Christian Oesterling - Blank Space - Into the Depths of the Universe

After this, they all made their way to the dining hall and around that once friendly circular table sat seven drained, wearied, almost zombie-like men and women, eating their slop and sludge with little appetite. They had had almighty scares, had their home ripped apart without warning, and wished only to return to the safety of their homes in Celestria. Those that had them thought of their families, Leon and Prissy of their significant others, Jenny of her mother who had been diagnosed with a virus that was considered life-threatening could the funds not be raised in time, and how she would come back empty-handed, destroyed and guilt-stricken. Oliver’s mind drifted to his sister, suffering from clinical depression after her husband was smitten to the cold metal floor of the planet by a serial killer a few years earlier. It was indeed a depressed, dreary time at the table that dine together, and conversation for the first time since the mission began was scarce. When it did arise, there was little cheer or laughter between them, even when Holden began to bring out his usual sarcastic wit. Even though it was not their fault, all of them felt as if they had failed. They left the table in dribs and drabs, dragging their feet to their bunks.

‘Night Leon,’ Prissy bade him as they went into their rooms.

‘Night. Who’s on the first watch?’

‘Yuki I think.’

‘We’ll tell her to be extra careful, and Oliver and I are the very first people she should call for if anything should arise.’ Nightingale’s captain spoke with no enthusiasm, indeed he was a dejected wreck of a man.

‘I’ll tell her on the Halo-Core. Night,’ Prissy replied, and entered her room. She crashed onto the bed, exhausted, and fell asleep almost instantly. Messaging Yuki had never been even thought of before she entered the sandman’s lair.

Onboard Nightingale, Yuki walked the corridors and the halls, the sole human still awake on a damned vessel, powering to safety through the blank space.

The ship slumbered, speeding through the darkness towards the Celestrian blue light that the Empire offered them. The ship, though in slumber, autopilot towards their destination engaged, still groaned and creaked, hissing and rumbling on its journey, as if snoring. It breathed and contracted, and though most things slept, Yuki wandered through the ship, on edge. She jumped at every little noise that Nightingale made in its mechanical movements, a slight paranoia about her person.

She had never been the most secure of people, and after her drunken uncle came home that one time, she was constantly on a slight edge. It was surprising to hear that she had taken to Duma so much. He wasn’t the most masculine of people, he wasn’t the most athletic. He wasn’t even the most vocal, Holden definitely took that trophy home with prizes left to trade for money to polish said trophy with. It was Duma’s quiet, attentive and determined work-ethic. He never stopped researching, learning, discovering. He was always in the mindset that he was on the edge of something incredible.

Her uncle, on the other hand, had not been like him. He was gruff, well built and had a habit of collecting empty bottles in the worst kind of way. Back in their apartment in Region 29, overlooking the street to the school that she would stroll down in the deep-blue mornings, she was inside, trying to get to sleep after a particularly arduous day at her classes. She had been picked out in front of Nill Servis, the good-looking boy in the class, as having his name in a love-heart in her Valen-Core, a smaller Halo-Core. The class had turned on her like Hienyas, pointing, laughing and jeering. She had flushed the deepest red she thought she could ever turn, like the blood in her cheeks had bled through her skin and was flooding over the surface of her face. She had fled the room, clutching her belongings, and locked herself in one of the cubicles in the bathroom. She hadn’t exited until the day ended, despite constant pleading from her friends, and eventually teachers, and she left with her head low, avoiding all eye contact. She hadn’t done much that evening, ate very little, and tried to sleep as much as she could, although that had been a task easier said than performed.

The door had been opened, crashing against the wall, and the looming shape of her drunken uncle had staggered inside the home. He had bellowed, bellowed with all his might, as a wild animal might, to ward off the threat of predators. Little Yuki, only eleven years old, had crept out of her room, peering into the living room. Her mother and the beast were engaged in an argument, or rather he was shouting at her and Yuki’s mother was trying to defend herself, hysterical now. Yuki had seen the man she no longer recognized as of her own family reach over and grab the woman’s wrist. He had waited for a second, shouting at him in drunken, hazy fury, and flung her against the wall with all his might. She cried out as she hit the wall, and this enraged him even more. Blow after blow came down, raining down like lightning strikes, and Yuki clamped her hands over her mouth to try and stifle the cries and gasps. When she had glimpsed blood start to pour from her mother, her hands betrayed her.

Both females were admitted to the Region 29 General Hospital half an hour later. The uncle, a member of the Celestrian parliament, was never charged. He left the household before Yuki and her mother returned, and although he was never seen again, that primal fear of the man with the beer bottle always lingered with the biologist.

She wandered through the metal tunnels that laced the ship, crosshatching like a labyrinth. She checked her Halo-Core; saw that there were still a few hours to kill. She decided to try and use the observation room, instead of walking aimlessly throughout the ship. She could just scan her eyes over the screens every now and then and play some chess on her Halo-Core or something. Chess apparently hadn’t had its rules changed in millennia, and the history of it appealed to Yuki. She started to make her way over there, the only sounds she heard were the sound of her footfalls on the grating, and she clearly heard her own breathing, slightly exasperated, as she ascended the ladder from the lower hatches.

She seated herself down in the observation room, eyes slightly dazzled by the array of screens. There was so much information before her; it was a wonder how anyone on the design team thought that they were going to be able to keep track of it all. Yuki wondered if she had something remote-controlled, if she could guide it throughout the entire ship, the coverage was that good. Looking over it all, it was scary how lifeless the entire view before he was. There was no movement, not even the flickering of a Halo-Core left on by the side. It was eerie, peculiar and somewhat off-putting to Yuki, and so she decided to turn her attention away from it. Chess was what she wanted, and chess was what she would do.

The game progressed, Yuki straining to conceive of all the possibilities and alternatives she could use. Her mind flitted, wandered, walking across the board like she was roaming the ship. Occasionally she would flick her eyes up, checking on the cameras. There never was anything, of course, just the lull of the ship on its course towards civilization once again. Even strands of hull had stop floating off into space now from where the explosion had occurred. Before now it had been noted that often a shard of the hull would detach from the ship and shoot out into the black. Debris from the incident, though what actually caused it, they had never rightly discovered.

Yuki thought about it, often it crossed her mind during the course of her games against the A.I of her Halo-Core. She didn’t want to believe that it was Nightingale malfunctioning any more than she liked to believe that Holden was actually a serial killer; which she didn’t think anyway. It was too distressing and would make her nervous about any further voyages out into the distant nothingness, that void of silence inside which not even stars burned in their constant glory. However, the alternative to it was far worse.