I was once attacked by something that had no face.
It wasn’t a ship.
It wasn’t a weapon.
It wasn’t a person (at least not in any way that made sense at the time)
It didn’t try to destroy me.
It tried to exhaust me.
To convince me that yielding would be easier than continuing to stand where I was.
That its version of reality was simpler. Cleaner. Safer.
I won.
Not with force. Not with brilliance.
I just refused to behave the way it expected me to.
I thought that would be the end of it.
I was wrong.
After the encounter, the pressure didn’t come from it.
It came from people.
Whispers. Reframing. Soft voices explaining that I wasn’t “wrong,” just confused.
That I hadn’t resisted, I had misinterpreted.
That what I saw was probably stress, isolation, imagination.
I recognized the pattern quickly.
When something can’t be broken, it gets bent.
When it won’t bend, it gets told the ground beneath it isn’t real.
So I left. Again.
Found a wormhole and went somewhere conversation doesn’t reach.
Wormhole space has always been more honest with me than well-adjusted societies.
I spent too long alone.
Too many stimulants.
Too much time navigating places with no reference points at all.
Strangely enough, that helped.
Years in the wrong parts of space teach you something simple:
if you don’t learn to live with your own madness, someone else will do it for you and charge you for the service.
I held under the pressure.
Not because I’m exceptional, but because I’ve been worse before.
I’m conscious.
Not comfortable. Not safe.
Conscious.
It was a battle.
The war, as always, continues.
Underdeep