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A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
-Stephen Crane
*
Something was wrong.
Gaps in my memory weren’t novel, but there was a dissociation happening that felt outside of myself. An echo of a feeling that warned of…damage.
Without any idea of what was happening, my senses couldn’t catch up. I felt slow, sludgelike- everything was muffled. The only thing I could really feel was a deep and uncomfortable pressure.
That…was bad. I was in space.
But- it wasn’t from my air. The pressure was brutally physical, holding me in place and squeezing. Without sense, I had the sudden image of an enormous, cosmic creature that had stopped to stand directly on top of me. It was leaning all of its immense weight across my entire body, mercilessly pressing down, harder and harder.
I could barely inhale. How- how could I fight this?
Everything was dark, dull flashes. Something was burning that I should have been more concerned about; pungent chemicals hazing my nose and throat-
But the pressure-
If I was capable of making any sound, I couldn’t hear myself. Worse, I didn’t seem to be able to move.
What was happening?
As if it had been summoned, the unseen space creature let out a harrowing groan. The eruption of sound was all around me, shattering the illusion and sharpening my awareness of where I actually was- which was currently helpless and pinned to a hull. Then just like that, my entire body was suddenly dragged about an inch down and scraped across an entirely unforgiving surface.
My god did it hurt. I heard myself cry out- and I was gasping in great lungs-fulls of air until the pressure hiked and choked me off again. The spikes of pain became constant and white-hot, but succeeded in clearing enough of the brain fog that I could hear the alarm of-
Of my ship. It was the Mary’s alarm-
-and I realized just how screwed I was.
No no no no no no- how-?
Astrophage. Adrian. Rest in her orbit. Life.
Predator. Fishing. Too low. Oh god- It’s all falling-
We were falling. I remembered the hull breach. The force of ejecting the first, swiftly degrading fuel bay had thrown me and my chair across the room like I was strapped to a prehistoric bull. Then the second-
I didn’t remember the second.
Spatial awareness suddenly kicked in of what had happened to me, what was happening, and I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it.
I was still in the chair.
I was trapped.
The terror in that realization incited immediate panic and an attempt to move. I could only get a single hand up to slap uselessly on the busted monitors next to my head, but there was nowhere else to go, nothing to fight.
My body had been slammed between two large pieces of machinery, in a tube that was free spinning in the vacuum of space.
Even on the brink, I could do the math.
Nothing would stop our acceleration. The spin was increasing the weight of the chair that pinned me down, and would continue to do so, without counterbalance, unless the ship released the centrifuge.
The centrifuge. A manual release.
The hull groaned against me; a monster at sea. It shook my skin and bones like I was a part of it- because I soon would be. Or I already was. I couldn’t move.
Someone…someone please- I couldn’t move.
Everything was red red red and I couldn’t see very far. I made a weak attempt with my free hand to shove back on Mary’s hull, but it was matchsticks against an avalanche.
The pressure increased and my vision tunneled.
‘This is crazy’
Yes. It was.
Wait- who? I thought I heard-
A sudden spasm jolted down my left side and I screamed. Pain brought brief lucidity, but trapped nerves made it torture. I ground my teeth together, grasping at anything my fingers could reach but it all shifted around me again, and for a moment, it felt like I was falling.
“No!” I heard. A louder, more desperate plea. “I don’t- please-“
What?
The darkness receded slightly, but I was pressed so tight I could barely breathe.
That hadn’t been me.
I cracked bleary eyes open, but nothing had changed. I was still pinned, still trapped. Had I heard-?
My eyes darted around the small space frantically, trying to blink out the furious red, and that was when I saw how close I was to the centrifuge release.
Maybe- If- if I could just-
I started to slide my hand across the console. It felt so heavy I nearly gave up, but halfway to the release, something in my chest suddenly cracked.
Everything around me went silent for a long moment where I thought I was toast, before it all rushed back in.
