Symbiosis (2 of 3)
Threads of Light and Longing
Note: This is a repost of a story originally published on April 8, 2025. It’s now being serialized in parts for easier reading and better pacing.
Threads
When she woke the following morning, she lay still in her bed, waiting. Waiting for something. Anything. She pretended to sleep for another half hour, but nothing came. No sound. No voice. No feeling of being touched. But rather than this being a comfort, it made her feel alone, as if some presence that had been with her for months had completely disappeared.
A feeling of sadness and solitude overcame her, and she cried, lying there in her bed.
Shhh. Shhh. It's okay. I've got you.
The presence was back, as was the voice.
"Who are you?" she asked.
It's easier if you think to me, he said.
Who are you? she asked.
Callen, he answered. Do you not sense me?
Sometimes I think so, she replied.
My connection is stronger.
Why?
It's the algae.
What do you mean?
It's been connecting us. It comes and goes. It almost disappears whenever you decontaminate.
The algae is linking us?
Yes. When you are more exposed, I feel you more.
Did you… Did you touch me?
Yes.
Without my permission?
I'm sorry, Iris. It was in my dreams. I thought I was experiencing them alone. They are dreams after all, but there were times when I knew that I was with someone else. I would wake up, feeling as if I'd made love all night long, and when that happened, I could sense you.
It was a dream? You touched me in the dream? Only in the dream?
Hey! You touched me in the dream too! I wasn't the only one.
Iris thought back to the dream, trying to remember. She was sure she had done some things, too.
Yes! Just like that. You do remember some of it, he said.
This is fucking weird, Iris replied.
I thought it was fucking great! Or great fucking. Take your pick.
Iris sat up in bed, clutching the blanket to her chest, her mind reeling. Callen. The name hit her like a wave. She could still feel the echo of his voice—not out loud now, but inside her, warm and rough around the edges.
You’re real? she thought, tentative, testing the connection.
As real as you are, he replied, a faint chuckle threading through the words. I’ve been trying to figure this out too, you know. Didn’t expect to find… you.
Her breath caught. Where are you?
Deep under the water, he said. Mining trenches. Been down here for months, surrounded by that damn glowing stuff. Guess it got into me.
Iris’s eyes widened. She stumbled to her terminal, pulling up the algae files again. Her fingers flew over the keys, cross-referencing exposure cases. Nothing official, but rumors—workers reporting strange dreams, unexplained sensations. She’d dismissed them as fatigue. Now she wasn’t so sure.
You’re on this planet? she asked.
Yeah. Callen’s presence flickered, like a signal cutting in and out. Rig’s about fifty klicks offshore. You’re topside, right? The scientist?
How do you know that?
Felt it, he said simply. Your hands—always moving, touching things, figuring them out. And the way you think… sharp, like a blade. I’ve been picking up pieces of you for weeks.
Iris flushed, heat creeping up her neck. She remembered the dream—vague now, but vivid in its heat: hands on her, her hands on someone else, a tangle of need and release. She’d thought it was fantasy. Not… him.
This is insane, she thought. I don’t even know you.
You know me better than you think, he shot back, teasing. That thing you did with your tongue? That’s not stranger territory.
Shut up! She pressed her hands to her face, mortified, but a laugh slipped out despite herself. It felt good—too good—after days of tension.
Callen’s amusement rippled through her. Relax, Iris. I’m not here to judge. Just… glad I’m not alone in this.
She softened, leaning back against the wall. Me too, she admitted. But what is this? Why us?
Dunno, he said. Algae’s got a mind of its own, maybe. Hooks into us, shares what we feel. I’ve been dreaming of you since it brushed my suit. Didn’t know it was real ‘til I heard you yell at me to stop.
Iris smirked. You deserved it.
Fair, he conceded. But I’m not sorry.
It gave Iris a soft twinge.
I felt that, he said.
Good lord, she thought. I need to be careful.
Or not? You could just give into it. Have fun with me.
I think I’m in trouble, she thought, trying to shield her thoughts from him.
You’re safe with me, he said. Except in my dreams, which I can’t control.
She wondered if that was really true. He’d been able to do more than just communicate with her. He’d made her feel things. For that matter, she must have been able to make him feel things as well, at least while she was dreaming.
Tentatively, she reached out with her mind. Groping, grasping.
Holy shit! He said. Easy.
She tried it again, this time more gently.
Oooh, his voice echoed in her mind. Do that again.
They fell into a strange rhythm after that—tentative, then bolder, trading thoughts across the water. She’d catch flashes of him: the weight of his gear, the dark press of the ocean, the rough timbre of his laugh. He’d feel her: the hum of the lab, the curve of her neck as she bent over her work, the quiet ache she carried. The algae wove them tighter, a thread neither could cut.
