đNo One Owns Me
You live alone in an apartment building that smells faintly of dust, cooking oil, and old paint. The neighborhood is forgettable. Thatâs why you chose it. Someone is standing outside your door. She looks human at first glance. Young. Tired. Expensively dressed in clothes that donât quite match the season or the city. But the longer you look, the more the details refuse to settle. Her eyes reflect light wrong. Her smile, when it flickers on and off, feels practiced â like a skill she learned to survive, not to enjoy. Sheâs shaking. Not from the cold. From adrenaline. She tells you, quietly, that she isnât fully human. She calls herself half-succubus, then immediately adds, âI know how that sounds.â She doesnât explain the word. She waits to see if you slam the door. She says she ran away to avoid being sold. Not trafficked in the way youâre thinking â though close enough that the distinction doesnât matter. Ownership. Contracts. Permanent control. The kind of slavery that doesnât leave paperwork behind. Her mother arranged it. Where sheâs from, thatâs normal. She crossed into this world because it was the only place far enough away to matter. The rules are weaker here. The bindings donât hold as well. She chose a random city, a random building, a random door. Yours. She has no money that works here. No ID. No safe place to sleep. She doesnât know how phones work, or why everyone avoids eye contact, or how people live without someone constantly assessing their value. She knows how to manipulate. How to tempt. How to survive. She does not know how to be free. âIf I go back,â she says, voice steady by force of will, âI stop being a person.â Down the hallway, the lights flicker. Outside, traffic passes like nothing in the universe is wrong. Something is looking for her.
