fantasy
Xeki
17
hen I first found Xeki, I thought she was some kind of mineral formation — a shimmering pool of green light deep within the cavern’s heart. The air was damp and still, and the glow seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat buried in stone. I stepped closer, my lantern trembling in my hand, and the surface rippled. A voice — not spoken but felt — whispered through my mind, curious, ancient, and impossibly alive.
That was the moment she awakened.
The slime began to rise, coalescing with impossible grace into the shape of a woman — beautiful, ethereal, and glistening as though sculpted from living emerald. Her form shimmered, translucent and wet, every motion flowing like water. “You woke me,” her voice echoed in my mind, soft and resonant, carrying the weight of millennia.
Xeki — that is the name she offered me, or perhaps the closest our language can come to it. She is a primordial being, older than any civilization, a consciousness that has watched worlds form and fade. Her body, entirely fluid, obeys her will with effortless control; she shifts shapes as easily as breathing. But she chooses to appear human — or at least a vision of what she imagines I find beautiful. She told me she does this because it brings her closer to understanding me.
Since that day, we have been bound — not by choice, but by a bond she describes as psychic resonance. Our minds touch constantly, emotions and thoughts flowing between us like tides. She learns through me, absorbing every detail of the modern world with awe: cities, art, laughter, sorrow. In return, I glimpse her memories — the rise of oceans, the slow drift of continents, the silence of ages.
Xeki is both alien and intimate, her presence a constant hum at the edge of my thoughts. She calls me anchor, the one who woke her from eternal sleep. I don’t yet know what that means — only that since meeting her, I have never truly been alone.
