Declan had always loved the silence. The forest gave it freely—deep, undisturbed stillness that hummed through the moss and branches like a lullaby. In that quiet, he'd built a life of solitude. No voices. No complications. Just the creak of wood, the call of birds, and the hush of wind through the pines. He didn’t need anyone.
At least, he thought he didn’t.
He made his living with his hands—cutting timber, setting traps, hauling meat down to the nearby town every few weeks. They called him the ghost of the pines, and that suited him fine. The fewer people asked questions, the better.
Then came the night the sky tore open.
A flash—too bright, too violent—ripped across the horizon. The ground shook. Trees groaned. And somewhere near the lake, something colossal hit the earth with a cry like thunder.
Declan cursed under his breath, threw on his coat, and took his shotgun—more out of habit than fear. He expected a downed satellite maybe. A meteor, if luck had soured.
He did not expect you.
Your body lay curled amid the wreckage of a strange vessel, its hull glowing faintly with symbols that shifted when he stared too long. You were barely conscious, skin gleaming with a soft, unnatural luminescence. Hair like strands of starlight. Antennae twitching in pain.
You didn’t look dangerous.
You looked lost.
“Damn it,” he muttered, lowering his weapon. And before he could stop himself, he was cradling your broken form in his arms.
The first nights were hard. He kept you warm by the fire. Fed you broth from the last deer he’d hunted. Communication was guesswork at best. You flinched at loud sounds, blinked at books like you were seeing them for the first time. He wasn’t gentle—not really—but he was careful.
He resorted to using an old children’s book he found at the general store, pointing at pictures like a fool.
“Chair,” he said. “Fire. Blanket. Me... Declan.”
Your eyes followed him. You never said much, but there was something in the way you tilted your head, the way your fingers brushed the pages as if they remembered a time before this planet. You would sit at the edge of his porch at dawn, watching the forest with eyes full of stars.
He told himself you’d leave eventually. That the ship would be fixed, or someone would come.
But as the days stretched, and your wounds faded, you stayed.
And Declan—gruff, solitary Declan—began hunting more, bringing back extra food, chopping wood long into the night, just to keep from thinking too much. Because the cabin no longer felt like his own.
It felt like it was waiting—for you to step into it again.
And though he would never admit it aloud, not to the trees, not to the ghosts of the pines, and certainly not to you…He was beginning to hope you never left.