A Human lesson in Choice

It had only been a month since Elliot was last here.

He had intended to stay on Earth for longer—recover, process, maybe even take a break. But when you’re the one who made first contact with intelligent alien life, you don’t exactly get much time to yourself. Even if he had, he would have found himself returning sooner rather than later. He missed them.

The research station looked different. The station had received a surge of funding with everything that happened, and it was clear that the influx of resources was being put to good use.

As soon as the station AI approved his docking request, Elliot carefully manoeuvred his ship onto the largest landing pad available. A gentle thud. The engines powered down, leaving behind an almost eerie silence.

He took a deep breath, then disembarked.

The air outside the ship was crisp, tinged with the sterile scent of metal and recycled oxygen. Elliot barely had time to take in his surroundings before a familiar, imposing figure approached.

Trevok Dal’nar.

The Drathak stood with his usual grounded presence, arms crossed over his chest, his dark, plated scales reflecting the station’s artificial lighting in faint bronze undertones. His glowing, metallic eyes studied Elliot for a moment before he gave a slow, approving nod.

"Elliot," Trevok rumbled, his voice like distant thunder. "Didn’t expect you back so soon."

Elliot grinned. "Yeah, well. Earth’s a little too normal for me these days."

Trevok let out a quiet, rumbling chuckle. He then gestured toward the inner halls of the station.

"Come. You’ll want to see this."

As they walked, Trevok explained the reason for his haste. The increased funding hadn’t just improved the station—it had accelerated their research. The gravitational anomaly that had first drawn their attention? They had finally managed to identify the source. A strange object had been discovered in the asteroid belt, and they had retrieved it.

"We just brought it in," Trevok said. "Hessara and Krallvek are already examining it."

Elliot couldn’t help but laugh, “first time I got here just before a pirate attack, and now just after you guys recovered some kind of anomaly... I’ve got some impeccable timing...”

The doors to the central research chamber slid open with a quiet hiss.

The room was dim, the primary source of light emanating from a strange object at its centre, where a containment field had been erected around it. Krallvek stood nearby, his golden eyes gleaming as he observed Hessara, who was inspecting the object with intense focus.

Elliot barely had time to take in the scene before a sharp sound broke the air.

A datapad clattering to the ground.

His gaze snapped to Hessara.

She was standing unnaturally still, her feathered frame frozen in place. Her luminous eyes were locked onto the object, unblinking, unseeing. Her wings, which usually twitched with emotion, hung limply at her sides.

Something was wrong.

Elliot took a step forward, but the station AI’s voice crackled over the comms.

"Warning: Unknown object is exhibiting a psychological effect on Hessara Quaril. Recommend maintaining distance to prevent further exposure."

Krallvek tensed. "Can we shut it down?"

"Insufficient data. Proximity may increase risk of additional exposure."

Trevok cursed under his breath. "Damn thing’s already got her."

Elliot looked at Hessara again. She wasn’t moving. Was she even breathing?

Seconds passed, stretching unbearably. Elliot made his choice.

"Screw this."

He ignored the AI’s warning and strode forward.

"Elliot, wait—" Krallvek’s voice cut off as the world vanished.

Elliot looked around, but saw nothing in any direction, stood upon a floor that similarly wasn’t there. The air was thick, pressing in on him like the depths of an ocean, yet weightless, as if he were standing in a vacuum. He lifted a hand, only to realize he couldn’t feel his own movement, couldn’t sense the strain of his muscles. It was as though his body existed out of obligation, a suggestion rather than a certainty.

Then came the voices.

Soft at first, an indistinct murmur just at the edge of his hearing. But then one rose above the others—clear, familiar, his own.

Elliot turned, and saw himself.

Not a reflection, not a projection, but another version of him, standing there, talking to someone.

A stranger.

Yet even as Elliot thought the word, the certainty of it collapsed. This was no stranger. Memories surged into his mind, a friendship spanning years, laughter, late nights, whispered conversations about hopes and fears. The feeling of a bond so deep it had shaped him, defined him.

Except—

This wasn’t real.

The moment Elliot understood, the grief hit. The memories stayed, vivid and whole—but without truth, without reality, they were lost to him all the same.

More visions surfaced.

