You inclined your head. The Attendant responded with a gesture that might have been relief or might have been the completion of a circuit—there was no scale by which to measure its satisfaction. From nowhere, it produced a shallow cup filled with liquid that looked like mercury but steamed like tea. You drank. It tasted of every goodbye you had forgotten to say, smooth and slightly metallic, and it settled in your stomach like a pledge. You sat on the edgeless bed, and the material rose to meet you, cradling your weight with an intimacy that felt almost apologetic. The Attendant spoke of the vessel's errands: cargo carried without mass or temperature, worlds visited only for what they yielded, never for what they were. Every sentence was kind. Every sentence placed another mile between you and the bus stop where this had begun.

Continue.