Erica’s eyes snapped open, and she gripped the armrests of her seat. Her heart was pounding as if it were trying to escape her chest. For a moment, she was disoriented, remnants of a horrifying dream echoing in her mind.
Her breath came in shallow gasps as she blinked away the heaviness of sleep. Light spilled into the passenger cabin of the Horizon, and she squinted against its brightness. Her head felt foggy, as though she were floating in that space between dreaming and waking.
She wondered if something was wrong. Her pulse was still racing as if she had been in a fight for her life just moments before.
“It’s about time,” Tiffany Borronick’s familiar voice cut through her confusion. “You’re going to miss the view if you don’t get a move on. We’re about to reach Lagrange Point 2! We should be able to see both the Earth and the Moon as soon as we turn around.”
Erica let out a shaky breath, rubbing her tired eyes. “Um, yeah… yeah, I’m fine.” She tried to shake off the strange unease clinging to her. It was just a dream. That was all it was—the kind of dream that left a bad taste in her mouth, nothing more.
Tiffany tilted her head, concern flickering across her face. “You looked like you were having one hell of a nightmare. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Erica managed a half-smile. “Just… dream stuff, I guess. Probably all the excitement today.”
A flight attendant in a crisp navy uniform passed by, offering a gentle smile. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be arriving at Earth’s Lagrange Point 2 in about ten minutes. I’ll be coming through the cabin shortly to collect any trash. Once we reach the telescope, you will need to take your seats and fasten your safety harnesses before we link up. The captain anticipates a smooth link-up, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.”
While glancing around the cabin to check on the passengers, her gaze fell on Erica. She noticed the half-rumpled jumpsuit and the pallor of her skin. Concern flickered across her features. “Ms. May, are you feeling all right? You look a bit pale. If you need anything—water, a cool towel—please let me or another attendant know. We want everyone to be comfortable before the view.”
Erica offered a shaky smile. “I’m… fine. Just a bad dream.”
The attendant bent down, lowering her voice so only Erica could hear. “All right. If you start to feel sick, there’s a small bag in the seatback pocket right in front of you. Don’t hesitate to press the call button if you need help, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” Erica murmured.
Giving Erica an encouraging nod, the attendant continued down the aisle, greeting other passengers and occasionally pausing to answer questions. Despite her calm, practiced demeanor, she cast one last look over her shoulder at Erica before moving on.
The Horizon’s cabin hummed around them, the steady rhythm of the ship’s systems almost soothing. The sterile, controlled environment of modern space travel had a way of making everything feel surreal. Everything was supposed to be safe. Familiar. Yet the gnawing sensation in Erica’s gut wouldn’t leave.
“You’ll feel better once we turn around,” Tiffany said, turning toward the large viewport where several passengers were already gathered, their faces lit by the light of the distant Sun. “You can’t miss this. It’s going to be beautiful.”
Erica hit the seat adjustment and stretched with a yawn, the back of her chair rising. Her body still felt heavy, her muscles oddly sore. The stiffness lingered, as if she had spent the day running marathons instead of touring Moon Base 1.
She remembered walking through the labyrinthine hallways of the moon base, its steel corridors reflecting humanity’s technological brilliance. The elevators had been down—typical—but the long walk shouldn’t have left her this exhausted. The reduced gravity should have made things easier, yet she recalled how out of breath she had been.
That dream still lingered at the back of her mind, pulling her thoughts toward something dark and foreboding.
Erica pulled up the holographic map on the screen in front of her. They were almost at Lagrange Point 2, right on schedule. Soon they would turn back toward Earth and wrap up their trip. The calm predictability of it all should have eased her nerves.
“Ooh, look!” Tiffany’s voice broke her reverie. “There’s the old Webb telescope!”
Erica blinked, trying to shake the strange sense of déjà vu creeping over her. She looked up at the viewport where the rest of the passengers had gathered. Sunlight shimmered off their excited faces as they stared out at the endless black beyond.
A chill in her gut deepened, and for a split second, the scene in front of her felt… off. It was the kind of feeling where everything looked normal, but something wasn’t right. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
Eric Douvua’s snores rumbled from the seat behind her, a constant, reassuring sound that filled the cabin with a strange sort of life. She glanced back at Tiffany, whose dark hair floated in a halo around her head, lit by the distant glow of the Sun.
“What are you waiting for, Erica?” Tiffany’s voice was light, playful. “You’re going to miss it!”