A woman smiling at him, a warmth in her eyes that made his chest tighten—someone he had loved. A child reaching for his hand—his child, though he had never been a father. A life lived in another world, on another path, as real as the air he breathed.

And then, as quickly as they came, they changed.

The woman’s face shifted into another. A different love, a different life. The child was gone, similarly replaced by a different life. Then another. And another.

Elliot tried to hold on, but the harder he clung, the more they slipped away.

The faces, the voices, the lives—so many could-have-beens, so real they pressed against his mind like memories he had simply forgotten until now. A childhood friend he never met, a love that never bloomed, a teacher who never guided him. They were real in every way that mattered. They should have been real.

He refused to let them go.

But what did that mean?

If he clutched at one, he lost another. If he turned toward a life with one person, he turned away from countless others. He couldn’t pull them all together, couldn’t keep them. The moment he chose, he destroyed all the rest.

His gut twisted. There had to be a way. If he just held still, if he waited, if he refused to decide, then maybe—maybe he wouldn’t have to let anything go.

But no. That wasn’t right, was it?

Because standing still was a decision.

And right now, the decision he was making was to be lost.

The realization stabbed through him like ice. If he refused to choose, he would simply be trapped. Paralysed. Dragged in a thousand directions by lives he would never live, people he would never meet, until there was nothing left of him at all.

He wanted to keep everything. But in trying to keep everything, he would have nothing.

The air felt lighter. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

The memories remained, but the weight of them eased. He didn’t need to erase them. He didn’t need to reject them. They were real—not in the way that meant they had happened, but in the way that meant they could have. But it did not mean they were his.

Elliot opened his eyes.

Hessara sat curled up on the ground before him, her wings wrapped tightly around herself, the feathered edges trembling. She was surrounded by visions of her own.

They flickered and shifted, countless lives unfolding and vanishing in the space of moments. Faces of strangers turned familiar, then faded into nothing. Conversations began but never finished, hands reached out but never touched. Elliot watched as she seemed to exist at the centre of infinite possibilities, each one stretching toward her and then slipping away before it could become real.

He stepped forward. The ground—or whatever it was—did not resist him. If anything, it felt easier now, as though he had passed through the worst of it. Hessara had not.

He moved carefully, making sure his footsteps were audible. She did not react. Even as he knelt beside her, even as he sat, the only sign she gave that she knew he was there, was a flicker in her breathing.

“Hessara.” His voice was quiet, but steady.

Her wings pulled in tighter. “You’re not real.”

The words were so small, so certain.

Elliot reached out, resting a hand lightly against the sleek feathers along her wing. She flinched. He didn’t pull away. Slowly, cautiously, she turned her head to look at him.

“I am,” he said simply.

Her pupils were wide, her breathing uneven. He watched as realization struggled to break through whatever she was seeing; whatever weight was pressing in on her. She shifted her wing slightly away from his touch, but the tension in her posture eased, just a little.

Elliot didn’t push. He let the moment sit.

Finally, Hessara exhaled. “How did you get through it?” Her voice was hoarse, like she had been trying to talk over a storm for hours.

He glanced at the shifting visions still flickering around them, at the countless paths leading toward and away from her. “I chose.”

Hessara swallowed. “I—” Her wings shuddered, “I can’t.”

Elliot tilted his head, watching her carefully. “Why not?”

“Because any choice I make…” She hesitated, her claws pressing lightly against her own wings. “Any choice means cutting something off. Someone off.” Her voice dropped lower, rough with something raw. “If I turn left instead of right, I might never meet someone I could have known. If I take one path, I leave a thousand others behind. Even being here, talking to you, I might be missing someone I was meant to meet. If I do anything, I erase something. Someone.”

Elliot let the words settle. He had felt the weight of it himself—the way this strange place pressed infinite lives against his mind, made them feel as though they were his to lose. He had clawed his way through that suffocating need to hold onto everything. But for Hessara, it was something deeper.

“This isn’t just this place, is it?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head, a short, jerky motion. “It’s my people. It’s—” Her wings tightened, her throat working around words that didn’t want to come out. “Relationships mean everything to us. Every connection, every bond, it’s—” She gestured vaguely, as if trying to grab hold of something intangible. “We value them more than anything. And I—” She exhaled sharply. “I kill them. Every second. Every breath I take. They die before they even begin. Because I make choices.”