I'd never felt anything like it, my mouth gaping open like a dying fish. A part of me had gone painfully numb, and I didn’t want to think about why, but what could I do?
I- what could I do?
The release. It was right there. I could- I just- I just had to-
I groaned as I reached my arm out further, nearly passing out as I fixated on that single point. This one thing. I’d failed at everything else, but I could do this one- stupid, thing-
‘Some of us are failures!’
“Let me go- Please!”
I gasped at the sound, choking on what I hoped was just spit. I hadn’t- who’d-
Wait-
With a jolt I realized that there was a second hand in front of me. Someone else was reaching toward the same switch- their fingers straining toward mine.
What?
I followed the fingers with my eyes and found a whole other human being attached to them. The ship was shaking so hard beneath my head that it was making my eyes focus in and out, but I wasn't hallucinating, there was another person in the ship.
No, not another person, another me. I was looking at myself.
It was gruesome. The other me had bloody, fingers flexed out in my direction, straining toward the switch. It was like a mirror image. He was brutally smashed into a second command chair and the both of us were pinned to the hull on opposite sides of the centrifuge release.
I cowed at the sight- my hand flinching back, but the other man did not. In fact, seeing me seemed to make his situation worse.
It wasn’t a mirror.
His desperation for what we were equally out of reach appeared to supersede mine. Blood was dripping heavily from his fingertips, and he was fighting much harder to be free. It wasn’t working. Every yank was costing him, and as the pressure increased, I stared numbly as the man’s struggles were slowly ripping him apart. He looked manic.
“Please don’t-“ He begged, and I recognized the words I’d heard before. He was sobbing, speaking in my terrified voice, rough as sandpaper, and for a frightened moment I thought he was speaking to me.
“I-I can’t do this- let me go-“
But no- somehow I knew that whoever he was pleading with, they were long gone.
The ship shuddered noisily like it was threatening to shake apart. The pressure was inching toward the endgame, and my copy squeezed his eyes shut when dark lines of red began to seep across the monitors. It looked like rivers flowing across a map.
Was my head bleeding like that?
“D-don’t do it-“
I couldn’t respond to him. Don’t do what? What was he seeing?
Wait…where was Rocky?
Oh my god- Rocky. Where was Rocky!?
How did I forget-
A sharp pain spasmed in my chest right before I saw my twin go deathly pale. He coughed blood, and I didn’t, splattering the console with what looked like little red sparkling bits of light.
No, like red bits of astrophage.
“Agh!” He choked out, gagging and sputtering. “Let me go- l’m not brave! Don’t do this!”
My eyes spilled over. No one would be saving him.
“I wanna go home. Let me go home!”
The groan of the ship had begun to sound more like a wounded monster than an angry one, and I realized I couldn’t hear the alarm anymore.
“I don’t wanna die-“ he sobbed. “I- I don’t-“
I watched his hand drop, never once touching the release, and he stared at me with deadened, bloodshot eyes. The other command chair was pressing so much harder on him than mine was. Far more than a human body was capable of withstanding.
No no no no
I tried to look away- I didn’t want to see this, but I was pinned in place. The best I could do was close my eyes.
When the begging stopped, there was a whine of metal sliding on metal- and the gruesome sounds of cracking and crunching sticks.
It lasted until the chair hit the wall.
I was shaking everywhere, and I didn’t want to open my eyes, but Rocky- I- I had to know.
Then the horror in front of me was all I could see.
My chest was heaving. Did I just watch myself die? Was that bloody mess actually me? It couldn’t have been real, I must have been hallucinating. I tried to blink it away, but it wasn’t disappearing, it was still there.
Help- someone help.
“Ro-“ I tried, my throat on fire, my air gone. “Rock-“
Before I got any further, the starboard side of Mary’s hull was suddenly ripped clean away, exposing the interior to the vacuum of space.
The sound was loud and terrifying, but hadn’t moved me in the slightest. I didn’t understand how I could see and hear, but not feel it, until I realized with dawning horror as to why.