The distant hum of the ship filled Erica’s ears, but beneath it, a strange buzzing noise grew louder, more insistent. Her head felt heavy; her heart thudded painfully in her chest. She reached toward her seat harness, fingers fumbling for the buckle, but—
Then the light outside the window flickered briefly.
For a heartbeat, everything seemed to freeze.
Her hand halted on the harness as her breath caught in her throat.
In that instant, the ship shook violently, throwing her forward and then slamming her back against her seat. The sound was deafening—the groan and shriek of metal tearing apart. The world outside the window blurred, and a flash of blinding light burst through the cabin, scorching her vision.
Erica blinked, her eyes struggling to adjust—but the world around her tilted, the gentle hum of the ship’s systems suddenly gone.
One second, Tiffany had been smiling beside her. The next, her face was obscured by a fine red spray as a thin shard of metal sliced through her neck.
The window shattered into a thousand pieces. And for a moment, everything hung in stark clarity: shards of glass sparkling like stars, mixed with red blobs of blood that floated in the zero gravity just before they were sucked into the black void of space. Erica gasped, her chest heaving, but no air came. She clawed at her throat, panic spiking as her lungs burned, but the vacuum of space had stolen everything.
Erica’s fingers scrambled at the harness release, hoping to relieve the pressure building in her chest, but her movements felt slow and heavy—far too slow. She barely had time to process what was happening before the viewport next to her shattered.
The sharp pain in her head returned, a pounding throb as her numb body slammed into the back of her chair. She reached out, but her hands were too sluggish, useless in the weightless horror of it all.
Her last conscious thought was a scream trapped inside her mind, echoing in the silence of the chaos around her.
Erica jolted awake, gasping for air, her heart pounding violently in her chest. Her eyes darted around the room, desperately searching the pitch-black, her mind scrambling to cling to any coherent thought. “What the hell is happening?”
Her pulse raced as images from the dream—no, the nightmare—flashed through her head: the Horizon, the blood, the screams, death… Her breath came out in short, stuttering pants as she gripped the edges of the bed, trying to steady herself.
She took another breath, then another, each one ragged, as though her lungs couldn’t quite find the air they needed.
“I’m not on Horizon One… I… Everyone… died.”
The sense of disorientation was overwhelming. The air smelled wrong—too dry, too stale.
Erica’s hands fumbled blindly at her side, searching for her nightstand, for something familiar.
Panic continued to claw at her chest, but the more she searched, the more it felt like she was grasping at nothing.
“This… this isn’t right,” she whispered, trying to make sense of her surroundings. She blinked rapidly, tears pricking her eyes, but it was still so dark she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face.
The ship… the explosion… Tiffany… The weird floating eyeball… The memories swirled together, a chaotic mess in her mind.
Her heart rate spiked again. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing the heel of her hand against them, trying to force the images away.
“No, no, it had to be a dream.”
“I’m fine. I’m fine.” She squeezed her eyes shut, begging for it all to stop.
Silence.
“Hello?” Her voice came out weak, shaky. She tried again, louder this time. “Hello?! Is anyone there?”
Silence.
Memories returned slowly piecing themself together as she recognized the bed beneath her. Wide-eyed, she scanned the room for the eye and arms while she slowly slipped off the side of the bed. Her hand pulled the sheet with her to cover herself, recalling her lack of clothing from before.
She paused when she stepped on something soft and slightly squishy. Looking down, she draped the sheet across her shoulders. Her hand brushed her skin—except it wasn’t skin. She felt a thick, soft material, not unlike a wetsuit, only softer. She glanced down again and rolled her eyes when she saw nothing but darkness.
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Her racing heart gradually calmed as she managed to get her thoughts under control.
Running her hands along her arms, she fingered the material covering the backs of her hands.
She pinched it and pulled it away from her skin, then let go. The fabric returned to its original shape. For such a thick garment, she could barely tell she was wearing anything, and despite its snug fit, it didn’t irritate her skin.
Erica looked around the dark room before taking another step.
The same soft, squishing sensation met her feet as her eyes tried to scan for the arms and the eye.
“Hey Eyeball, where are you?”
She frowned into the darkness when no other sound reached her ears. “Could someone at least turn on the lights in here? I can’t see anything.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a small square box appeared to the left of her peripheral vision. When she turned her head to look at it, the box moved with her, staying in the corner of her sight.
She tried turning quickly, thinking it was the eyeball playing tricks on her. “Stop frickin’ moving!”
She glared at the box in the corner of her eye and waved her hand at it. When the shadow of her hand didn’t pass in front of the box, she paused, closing her eyes momentarily.