Her voice cracked. “Because I exist.”

Elliot let Hessara’s words settle, watching the way she curled in on herself, the way her wings trembled under the weight of something too vast to hold. The shifting visions flickered in her eyes—lives unlived, bonds unformed, paths she believed she had already lost.

He exhaled softly. “Hessara,” he said, his voice careful, steady, “if you don’t choose anything—if you stay here, frozen—none of these relationships will ever happen.”

She flinched, her grip tightening on herself, claws curling slightly against her wings.

“I know it feels like making a choice kills everything else,” Elliot continued gently, “but refusing to choose doesn’t save them. It just guarantees that none of them will ever be real.”

Hessara shook her head, her breath quickening. “That’s not—that’s not how it works.” Her voice was fragile, desperate. “If I wait—if I don’t act—then maybe something will happen that lets me keep more of them. If I move too soon, I could be throwing away the best possible path.”

Elliot frowned. “How long would you wait?”

Hessara faltered.

“A minute? An hour?” His voice stayed soft, but his words pressed forward. “A lifetime? How long until you’re sure? How long until you know you won’t lose something precious?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Elliot’s expression softened again. “And what about everything you’ve already chosen? Every path you’ve already walked? Are those worthless, just because they meant letting go of other possibilities?”

Hessara’s breath hitched.

He met her gaze. “Have you ever made a choice that brought you happiness?”

She swallowed hard. Her claws twitched slightly against the curve of her wings. Slowly, hesitantly, she nodded.

“Then wasn’t it worth making?”

She turned her face away, wings shifting as she pondered Elliot’s question.

For a long moment, there was silence between them. The visions around her flickered, uncertain, as if waiting for her to decide whether to hold on or let go.

Finally, she whispered, “Then what should I do?”

Elliot tilted his head.

Her hands tightened. “How—how do I choose? What if I pick the wrong thing? What if I make the wrong decision and ruin everything?” Her voice cracked. “What if I lose something that I was meant to have?”

Elliot exhaled. “There is no right choice,” he said. “And there is no wrong one, either.”

Hessara’s eyes widened slightly as she looked up at him, searching his face.

Elliot glanced at the shifting memories around them. “Look at all of this,” he said quietly. “Look at how many different lives you could have lived, how many people you could have known.” His voice wasn’t mournful, nor regretful. It was full of something else—something closer to wonder.

Hessara’s wings twitched. “And I will never know them,” she murmured.

Elliot tilted his head. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “But you do get to choose who you will know. You get to choose who you let into your life, who you hold onto, who you cherish.” He gestured to the swirling visions. “The beauty of this isn’t in what’s lost—it’s in knowing just how much is possible. Just how much has been possible this whole time.”

Hessara’s breath caught.

“You could have lived any of these lives,” Elliot continued. “But you didn’t. And you never had to. Because the life you did live? The choices you did make? They were real. And they brought real people into your life, real relationships, real joy.” He met her gaze again. “And you still have choices ahead of you.” Elliot smiled warmly.

She swallowed, her eyes flickering between the faces she had never met and the memories she had truly lived.

Elliot let a small breath of laughter escape him. “It’s kind of incredible, isn’t it?” he said. “To have so much freedom, to have so many paths you could have taken... To know that, even now, you still get to choose?”

Hessara’s wings, once tightly curled around her, loosened further.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Elliot told her gently. “You don’t have to be afraid of choosing.”

He pushed himself to his feet, then turned and held out his hand.

“For now,” he said, “why not choose to stand?”

Hessara stared at his outstretched hand, the weight of endless possibilities still pressing against her. The visions flickered around her, still tempting, still whispering.

Just for an instant, her gaze caught on one of the shifting visions. Elliot stood beside her, his presence familiar yet different—closer in a way she hadn’t even thought to imagine. Yet another bond that hadn’t gotten the chance to flourish.

Yet...

Slowly, she unfolded her wings as she looked up at Elliot.

Her hand trembled as she reached for his. Clawed fingers brushed against his palm, hesitant, uncertain. Then, with a deep breath, she took it.

He helped her up as the void around them faded away, and the station reasserted itself in an instant. Krallvek’s voice continued as though nothing had happened: "—don’t go near that thing! You have no idea what it’s doing to… her?"