The Xenonite barrier; it was on the other side.
Also the last place I had seen Rocky, unconscious and healing. It’s why I hadn’t seen or heard him. Rocky was in danger and I couldn’t help him.
‘N-no-‘ I groaned, trying to move my arm again, but it was much too heavy. The pressure was terrible and the hole was growing. Adrian was spinning in and out of sight as everything in the ammonia atmosphere was being sucked away.
“W-wai-no!” I panicked, desperate enough that I was ripping pieces off of myself as I strained toward the release. I heard the Xenonite start to crack, holes forming that strengthened the vacuum on my side and sent things flying toward it. Pieces of the lab, the predator catcher, everything we’d worked on. I watched helplessly as it all disappeared. One hand was all I had to try and pull myself free.
Or it was, until something pierced straight through the chair and into my torso, nailing me solidly in place. I wasn’t going anywhere.
An attempt at a scream turned into nothing more than a shudder.
‘This captain is going down with his ship.’ I thought, wanting it to end.
From one blink to the next, the Xenonite barrier had shattered.
In the dim light that was left, I could see where it had once been, and where I’d helped to build it. Everything ripped out. All I could do was stare mutely, my face cold, my eyes lifeless and bloodshot.
Rocky was gone.
*
Consciousness, when it came, did not come easy.
The moment I reached out, and my hands hit a solid surface, I was fighting back.
Not quite yet awake, I shoved myself backwards and felt my heart leap into my throat as I hit another wall. I twisted and turned like an inelegant lizard, slapping my hands, hitting my elbows and banging my shoulders as I struggled to find somewhere, anywhere, that wasn’t blocking me in.
I was trapped.
In a panic I started punching and kicking my way to freedom, attacking the unforgiving surfaces in an effort to get free. I had to get out. There wasn’t enough air, not enough space. Get me out get out get out!
My forehead suddenly hit something hard enough that it knocked me backwards, but not even that could stop me. My animal brain had me ducking below whatever I’d banged into and outright throwing myself out any open direction I could find if it meant freedom.
I didn’t realize how much I was yelling until I was falling.
My entire body suddenly tumbled, knees over neck, until I hit the floor with a loud shout. I landed hard, starfishing on my backside with all the air whooshing out of me. Finally still, I was blinking furiously at the sudden wash of light.
“Ooof. W-wha- who?”
I was heaving, staring up in shock until realization kicked in that I wasn’t trapped. Nothing was pinning or holding me down. All limbs accounted for.
I was on the ship. The out of focus interior of the Hail Mary wasn’t red and there was no alarm. Everything was quiet but me.
…too quiet.
“Rocky!”
I scrambled at the ground, missing it a few times and feeling lightheaded in my absolute relief to be there.
“Where’s-“ My heart was racing, and I had my glasses in my hands before I realized I’d grabbed them. They were thrown on my face before I crawled toward the barrier in two quick stumbles. My hands hit the warmth of Xenonite while I scanned behind it with desperate eyes.
“Rocky? Rocky!?”
I nearly smashed my nose in, but thankfully the area where Rocky was situated had been curved inward. I folded right in, getting as close as I could, and reassuring myself with the proximity since I couldn’t with touch. I had to know that everything I’d just seen had been a lie.
And he was there, he hadn’t moved.
“Oh thank god. Rocky-”
Rocky was fine- or at least, as fine as he had been. He was right where I’d left him.
I heaved air in and out noisily- my entire body caving with relief with shaking arms wrapping around myself. The release of adrenaline had left me shivering.
I let myself continue to breathe quietly for a few moments in an attempt to calm down. The memories of the nightmare were fading, but the reason I’d had it in the first place was still there. The panic for the situation hadn’t been an illusion.
‘Good morning, Dr. Grace.’
I flinched as Mary chimed at me, but she at least succeeded in shaking me a bit more awake.
I glanced over my shoulder at where I’d been.