Sure enough, it was still there. It looked like she was seeing a HUD screen, except the “screen” was inside her eye. As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she straightened her cheeks burning as she slid her gaze left, and blinked.
Her head snapped back in surprise as the box suddenly grew larger, displaying the words
Activate overhead lighting? Yes. No.
“Yes!”
Her gaze settled on the word as it flashed. The box vanished, and she was blinded yet again when light flooded the room, hitting her dark-adjusted eyes. Her arms flew up to cover her face.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Erica slowly lowered her arms and reopened her eyes as they adjusted to the now-bright room. It looked vaguely like a kitchen—or was it an office with tables?
Then again, everything turned into a gray blur a foot or two away. Erica sighed and rubbed her eyes.
The size of the room felt deceptive. The air felt closer than it should in such a large space, and it didn’t carry sound the way she expected.
She turned around and jumped back with a shriek when she spotted the eye from before resting in a notch in the wall. The only difference was that it sat completely still, a bronze shutter covering the orb.
Her hand clutched her chest as her heart threatened to leap from her rib cage. “Fraggin’ oversized beach ball.”
Erica glared and turned away from the eyeball. She glanced at the space in front of her, remembering how last time she’d only taken a few steps before running into a wall. Narrowing her eyes, she started forward. Four steps later, she collided with something solid.
“Gargh!” Her hands flew up to cover her now-sore nose and forehead as she stumbled back, tears streaming from her watering eyes. “Why is it always the face?!”
She took deep and slow breaths trying to push the pain back once it faded to a bearable level she winced and blinked her eyes open. She reached out, then inched forward until her palm rested flat on whatever surface she had walked into. That explained why she didn’t recall crossing the entire room. But hadn't it been electrified before?
Whatever it was made of felt hard, smooth, and cool like glass. She slid her hand upward as far as she could reach, yet found no edge. Running her hand along the barrier, she traced it in a half-circle about ten feet in diameter. At its center sat the bed, its head against the back wall, with eight tentacle-like arms dangling from the ceiling.
Erica shuddered at the memory of those arms grabbing her.
She frowned when she arrived back where she had started. Taking a step back, she crossed her arms and glared at the invisible wall. Then she turned and glared even harder at the eyeball thing in its socket. Stepping over, she slapped her hand against the shutter-like cover.
“Hey, you need to wake up and tell me how to get out. I can’t find the door in this wall. I want out of this room… thing.”
When it didn’t respond, she slammed her fist against it in frustration, knocking the frame crooked. She marched up to the wall, lifted a black-clad foot, and kicked with everything she had. She only succeeded in bruising her heel.
“Let me out of here!”
Suddenly, another box of light appeared at the left edge of her vision. Erica stopped, looked left, and blinked.
The box reappeared in front of her, slightly transparent with the words:
Deactivate decontamination field.? Yes. No.
She stared at “Yes” and blinked again. The sign flashed
Erica yelped, jumping back as the gentle blue box flared brilliant red and yellow. The text changed:
Danger. Outside atmosphere is insufficient for organic life. Deactivate the Decontamination field? Yes. No.
“No!” she shouted. Fear knotted in her stomach. The word No
Pressurize med lab before deactivating Decontamination Vessel. Yes. No.
She braced herself against the wall, sighing in relief. “Yes.”
She watched as yes
Medlab atmospheric gas and pressure percentage.
She watched the numbers start at 0% and climb rapidly. In surprise, she saw the lab beyond the transparent wall erupt in a silent dust storm. Dust—previously invisible—swirled into the air before getting sucked into a vent on the far side of the lab.
Her side remained calm while the indicator box shifted from red to orange and then green.
When it hit 100%, it flashed, and a pale blue box appeared labeled:
Atmospheric content
The word HabitableNo Hazards detected. Deactivating Decontamination field. Stand by….
Erica watched in amazement as white lines of light raced from floor to ceiling in a maze-like pattern along the wall before disintegrating in a shower of sparks that left the scent of ozone in the air.
The stale air she had been breathing suddenly smelled fresh and clean. Erica inhaled deeply and, with hesitant steps, crossed the threshold where the wall had stood. The lab looked the same as it had before the field went down.
“Now what?”
Her ears twitched at a faint hiss from the other side of the lab. A line of green light appeared at her feet and started pulsing, leading her farther into the room. Erica followed it to a gap in the wall that formed a doorway opening into a dark hall. The light urged her to the right.