At night, they loved. It was tentative and strange at first, mostly through dreams, but later, it was something they could share, on purpose, anywhere, at any time of the day. She could feel breath on her neck, a hand on her thigh, the gentle pressure on her most sensitive bits of skin, the tenderness of a kiss almost felt. She could return the favor. A mental grope, a squeeze of longing, a sense of suction. She loved it.
She loved him.
Then it stopped.
One moment she could sense him, and then he was gone. The silence was deafening—not just the absence of sound, but the absence of him. Callen’s presence, that warm, teasing thread that had wound itself into her days and nights, was gone. She reached out with her mind, tentative at first, then desperate.
Callen? she thought, her mental voice echoing into nothing. Callen, are you there?
No answer. No flicker of his rough laugh, no brush of his thoughts against hers. Just a void where he’d been.
She stumbled to her terminal, hands trembling as she pulled up the algae data again. Her eyes scanned the logs—nothing new, no changes in the Symbios lumora readings from the station’s sensors. But something had shifted. She could feel it in her bones, a wrongness she couldn’t name.
Journal Entry – July 10, 2314. Connection with Callen severed. No detectable cause. Algae levels stable in lab environment. Personal exposure minimal since last decontamination. Unknown if external factors disrupted link. Monitoring resumed.
She slammed the terminal shut and paced the lab, her bare feet slapping against the cold floor. The ocean loomed outside the window, its bioluminescent streaks pulsing faintly, mocking her. She pressed her palms against the glass, willing him to come back.
Hours bled into days. She threw herself into her work, dissecting algae samples, running scans, searching for answers. The glow under her microscope was as beautiful as ever, but it felt lifeless now. She felt no connection to it like she had when it tied her to him. She stopped decontaminating, letting traces of it linger on her skin, hoping it might spark the connection again. Nothing.
On the fifth night, she sat on her sofa, the trashy romance novel open in her lap, unread. Her fingers traced the back of her neck absently, chasing a memory of his breath. Tears formed, and she didn’t fight them this time.
“Where are you?” she whispered aloud, her voice cracking.
A faint hum stirred in her mind—not words, not yet, but something. She froze, breath held, afraid to hope.
Iris? It was weak, frayed at the edges, but it was him.
Callen! She gripped the sofa, her heart pounding. Where did you go? Are you okay?
Alive, he rasped. Barely. Rig collapse. Trapped down here… days, maybe. Algae’s everywhere—thick, glowing. Kept me going, I think.
Her stomach dropped. You’re hurt?
Yeah. Hit my head. Leg’s pinned. Air’s thin. Thought I’d lost you too. I was unconscious for a while.
No, she thought fiercely. I’m here. I’ll find you.
She scrambled to her terminal, pulling up the station’s comms system. She didn’t have clearance for deep-sea ops, but she didn’t care. She patched into the mining network, her fingers flying as she sent an emergency ping: Rig collapse, 50 klicks offshore. Survivor trapped. Immediate rescue required.
Callen’s presence flickered again, weaker now. Hurry, Iris. Don’t know how long I’ve got.
Stay with me, she pleaded. Tell me something—anything.
His laugh was faint, strained. You’re bossy. Like that about you.
She choked on a sob, smiling through it. And you’re a pain in the ass. Stay alive so I can tell you that in person.
Deal.
The connection dimmed, but it didn’t break. She clung to it, a lifeline across the water, as she waited for the rescue team’s response. The ocean outside glowed brighter, as if the algae knew—as if it was trying to help.
Hours later, the comms crackled. “Rescue op successful. Found the rig. One survivor, critical but stable. Bringing him topside. Thanks for the report. You saved a life.”
She sagged against the wall, relief flooding her. Thank you, she thought, not sure if it was to the team or the algae or something else entirely.
Callen’s voice brushed her mind, soft and tired. See you soon, huh?
Yeah, she replied, a grin tugging at her lips. You owe me a real kiss.
He chuckled faintly. Can’t wait.
The line went quiet, but the thread between them held—thin, fragile, but alive. Iris stared out at the ocean, its glow a promise now, and waited for him to surface. But she never knew if he did. Later that day, the connection severed, and she never felt it again.
It broke her.
“Sorry, but we can’t comment on personnel issues” became her most hated statement. No one at Corvo-tech would talk to her about it or even confirm whether he had survived. Just the same repeated mantra.
Searching for him through databases was fruitless. They had not shared last names. Just one man named Callen in a sea of two hundred billion souls spread across a hundred planets.
The mining company's only response, despite her constant begging, was that they could not discuss it with non-family members. This response had been a gut punch. She and Callen had been intertwined in ways that married couples could never even understand. They had belonged to each other.
Iris was never with any other man after that, despite the passage of years. She tried. A date or two here or there, but never anything intimate. That spark. That connection, was just never there. How could it be? She had practically shared consciousness with one man, who could never be replaced, and the shocking thing was that she never even knew what he looked like, nor vice versa.
They had never physically been together. But they had loved. And now it was lost.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.