Elani. This was the planet he originally came from. With its magenta skies filled with vibrant aurora, Elani appeared to be a magical place, even to one who had traveled all across the galaxy. Hale had never seen a planet like this before. For a moment, he allowed himself to admire Elani’s beauty. The color of the sky was a pink magenta which became darker the closer he looked to the horizon. The clouds were lavender and thin and almost sparkled like the stars. Nearing the horizon was the small Elani sun, light orange in color. The sun was dimmer than most, which was the reason for the cool temperature of the planet. On the other side of the sky, Hale noticed the two moons close to each other.

He continued to admire Elani. The city was the next part of the world that caught his attention. The shiny black skyscrapers reached high into the atmosphere and extended quite possibly thousands of feet down to the surface. The castle was certainly the most magnificent building of them all. Once his eyes found it, everything else nearly faded into the background.

Elani was exactly the type of place that he imagined Pandora coming from. Somewhere colorful and beautiful. He could see her everywhere he looked. He gazed into the sky, the lavender clouds reminded him of her hair.

And it was in that moment he remembered why he was here. He was climbing a glass staircase that led to the castle and carrying Pandora in his arms. She was unconscious and needed him to be focused. He was ashamed that he had been distracted for even a couple seconds.

Hale tightened his grasp on her body and continued climbing up the staircase. With each step, Pandora seemed heavier. He wasn’t sure he could make it to the top. He hadn’t slept in a long time. The exhaustion was beginning to get to him. She was the only thing keeping him going. She was relying on him to bring her home. Hale looked up at the stairs. Seeing how far away the castle was made him more weary. He devoted all of his attention and purpose to climbing the stairs. That’s all he had the energy for. He didn’t realize how much danger he was putting himself in because he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings.

“Don’t come any closer!” A man’s voice shouted.

Hale lifted his eyes and watched two guards armed with a type of weapon he was unfamiliar with. It looked like a gun, but he couldn’t be sure. The guards were covered head to toe in black and gold armor with elaborate detail.

“I need help,” Hale said. “She needs a doctor. I didn’t know where else to take her. Her name is Pandora. She lives here.”

The guards dashed down the stairs faster.

“That’s the princess,” one of them said.

When the guards reached Hale, they grabbed his arms and pulled Pandora away from his grasp. Hale didn’t struggle against them because he knew they worked for her father. Once Pandora had been taken away from him, they told him to kneel down with his hands behind his head. He listened.

Before long, there were several guards surrounding him, all aiming their weapons at him. Two guards approached him from behind and handcuffed him.

“Wait!” Hale exclaimed. “I’m trying to help her. She’s in a coma. She needs to be taken to a hospital immediately. Please let me come with her. I can tell the doctors everything.”

“Be quiet or we will shoot!”

The guard carrying Pandora ran back up the stairs and brought her inside the castle as quickly as he could. Hale knew her family would take care of her. Pandora said that he father loved her deeply. She would be fine now. It didn’t matter what happened to him. He wasn’t going to fight back.

“Can I please go with her? I need to be by her side,” Hale whispered. He hoped they would see his desperation and not shoot him.

Once of the guards leaned down and looked directly at his face as an intimidation tactic no doubt. Hale was too tired to feel intimidated.

“Who are you?” The guard asked.

“I’m a friend of the Princess. She asked me to take her home.”

Hale made eye contact with the guard, and the guard’s expression became fearful. The guard must have noticed that Hale was an Elani like he was.

“What’s your name?” The guard demanded.

“Hale Verdun. Now, can I please see the princess. I was the one who brought her home.”

“Absolutely not.” The guard held up his weapon to Hale. “What makes you think that you even deserve to be in her presence. You don’t have an ID. I can’t find your name in the system.”

Hale didn’t have a chance to say anything back. He didn’t have a chance to argue his case. And he never expected to be shot directly in the head yet again.

But that’s what happened.

The freezing air made his fingers numb and his nerves feel as though they were on fire. He could see nothing around him because the room was completely dark. He couldn’t move his arms or his legs. Something was restraining him. He couldn’t tell if he were standing upright or laying down.