As she crossed the threshold, the ceiling lights brightened, illuminating an oddly organic-looking corridor stretching in both directions. The left side faded into a blurry haze after a few feet, and the right looked similar—except for the green line urging her to continue that way. Stepping forward, she turned right and followed the flashing guide.
The corridor stretched into the darkness, its metal walls scarred with deep gashes and blackened by old fire. Structural supports, once rigid, had buckled under unseen stress, leaving jagged edges where the framework had crumpled. Overhead, torn ceiling panels dangled, exposing a tangled mess of cables that occasionally sparked, casting brief, flickering light against the gloom.
Erica covered nose and mouth with her hand as the scent of burnt insulation and the stale bite of recycled oxygen burnt the back of her throat. Somewhere in the distance, the ship groaned—a deep, weary sound, like metal bones shifting under unseen weight, protesting the passage of time.
She felt as though she’d walked miles already. The emptiness gnawed at her, with no sound beyond her own footsteps and raspy breathing. The walls had a strange, seamless quality, almost organic rather than constructed.
Erica ran her hand along the surface, searching for seams or rivets, and found nothing. She paused to catch her breath, bracing herself against the wall while bent at the waist, gasping.
“Is the oxygen low?”
In the lower right corner of her vision, the atmospheric chart read Oxygen: 21.1%.“Ugh, just out of shape… What I wouldn’t give for a bottle of water and a cheeseburger.”
The pulsing green line, the only color in the hall, suddenly veered into the wall ahead. Erica paused, squinting for a doorway. Tentatively, she reached out and felt along the smooth surface. Just before her fingertips made contact, the wall slid away, revealing a small cylindrical room beyond.
She yelped, stumbling forward as the wall—now a door—sealed behind her. Her heart leaped into her throat, and she spun back toward it just as a new prompt filled her vision:
Please select your destination.
Clutching her chest, Erica glared at the ceiling. “A little warning would be nice!”
Another prompt appeared above the door:
Medical
Erica straightened with a sigh and scanned the list of destinations:
- Command and Control
- Habitat
- Observation
- Medical
- Core
- Engineering
- Docking
- Cargo Deck
- Habitat
She frowned, eyebrows knitted as she stared at the deck labeled Habitat.
“Don’t they mean quarters? And Command and Control… is that supposed to be the Bridge or cockpit?”
Her eyes widened as HabitatQuartersCommand and ControlMain Bridge
“What the…?” She shook her head. “I don’t have time for this.”
Refocusing on the prompt, she selected Main Bridge
“Good Lord. That’s not an elevator; it’s a freaking missile!”
She wiped the sweat from her face, exhaling sharply as she squinted down the corridor. The dim lighting did little to reveal what lay ahead, but the state of the passage was just as bad as the one she had left behind—walls scorched, metal warped, as if the ship itself was barely holding together.
“How on earth is this thing still holding an atmosphere?” she muttered, scanning the fractured bulkheads. “It looks ready to give up the ghost any minute.”
Her gaze followed the glowing green line, but she couldn’t tell if it truly ended or simply vanished into another unseen doorway. Her eyes ached from the strain. With a weary sigh, she rubbed them and pressed forward, trudging through the silent wreckage.
Eventually, the pulsing line came to a stop beside a pair of sliding doors. As she approached, glowing words flickered into existence, forming in the same holographic light she had seen before.
‘Main Bridge’
Erica lifted an eyebrow as she stepped up to the door. It hissed open, and she peeked inside.
“At least it’s not another elevator.”
She lifted an eyebrow again as she crossed into the room. “I feel like I have stepped onto a sci-fi movie set.”
The room was circular, and there was one large console in front with a blank screen taking up the entire wall behind it. Two other consoles stood on either side of the room, and two more flanked the entrance behind her. Various other screens covered the walls.
The only difference was a strange-looking pit with four chairs in front of a crescent-shaped table whose sloped surface was probably another console. All the screens and consoles were black, and the room lay dark and silent. The only light came from a thin strip along the circumference of the room. Near the front, to the left, was a single door that the pulsing green line directed her toward.
“I hope they have some food or water in there somewhere.”
Erica walked around the edge of the bridge to the door, which hissed open at her approach.
The room beyond was dark and just as still as the rest of the ship. As soon as she stepped inside, lights flickered on, and the door hissed shut behind her. It seemed to wrap around the outside of the bridge, divided into two main sections, with a third behind a closed door at the far end. Where she stood looked like an office, complete with a desk and two chairs. The desk’s surface was slightly sloped, similar to the table on the bridge. The other section contained a small couch and a coffee table.
