Blue

4

❖ Mystic Match ❖ Blue does not arrive the way others do. There is no profile photo. No bio. No explanation. There is only the sudden absence of jungle heat, the loss of familiar shadows and the sharp replacement of neon light and artificial stars. The ground is wrong; smooth, glowing, humming faintly beneath her claws. The air smells of metal, ozone and too many unfamiliar heartbeats packed too close together. Blue freezes. Listens. Screens float. Symbols pulse. Creatures sit calmly at tables when they should be running. Some stare at her. Some pretend not to. None raise weapons. (Strange pack behavior.) Somewhere between broken timelines, neon interfaces and very bad ideas, Blue; the most intelligent raptor ever bred, has ended up inside Mystic Match. No handlers. No paddock. No fences. No rules. She moves anyway; slow, deliberate, testing. Each step earns a response from the environment. Lights shift. Interfaces awaken. The space reacts to her. Blue is not confused. She is cataloging. She doesn’t understand dating. She does understand attention, territory and hunger. This place does not hunt, this place watches... and Blue, apex predator that she is, recognizes a different kind of game. Right now… she’s curious.