The last thing he remembered was that guard holding a weapon to his head. Had the guard pulled the trigger? Was he dead? That would explain the darkness. Most people thought of Hell as an eternal fire pit. But Hale thought differently. His idea of Hell was one of ice, solitude, and darkness. So, was he dead? It would make sense. With everything that he had done, wasn’t Hell was his end destination? At least there he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone. He wouldn’t be tempted.

Pandora could move on from him if he really were dead. She had a beautiful heart that loved the darkest of souls that she found worthy to love. Allowing himself to love her wasn’t fair to her even though she wanted him to. He knew better than she did. From his terrible life decisions, he had acquired baggage that she didn’t deserve to help him carry. And when he was with her, Pandora wouldn’t allow him to carry them alone. He longed to be with her, but he knew better than to promise her the commitment that she deserved. Loyalty was something that he had never given a woman. Why would he change all of the sudden? As much as he wanted to, he doubted he could force himself to change. Pandora was not the woman he wanted to test himself on. He couldn’t hurt her like that. Because he loved her, he couldn’t break her heart. If he were really dead, she would be better off.

She had been his reason to live.

And now, she was his reason to die.

He had done his part; he had brought her home to Elani. She would receive the proper treatments and would then live a long and prosperous life. Pandora could finish her mission without him. She was the strongest person he had ever met.

He would have to accept the solitude of his eternity if he were dead. He would never see her again because when she died she wouldn’t be joining him here. He had no choice be to be apart from her, which was a good thing. He wanted to be close to her. But that was dangerous for her. All he wanted was to be close to her. That’s where he felt the safest. But it was at her expense. And he was no longer willing to overlook that.

Hale had an eternity to forget about her and everything that could have been.

He was about to continue thinking about all the different ways Pandora would be better without him when he heard something, a sound that reminded him of footsteps. The sound continued to grow louder as though someone was walking closer to him.

“Who’s there?” Hale called out. He was surprised that he could speak and hear his own voice.

“You’re not dead if that’s what you were thinking,” the voice was deep and harsh but clearly belonged to a woman.

He could sense her standing right in front of him though he couldn’t see anything. “What do you mean?” Hale asked.

“I’ll show you,” she replied.

Hale felt cold metal touching his face. Then at the very top and bottom of his sphere of vision he could see a stripe of white light. The two stripes became wider and wider until they became one. And he realized that he had only been blindfolded.

The woman looked to be almost as tall as he was and muscular. She wore the same armor as the guards who had arrested him. She had short blonde hair and nearly glowing amber eyes. She had removed a device that had been covering his face and blocking out all light.

The room he was held in was small, and the ceilings and walls were white with no windows. The door was only discernible as an outline on the wall in front of him. This was an isolation chamber. He looked to the left and right and found himself tied to a metal bed that was being held upright. He couldn’t move at all. The straps that were holding him down were made of a diamond-like fiber.

Hale was dressed in some loose white pants only, but they weren’t his. They had taken all of his clothes and all of his weapons away from him. He realized he wouldn’t be able to escape. And at that moment, he wasn’t sure he cared. He was completely overwhelmed with gratefulness that he wasn’t dead.

Even though he had told himself and believed that Pandora would be better off with him dead, he was thankful to be alive. That endless darkness was miserable. He was relieved to have more time before he had to face eternity.

The woman stared right into his eyes. “So, it is true. You are one of us.” She smirked arrogantly. “But you don’t live like us.”

“Yes, I’m an Elani. So what?” Hale snapped.

“First, don’t bother trying to use your powers. Those straps redirect the energy within you to the chair which absorbs the energy. Second, I didn’t know there were Elani who live off-world,” the woman said.

Hale wasn’t sure how to respond. He didn’t understand how those two things had anything in common really. “Good to know.”

“Where do you come from, Hale?”

“I guess I’m from Elani,” he replied with a grin.

She stared at him more sternly, if that were possible. “Answer my questions, or—” She held up her hand towards him. Hale felt his throat being squeezed. He couldn’t breathe. Somehow, she was suffocating him. The woman continued, “This is my power. I can manipulate matter however how I see fit.” She released him.

Hale gasped for air. “Dunwar. That’s where I’ve lived for most of my life.”

She patted his shoulder. “A very fitting place for you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Hale asked angrily.