Blankets were scattered out of the Xenonite cubby that Rocky had forged for me so he could watch me sleep. It was directly adjacent to where he worked. I’d never considered it to be a tight space, nor was it all that body encompassing, but for someone who was waking up after being pinned to a hull-
I didn’t think I’d be sleeping there again.
My body was aching, and when I looked down, there were red marks all over my arms that were likely to bruise. My legs probably looked just as bad. I swiped the sweat off my forehead and checked my hand to make sure it wasn’t blood.
The dream had felt real, but in retrospect, everything about it had been off. As dreams were.
Of course things hadn’t happened that way, of course it wasn’t real- but the chemicals in my body were very real. There was nothing I could do but weather through them.
I really thought I’d still been trapped there.
And thanks to the gaps in my memory, my brain was just going to make it worse. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten out of the chair. I didn’t have the leverage to do it myself and I don’t think I ever succeeded with the centrifuge release.
When I woke up in the med bay, I was in pretty bad shape, but the evidence of Rocky having been in my oxygenated atmosphere was indisputable. He’d risked his life for me.
I looked at Rocky, and felt such a pang of sadness. An overwhelming sense of loss.
I didn’t want to do this alone. Whatever relief I’d felt seeing my best friend right where I’d left him drained slowly away. I didn’t even know if he was alive.
After Rocky showed up, I didn’t have to do things alone anymore. I didn’t have to carry the fate of billions, with my swiss cheese memory, on my own. By coming together, we essentially doubled our burdens. The heavy obligation of the fate of one planet rising to two, but somehow, sharing the burden had divided the weight evenly in a way that felt manageable. Like we might actually be able to pull this off.
That was Rocky. He’d done that for me without asking, without needing to be asked.
If he was- If he-
How was I supposed to do this without him?
“Hey pal. I’m right here, okay?” I swallowed hard, putting my hand on the glass and leaning against it. “Sorry about the yelling, but uh- human brains can turn on us sometimes. Especially when we’re uh- hurt or um- sad.” I wiped at one eye with my shoulder and felt the gauze pad pull above my left temple.
“Also after- after really awful things happen.” I sniffed, my fingers drumming absently for a moment as my eyes went distant. I shook it off and cleared my throat.
“So, rest up- okay? Hibernate for your health or, uh- whatever you gotta do, but- don’t go anywhere, yeah? Cause neither will I.”
I stared for a few more moments, letting my words wash back at me and trying not to feel like an idiot. It didn’t matter, it was just the two of us.
I stood on wobbly legs and walked the few steps back toward the cubby where all my favorite pillows and blankets were, pulling them from the indent (fairly sure they wouldn’t be going back in).
It was crazy how fast things could change. How something you’d once found comforting could turn into a nightmare.
Eridians didn’t have nightmares, but I knew Rocky had anxiety, I’d seen it, and the two things went hand in hand. Rocky knew how to imagine the worst possible outcome, heck, he’d lived through some pretty awful trauma and was likely more haunted than I was. I wouldn’t say he was lucky he didn't dream, different biology and all, but their sleep cycles were something completely out of their control. It wouldn’t be all that much of a stretch to explain to him that my brain was serving my trauma to me in my sleep and there was nothing I could do about it.
I think he was gonna understand.
Gosh- weren’t we a fun pair?
I sank back down to the closest part of the barrier I could get to Rocky, wrapping my blanket around my shoulders and tilting sideways. I don’t think I noticed when the unique warmth had become comfortable to me, but I was grateful for that. I lifted my bandaged hand to follow the natural cracks and crevices I could reach, idly tracing patterns before I stopped and tapped a single finger- three times. It was muffled and soft, but familiar. A sound like no other.
When Rocky woke up- when he did- I was going to make sure he knew he could talk to me. He might not have nightmares like a human, but he wasn’t going to walk away from Adrian unscarred. Neither of us were.
When he woke up, if he wanted to talk about what we’d just been through, or anything for that matter, I was going to be there.
We didn’t have to do this alone.
*~*