Captain’s Log - MSV Susanna - 21851204

A haggard-looking young woman is leaned over one of the consoles on a dark bridge, where she sits alone. Alessa. Her black hair is unwashed and greasy, and there’s dark circles under her eyes, which stare into the camera as she searches for the words to start the log.

“I… don’t know what to do.”

Silence as she sucks in her lips, gaze flicking to the side, to darkness out of view.

“It was stupid. To think we could just… keep going. Keep living. After something like that?”

A shake of her head, hands coming up to support her chin on her knuckles.

“Just… go back to hauling cargo? Like… like that matters? Like I didn’t…”

“There’s…” A strained, hollow laugh. “There’s too many ghosts on the ship. And when it’s empty they have so much room to…”

Another shake, and what tries to be another laugh, but it sounds far too desperate, too frightened. “I see Steve whenever I…”

Silence. Nothing but the rhythmic noises of the bridge instruments.

“We went back. To New Longhai. Or… well. To the place where… it should’ve been. It was just a crater. No town. No monsters. Wiped away. Like nothing ever happened. I…”

A frown, troubled. Thoughtful. “...I think I’d like to meet whoever did that.”

The Citadel was an amazing place. The very opposite of everything that Toren had ever known. No dark, thorny woods. No ever-raging storms and endless rain. No prefab-rattling lighting strikes. No dark, dank caves.

The Citadel was all metal and lights and massive towers rising into the sky, except there was no sky, just even more lights. The air was comfortable and dry. There were lots and lots of people here too, of all shapes and sizes! It was nice to not be the only one that was different.

Toren had missed his friends and his parents at first, but he had a new family now, and new friends too. Instead of Father Marchal’s lectures he was going to a place called “school” now, and learning all kinds of things. It was fun! Here on the Citadel you could be different things when you grew up, and he wanted to be a C-SEC officer! They protected people.

That’s why Toren was at the kitchen table, studying now, instead of playing. Or, at least he was trying to.

“It’s insignificant.” The annoyed voice of an older girl, a human. Somewhere over Toren’s shoulder. He tried to ignore it.

“Do you know what that means? Insignificant? It means that it doesn’t matter,” she lectured. It was hard to ignore her. The air in the kitchen was usually warm and cozy and filled with the smell of tasty foods, but now it felt cold and thick, and the girl’s voice was crawling up his back like long, spindly legs. He shivered and turned. No one there. There never was.

No sooner had he turned back to focus on his textbook than the girl spoke again. “Urgh, why do you keep pretending?”

“I’m not!” It wasn’t pretending. It wasn’t.

“Right. That’s why you don’t think about home. About how those people killed everyone. Killed Father Marchal. Killed our parents.” Words filled with the sounds of gunshots and the faces of creatures in the dark. Monsters. They bring darkness to the kitchen. Make the shadows bigger, deeper. Make them come closer.

“Shut up!” Toren shook his head and hopped off his chair, running off. Refusing to listen. He went to his room, sat by the bed, curled up. He wanted to be alone. It never worked.

“And why you never think about how none of this matters. It’s all going away. You know that. Stop being stupid.” Nasty anger in her voice, but something else too. A plea to listen.

He looked up, mandibles fluttering with complicated emotions. Fear, but… more. Something deep in his gizzard. This room was darker too now, as if the shadows had followed from the kitchen. He could see her. That was new. She was standing in the corner. A human girl in a mud-stained blue dress, her dark blonde hair long and tangled, still wet with the rains of their home. Evelina.

“It’s okay, Toren. We won’t go away. We’ll be forever. You know that. You just have to stop pretending.”