☆ Alone In this World ☆

☆ Sleep no more ☆

"You must not watch this. I'm warning you. You can never unseen it...but if you do watch. Gagan Rassmussen. I'm Gagan Rassmussen. This is Le Verrier lab in orbit around Neptune," the man turns when a tedious creature growls.

"I've put things together into some kind of order so that you can, er, understand, so that you can have some idea. There are bits missing. Sorry about that. I don't fully understand what's been going on here, but, er, this is what happened,"

*Rescue ship*

A soldier is kneeling, checking a rifle.

"Stop staring!"

"They came from Triton. This is Chopra. Bit of an attitude, in my opinion,"

"Calm down, pet,"

"Well, it's ridiculous. That things meant to be a lethal fighting machine and it just moons around like a love-sick puppy" Chopra says as a soldier sits up from an opening pod and puts on his helmet. Neon blue tubes are still attached to him.

"I could hear you ranting from inside the pod, Chopra, for the god's sake,"

"Feel better?"

"Commander Nagata. Young, for the responsibility. Quite a baptism of fire, I'm afraid,"

"Marvallous, ma'am. All hail, Morpheus, eh?"

"Deep-Ando. Conscript. Likes to think of himself as the joker of this little group. Well, he did,"

"Morpheus, Morpheus, Morpheus. Sleep's the one thing left to us. The one thing they couldn't get their filthy mitts on. Now, they're even grabbing that. Colonising it," Chopra says.

"Spoken like a true Rip," Nagata replies.

"Oh, don't call me that,"

"Don't call me that, ma'am. Give it a rest, pet,"

"Give what a rest?"

"This is a mission, Chopra. We find out what's happened on Le Verrier and then we all go home. Keep your politics to yourself, ok?"

"I know someone who'd love to get Chopra back home to Triton, eh? Ho-ho!" Deep-Ando says as he goes to the person with the strange face.

"This one's obvious from the markings isn't it. We all know a Grunt when we see one," the grunt takes a step forward and Deep-Ando backs away, hands raised.

"Whoa, whoa,"

"Come on. Behave. Nearly there, kiddies," Nagata says.

"These are the rescue crew. Don't get too attached. Everything you're about to see is from their individual viewpoints or taken from the station itself" a monitor displays two minutes to docking "the only footage available. They came to find me. This is my station. My lab. I've pieced together the rescue as best I could. If you're going to watch, then pay close attention. Your lives may just depend on it," the team go down the docking tunnel to the station itself.

"Emergency lighting only," Nagata says.

"Grav and orbits stable. There must be power," Chopra says, the doors to the docking tunnel close and they move on, lighting the way with flashlights on their rifles.

"Nothing?" The grunt shakes her head "no sign of anyone,"

"There was no crew. No crew left. They did find others, though. Strangers,"

"What the hell happened here?" Nagata asks.

"Hide seek. Maybe they play hide seek," the grunt says.

"Hide and seek! Why do they miss out words? It's infuriating," Chopra says.