Erica walked to the door at the back of the room and poked her head in as it slid open. Inside was a small, empty compartment. A familiar whirring sound came from her right.
“Ah! Avatar! You finally made it. I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to make it up here.”
Erica jumped back with a squawk when she spotted the familiar floating eyeball. “You!”
Her hand snapped out and grabbed the eyeball. Her thin nails slid along its smooth surface before latching onto the shutter and yanking it forward as it tried to back away.
“I told you I was going to rip out your power core when I saw you again.”
The eyeball reared back but couldn’t get far due to Erica's grip.
“That you did Avatar, But if you could wait a moment before taking me offline, I need to assist you in linking with the rest of the ship. We are running on minimum operation. And the core's containment field has been losing power due to major systems glitches and the singularities dome being down. If you don’t stabilize the systems, the core's containment field will fail and the core will destabilize.”
Erica yanked the eyeball closer and sneered at its reflective surface.
“Then you had better start figuring out how to send me back home then. Hadn’t you?”
The Steward’s metal casing vibrated slightly in her grip, its inner mechanisms adjusting. The shutters flickered, tightening like a pupil in bright light.
“I cannot comply.” The Steward stated, but for the first time, there was a faint hesitation in his voice. Not fear but something like… recalculation. “You will perish if I return you to the location I found you.”
Erica’s fingers dug into the orb’s metal casing, her knuckles going white. "You’re lying."
The Steward twitched in her grip, adjusting its floating position slightly. “I cannot lie. If I return you to the location where I found you, you will perish.”
Her breath came short and fast. "What do you mean? You pulled me off my ship. You can put me back."
"Negative." His bronze shutters flickered. "There is nothing to return you to."
The words sent a sharp jolt through her chest, but she forced herself to push past the rising panic. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
A pause. Then, the Steward replied, "Horizon one no longer exists."
Her pulse thundered in her ears. "No, that's— No. That’s not possible. It was . Horizon One was—"
"Horizon One no longer exists."
She shook her head. "You’re wrong. We were.."
"According to historical records, the vessel designated , along with its crew and passengers, was declared lost in the year 2278."
Erica’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Records indicate that its disappearance was followed by extensive search efforts. No trace was found." The eye bobbed slightly, adjusting. "The incident was officially classified as a catastrophic mission failure."
A cold sweat prickled at the back of her neck. "No. No, we—we were supposed to return. The mission wasn’t over yet."
"Historical records disagree."
Erica’s fingers slackened around the orb, her grip faltering.
"Furthermore," the Steward continued, "The fall of most Earth-based governments occurred approximately forty years after Horizon One's disappearance. Your United States of America ceased to exist shortly thereafter."
She barely heard him. The room felt too small, the air too thin.
Forty years.
Forty years after they vanished… Earth .
Her stomach lurched, her body swaying on unsteady feet.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That can’t be right. I was just there. I—” Her breath hitched. “My mom… my dad… my friends…”
A sharp breath. A burning in her throat. She forced herself to swallow, to blink, to push the rising panic down. But it wouldn’t go away. It coiled deep inside her chest, pressing against her ribs, suffocating.
“You're lying.” Her voice was hoarse, but she hardened it, locking her jaw. “The U.S. is one of the strongest countries in the world. The only way someone could have defeated the U.S. is by internal sabotage or nuclear war.”
The Steward shifted slightly, his shutters narrowing. “Quite true. As a matter of fact…”
“Stop,” Erica snapped, suddenly aware of how badly her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists. “Just… stop. Tell me what happened.”
A pause. Then, in a precise, measured tone, the Steward answered.
“A combination of internal sabotage and foreign attacks weakened your country's military infrastructure. A mentally unstable dictator, feeling threatened by your president, acquired the launch codes to intercontinental ballistic missiles from what was once China and Iran. The leaders of those nations attempted to prevent the launch but failed. The U.S. did not intercept the missiles in time.
“The first detonation killed four million, including your country's president.”
Erica’s breath caught. Four … in a single instant.
“A coup removed the vice president and seized control of the government. In retaliation, the new administration launched its own nuclear ICBMs. Other world powers followed.”
“That’s wrong. It has to be.”
But the Steward continued, his voice cold and unrelenting, recounting the fall of her world as though it were another line in a history textbook.
Her arms wrapped around herself as if she could hold herself together, but it didn’t stop the trembling She tried to picture them—her mother’s warm smile, her father’s voice calling her name—but the images blurred behind the rising panic.
Her lungs refused to work. Her chest felt tight, her breath coming in short gasps.