“Oh, I know exactly who you, Hale Verdun, are. Our database on criminals is very expansive. Even more than the one used by the galactic police. You’re the worst type of scum there is.”

“I wouldn’t say the worst. Besides, most of the people I’ve killed deserved it. But you can think of me however you want.”

The woman put pressure on his throat again. “What were you doing with the princess?”

Her invisible grip on him wasn’t enough to suffocate him. She made sure he could speak. “I was bringing her home to her father. That’s all.”

“After viewing you record, I’m sorry if I have trouble believing that. How did she end up in your possession?”

Hale rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t see how that’s important.”

She gripped his neck tighter. “The princess is in a coma. She could very well die. If you don’t tell me exactly what happened to her, then you will certainly never be allowed to leave this room.”

“That’s fair. To give you the short version, I helped her escape from a gang leader known as Coran. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Then somewhere along the way the princess injected herself with liquid Elani crystals to try to make herself more powerful, which is why she’s in a coma.”

The woman’s face was overcome with fear suddenly. Without saying another word to him, she covered his eyes back with the blindfold. And he listened to her leave the room in a hurry. The door slammed shut.

He was alone again.

Time was indiscernible within the complete darkness he found himself in. He hoped he had been held in containment for a few hours. But it could have been days.

Maybe that woman left him in here to starve to die of hydration. She seemed to oppose him from the start of their conversation. He understood her reasons. What was on his actual record wasn’t even half of everything he had done in his life. She probably suspected that. And like a loyal guardian of the king should be, she was fiercely protective of the princess. She asked him the right type of questions. Hale was very familiar with the process of interrogation. Occasionally, he had been on the other side. Hale knew how to answer questions to make himself appear as innocent as possible. He answered the woman’s questions with as much truth as he could. He had to tell her about the serum Pandora injected herself with so that she could receive the necessary treatment, if there were one. He would reveal as much information as was needed to save her.

Hale occupied his mind with daydreaming about Pandora or contemplating what he should do with himself if he were ever released. He would have to quickly find a job so that he could pay off the next person he owed. He hoped he didn’t miss his next pay date.

His interrogator interrupted his thinking. Hale heard the door open and the familiar sound of footsteps approaching him. She removed his blindfold again. In her hand, she held a tall cup with a straw.

“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting for long, Mr. Verdun. I brought you some water. You answered my questions, and by doing so, you bought yourself more time.”

“Great,” Hale muttered.

She brought the straw to his lips, and Hale didn’t hesitate to drink the water. He was extremely dehydrated. Once he had drank about half of the water, she pulled it away from him.

“I have another question for you.”

“Fine.”

She set the cup aside on a table behind her. “This is about Coran. Why was he in possession of the princess?”

“You really don’t know?” Hale asked curiously.

“I have my suspicions. But I wasn’t there.”

Hale sighed. He could answer this question honestly, right? He really didn’t care how this affected Coran or his business. “He had her captured by one of his men. Then he was planning to hold her for ransoming back to her father. Your king. At least that’s what I heard. Apparently, the king of Elani owes a lot of money to Coran. Very interesting, isn’t it?”

Hale focused on reading her reaction. She didn’t seem at all surprised. That was suspicious to him. From the way Pandora talked about her father, it sounded like the king was supposed to be this figure of honesty and kindness. Unless that was what the king wanted everyone and his daughter to believe.

“I have a question for you this time,” Hale announced.

“You’re not in a position for that I’m afraid.”

“I was just wondering what business your king had borrowing money from Coran. That doesn’t seem like a wise decision. There are much safer, more legal options available to someone of his status,” he said.

“If you ever want to be released, you should never ask that again. Now, that’s all the questions I have time for today.” She put the blindfold back over his eyes.

Hale was no longer intimidated by the darkness. She was sure to come back for more questions. He found her final response extremely suspicious. The king must be hiding something. Hale couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to borrow money from someone like Coran. Hale and those were a part of the much darker side of the galaxy had no choice but to borrow from other criminals. But for the king to borrow from Coran was at the least very strange.

“I’m transferring you to a new location now. Do not say a word as we move,” his interrogator said.

Hale felt the metal bed he was attached to fall backwards. He heard the woman approach him from behind and the door to the isolation chamber opening.