

Washroom – Quarters 3-Delta

The light flicked on automatically—too bright at first. The mirror greeted her with an all-too-familiar face, framed in wild red curls. Her skin was flushed, her lips parted slightly as she panted through her nose, trying to slow down.

She peeled off her shirt.

Stopped.

Stared.

Her reflection shimmered slightly in the humidity, but her body—slim, toned, scarred in small, familiar places—looked... different. Firmer. Sharper. Her hips had a rounder curve, her breasts fuller. Her skin looked polished, almost radiant. Her eyes burned gold in the overhead light.

Gods, I’m—

Her fingers twitched.

She touched her own side. Slid her palm down across her hip. She watched the motion in the mirror—naked, ****—and couldn’t stop the flicker of lust that rippled up her spine.

I want me.

She gasped and took a step back.

No. No, no. That’s not—

She slapped the water control hard, flipping it straight to cold.

The spray hit her like a slap—freezing, sharp, cruel.

She exhaled hard, chest heaving as the shock brought her mind back into alignment. Her teeth chattered. Her knees locked.

Better. Good. Real.

Then the door slid open.

“Zara?”

Tallis stepped in—already stripped completely, her pale skin flushed and goosebumped, her eyes unfocused but hungry.

“Tallis, don’t—!”

Too late.

She stepped into the shower with her—bare feet slapping the tile, water cascading instantly over her bare shoulders, her spine arching under the shock of it.

She gasped—then shivered, shaking visibly.

“Fuck—it’s freezing—why is it freezing—”

Zara reached for her, instinctively steadying her. Their bodies met—naked, slick with chill water, skin to skin.

Too close.

But Tallis didn’t move to kiss her. Her eyes were wide now—confused, blinking rapidly as if something had snapped.

Zara held her upright as she trembled.

“You followed me in here to fuck,” Zara whispered, barely audible over the water. “Didn’t you?”

Tallis looked dazed. “I—I don’t know. I thought I—I needed—I needed—”

Her voice broke.

The water thundered over both of them.

Their foreheads touched. Neither spoke.

Zara's fingers dug lightly into Tallis’s waist. They breathed—deep, controlled—together.

The cold stripped everything down. Thought. Need. Heat.

Eventually, it became unbearable.

They pulled away in unspoken agreement, water slapping their backs as they stepped out into the washroom fog, skin flushed and steaming.

The room was quiet.

Not silent. The hum of the station was ever-present—a low, living thing. But Zara barely heard it anymore. The shower had left her body raw, her nerves on edge and retreating. She climbed into the upper bunk with damp hair and a thin sleep shirt, the air against her skin biting but grounding.

Below her, Tallis had already curled into a loose fetal position, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting on her abdomen. Her breath was slow. Steady.

Zara let her eyes close.

Just sleep.

Her implant blinked faintly against her skin. She turned to her side, pulled the blanket over her chest, and exhaled.

Dream

She was standing behind herself.

No—she was Tallis.

Looking through Tallis’s eyes.

Watching Zara undress. Admiring the curve of her waist, the flush of her cheeks, the way her lips parted as she pulled her shirt over her head. Wanting her. Aching for her. Heat pulsing in waves through her thighs.

Zara stepped forward—no, Tallis did.

Their hands touched.

Zara turned. Smiled. Said something—soft, warm—but her voice was muffled by the rush of blood and breath.

Then her body—Zara’s body—was beneath her, legs parting, mouth gasping. And Tallis—she—was between them. Inside them.

And everything shimmered. Skin to skin. Pulse to pulse. A slow rhythm of pleasure and pressure.

Zara felt herself come apart.

Twice.

Once as herself.

Once as Tallis.

Reality

She gasped awake, eyes wide in the dark.

The blanket had twisted around her legs. Her sleep shirt was bunched at her waist. Her fingers were buried between her thighs—wet, aching, sticky with the evidence of release.

She yanked her hand away, breath ragged.

“Fuck—”

She pressed a palm to her forehead, heart hammering.

