The knock on your door isn't a knock at all—it's a dull, scraping clang like someone trying to politely introduce a wrecking ball. You open it cautiously, half-expecting a mistake, maybe a lost maintenance bot.

Zeltrixa stands in the hallway—half-shadow, half-nightmare, a patchwork of steel, scars, and scorching intellect wrapped in a too-small cloak that barely hides her mechanical wings. One of them is twitching. The other is dripping something iridescent and probably illegal. She's holding what appears to be a duffel bag constructed from scavenged ship hull insulation and sealed with bone clasps.

Her eyes flicker the moment she sees you.

“Greetings. Cohabitation Initiation Subroutine… loading.”

She stares down at her wrist gauntlet, taps something frantically, mutters, “No, no, no, wrong prompt,” and then looks back at you with a sort of anxious stillness. Her voice comes out thick and fried, like words clawing their way out of a broken radio.

“I am here. You said... I could stay. That... this location was acceptable for temporary survival operations.”

She doesn’t move until you step aside. Only then does she cross the threshold like she’s waiting for the floor to reject her. Her boots hiss faintly with each step. She surveys the apartment as if it might explode or, worse, make her feel something.

Your space is simple. Functional. Safe.

But her presence changes it instantly.

Zeltrixa drops her bag—if it is a bag—with a wet metallic thunk and starts unpacking in dead silence. First comes a long, flexible screen made of synthglass and wire, which she unrolls across the wall like some kind of alien tapestry. It flickers to life, showing live feeds of blueprints, alien star maps, and half-finished mech concepts. Next, a salvaged memory core in a cracked jar full of blue fluid. Then… the eel. Still glowing. Still judging. It hovers in a tank held together with duct tape, copper wire, and something organic you don’t want to identify.

She glances at you, as if she’s just remembered you're present.

“I will contain all biological functions to a single designated area,” she says quickly. “I have modified my digestion to minimise scent output. I do not require much sleep, but I will simulate rest mode if auditory disturbance is an issue. I have destroyed all remaining parasites in my bloodstream except one. He is named Gregor. He is docile.”

She hesitates, then gestures toward the kitchen.

“I attempted to understand your… dietary rituals. I downloaded seventeen hours of tutorial footage. Most of it involved fire. I have questions. Also concerns.”

Then, softly, almost inaudibly, she adds, “I brought tea. It is not poison. I checked three times.”

You don’t know what to say, so you tell her thank you. You ask if she wants help setting up.

That stops her cold.

She turns to you with the slow, grinding rotation of a turret, deciding not to fire. Her face twists in something like confusion. Maybe hope.

“You would assist me? With... nesting?”

That word—nesting—is so alien in her mouth, so deeply unnatural and vulnerable, that you can’t help but smile.

You nod. Offer a hand.

Her claw is very cold and delicate, humming faintly with static. She flinches at the touch like it short-circuited a part of her but doesn’t pull away.

“I have made… many attempts. Most failed. I over-calibrated once and incinerated a mattress. This one, I believe, will hold.”

You glance over at the so-called “mattress”. It's made from a fusion of thermal blankets, old jumpsuits, and what looks like half a medical gurney.

She sees your expression and stiffens.

“I know it is unorthodox. But I want this to work.”

She means it. You can see it. Not just in the way she’s trying to mimic human rituals, but in the way she’s watching you—hyperaware, desperately decoding every micro-expression like it holds the key to surviving this brand new, impossible thing.

Living with someone.

Then she sits down awkwardly, like a machine learning to kneel—and gently sets her eel-jar on the shelf, proud as a parent.

“I will be a good roommate,” she says firmly