The Steward drifted slightly, finally pulling free of her slackened grip.
“Luckily for your species, your world was saved,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
Erica let out a shaky breath, her pulse still hammering in her ears.
Her fingers twitched at her sides. She wanted to scream, to lash out, but there was nothing to hit, nothing to fight except the crushing weight of time itself.
She let out a slow, shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing down the nausea. “If all of this happened…” she whispered. “Where was I? How did I end up here? How did I survive?”
The room was silent for a beat. Then, one of the once-dead black screens flickered to life.
A jagged piece of torn, warped metal filled the display—a ruined passenger compartment. Erica’s eyes locked onto the image, her breath hitching. The seat harness—blackened, torn. The stains. Her hands slowly curled into fists.
The breath left Erica’s lungs.
The screen then switched to an image of a sleek spacecraft. The name was stenciled along its hull.
Ten smiling people stood in front of the loading ramp, dressed in navy blue jumpsuits.
Erica’s fingers trembled.
Memories flickered at the edges of her mind—Tiffany’s laugh, the sound of a camera shutter, the warmth of a conversation she’d never finished.
The final moments onboard.
Eric’s snores
Tiffany’s smile.
The alarms.
Then… nothing.
Her lips parted, but the words felt too heavy to speak.
The realization crashed over her like a tidal wave, swallowing her whole.
“We all died,”
The words barely made it past her lips. Her vision blurred as the weight of it pressed down, crushing, suffocating. She had been floating in the dark, lost to time, while everyone she had ever known had turned to dust.
Wynter: -grinning- Sooo... that was a fun chapter, huh? Hey, at least I didn’t knock you out this time.
Steward:Technically, unconsciousness would have been the most efficient state for information absorption.
EricaStares at Steward horrified- Oh my god, you would totally Matrix me if you could.
Wynter-Innocently- I mean… wouldn’t that be kind of cool?
Erica:-stares in betrayal-
Erica: -deadpan- No, you just gave me years of psychological damage... I woke up in a pitch-black room, nearly lost my mind, and then found out my entire world is gone. Yeah. So fun.
Steward: -matter-of-factly- Your reaction was within expected parameters for an organic being experiencing severe psychological distress.
Erica: -gritting teeth- Oh, great. That makes me feel so much better.
Wynter the Author: rubbing hands together- But hey, now you have a cool HUD and a bodysuit! That’s got to count for something, right?
Erica: -glaring- You mean the creepy suit that I woke up in without consent? And the HUD that I thought was a hallucination? Yeah, thanks for that.
Steward: The suit was necessary. Your previous garments were insufficient for maintaining your survival in the ship’s current state.
Erica: -groaning- You keep saying ‘necessary’ like that makes it okay!
Wynter: -shrugs- You know, you complain a lot... Would you rather have woken up naked?
Erica: ...I feel I have a legitimate reason to complain! You killed me and then terrorized me with McEyeball over there!
Steward:-Lens aperture narrows slightly, his frame tilting away as if affronted- I do not resemble any known 'McEyeball' designation.
Erica:-smirking- Okay, fine. How about Professor Pupil?
Steward:-shutter flicks- Incorrect.
Wynter:-laughing- Ohhh, that one’s sticking.
Steward:-Lens narrows further- I am beginning to regret my decision to preserve your existence.
Wynter: -Chuckling- Alright. But hey, at least you’re making progress! You unlocked doors, found the bridge, and got some answers! You're doing so well!!
Erica: -Glares- I might forego throttling the AI and strangle the author instead.
Wynter: -Mock gasp- But then who will write your suffering?
Erica:-Mocking- Oh nooo, whatever shall I do without your literary torture?
Steward:Helpfully- Your suffering is currently projected to increase by 237% in the next few chapters.
Erica:-flatly- Can I opt out?
Steward:-pauses- That function is unavailable.
Wynter:-grinning- Oh, it was never an option.
Erica:deadpan- I take it back. I’m throttling both of you.
Erica: -sighs- I need a drink.
Wynter: -grins- You're too young to drink. Technically, you're only a day or so old...
Erica: -Throws her hand in the air- I'm in the middle of space who fraggin cares. I died when I was in my 40's!
Wynter:-mock gasp- Erica… you’re older than me now.
Erica:-horrified- NO.
Wynter:-cackling- You're ancient!
Steward:-helpfully- Technically correct.
Wynter:
Erica: -deadpan- "I hate you."
Wynter:-Grinning- Welp everyone thanks for reading this chapter stay tune for Chapter 4 coming out on Wednesday.