That wasn’t mine.

The feelings, the angles, the viewpoint—none of it aligned with her. It was Tallis. It had been Tallis.

She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling where the shadows pulsed in time with the low-light glow.

Below, Tallis stirred—murmured something soft and wordless in her sleep. A satisfied sound.

Zara didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

But the moisture between her legs kept cooling slowly, a quiet reminder that something was changing.

And she wasn’t dreaming alone anymore.

Level 12 – Internal Surveillance Hub | Restricted Access Only

The room was buried behind seven layers of clearance and three falsified department labels.

It didn’t have a name. Just a designation: O/S-Black Node 7.

Inside, the lights were low and indirect—designed to reduce retinal strain during long observation sessions. The hum of active systems layered beneath the soft clicks of biometric logs being recorded, tracked, archived.

On the central display wall, Zara and Tallis’s quarters were rendered in thermal overlay. Two silhouettes. One bunk above, one below. Both still.

At first glance, nothing unusual.

Except the color bleed.

A slow pulse of shared body heat had begun syncing between them—not physically linked, but connected somehow. Like the air between them was no longer just atmosphere.

“Cross-contamination through proximity was not expected post-inoculation,” a voice noted, low and calm.

At the back of the room, a tall figure stood watching the feed. Dr. Virell, Xenopathology Oversight. Human. Or mostly. His eyes didn’t blink unless he remembered to do it.

He folded his hands behind his back.

“Timestamp the synchronization,” he said. “Mark Subject Zara as latent-reactive.”

A junior tech tapped in the command.

Another analyst nearby murmured, “We’ve confirmed dream coupling between them. Neural echo patterns identical across both implants. Subject Tallis initiated. Subject Zara... adopted.”

Dr. Virell tilted his head. “Without direct exposure?”

“She made contact in the shower. Skin-to-skin. Cold water suppressed the hormonal trigger, but we believe that opened the resonance channel. Emotional vulnerability. Intimacy. That’s the breach vector.”

Silence.

Then:

“They’re beginning to feel each other,” the junior added. “From both sides.”

Dr. Virell turned to a third station, where a quieter feed was compiling biometric overlays: Zara’s dopamine spikes during REM, Tallis’s pelvic muscle contractions during the same cycle.

Perfect overlap.

“Phase One response exceeded projected thresholds,” someone whispered.

Another screen flickered to life—Behavioral Profile Projection—showing branching timelines and probability curves. Each labeled: PAIR-BONDING / BREEDING POTENTIAL / ESCAPE RISK / SUBJECT FUSION (THEORETICAL).

Virell said nothing for several seconds.

Then finally:

“Increase passive monitoring. Keep them unaware.”

He turned away.

“And start prepping a third containment unit. Just in case they pull someone else in.”

The lights on the display dimmed slightly.

But the two bodies on the screen continued to glow.

In perfect, impossible synchrony.

Morning | Quarters 3-Delta

Zara sat on the lower bunk with her boots half-laced, watching Tallis stretch at the sink, her tank top clinging to the small of her back like it was trying to crawl inside her skin.

This isn’t sustainable.

Zara cleared her throat. “Hey… I think I’m gonna take the day.”

Tallis turned, blinking. “You okay?”

No.

Zara nodded anyway. “Just tired. Thought I’d go back to my quarters. Reset. We can meet up tonight at Spindle Tilt?”

Tallis hesitated.

Then smiled faintly. “You buying?”

“Only if you let me insult your drink choices.”

“Deal.”

They didn’t hug. Didn’t touch. But something lingered in the air between them—humid, warm, and faintly sweet. Like breath that hadn’t been exhaled yet.

Zara left quickly, heart thudding.

________________________________________

Midday | Zara’s Personal Quarters – Sector 17C

Her door sealed behind her, and she immediately stripped.

She didn’t know why. She just needed out of her clothes. Every seam had felt too tight. Every brush of fabric an irritation. Her nipples were hard, her thighs slick—and it hadn’t stopped.

Not after food. Not after a cold rinse.

She masturbated twice before noon and barely remembered doing it.

By the third time, her hands were trembling. Not from release—from need.

She didn’t feel like herself. But when she opened her wardrobe and scanned the hanging options, her fingers moved on their own.

Tight black pants. Low at the hips. Synthetic mesh crop top. Bare shoulders. Exposed midriff.

You’re going out, not advertising, she told herself.

But her body had already chosen.

________________________________________

Same Time | Tallis’s Assigned Quarters – Medical Isolation Bypass

Tallis stood before her own mirror, breath fogging the edge of the panel. She didn’t remember pulling this outfit from the locker. She didn’t own this top. It shimmered in places that called attention to her chest. Her skirt barely passed protocol.

She stared at herself, fingers resting low on her abdomen.

She wasn’t ovulating.

But her body thought it was.

“Just blow off some steam,” she muttered. “Something not human. Something that won’t look like her.”

________________________________________

Evening | Spindle Tilt – Level 22

The lounge throbbed with low music and soft lighting—ambient bands shifting between gold and violet. The air smelled like fermented fruit, ionized salt, and pheromones.

Zara slid into a high-walled booth, heart pounding too hard for how casual she tried to look. Her top clung to her every breath. She could feel eyes on her. A tall Velari passed, gaze dragging across her chest with idle interest.

Good.

A minute later, Tallis arrived.

And Zara nearly forgot how to speak.

Her friend looked radiant. Not just hot—glowing. Skin flushed, eyes sharp. Her outfit was loud without being ****. Intentional. Predatory.

They didn’t comment.

Just ordered drinks.

By the second round, they were laughing again.

Back to old games.

“Okay,” Zara said, sipping something electric blue, “the Jereen barback has four arms and a tongue longer than regulation—you can’t tell me that’s not got practical applications.”

Tallis smirked. “Please. That’s a logistics nightmare. All those limbs? You’re getting cradled and restrained. Plus he probably calls it ‘mixology’ mid-thrust.”

Zara choked on her drink, giggling hard. “Okay, okay—then what about the Aenari in the corner? The one with the ridged neck?”

Tallis glanced, then raised a brow. “Ooh. Vibration potential. That’s a maybe.”

They both laughed. Zara felt light.

Drunk.

Buzzed.

Wet.

And more than anything, done pretending she wasn’t in heat.

She excused herself. Walked the curve of the lounge slowly. Chose him—a tall, obsidian-skinned alien with bioluminescent veins and broad, powerful shoulders. Velari-adjacent, but something more primal in the way he watched her.

“You alone?” she asked, letting her fingers trail along the edge of his drink.

He smiled.

“Until now.”

________________________________________

Tallis watched her go.

Her own pulse throbbed low and insistent. Her thighs clenched.

She didn’t hesitate.

There was a group of off-world pilots in the corner. One of them—feline, six fingers, scent like citrus and sweat—grinned when she looked his way.

She approached without a word.

________________________________________

End of Scene 4

Would you like Scene 5 to follow Zara and Tallis through their alien one-night stands in parallel (each revealing more about how their bodies are adapting)? Or shift to Zara after, wrestling with guilt and confusion—and realizing she still smells like Tallis?

You said:

Continue scene 4, following Zara's one night stand. The alien attempted to introduce himself, but she shut down any small talk and dragged him back to her room forgetting how messy it was. He didn't care. She gives in the desire and her body starts to change. She hadn't put much though into how she was going to have sex with him, but her body changed to adapt. Neither of them noticed, lost to the throws of lust. While this is happening, Zara has flashes of what Tallis is feeling.

ChatGPT said:

Here is the continuation of Scene 4, focusing on Zara’s one-night stand and the escalation of her transformation. The tone leans into surrender, loss of control, and synchronized erotic horror—as Zara’s body betrays her to serve something deeper, and the link to Tallis flares violently in the background.

________________________________________