IV || [BL | MxM | Sci-Fi | Romance | Mystery]

The Ghost | 1

The MED-1 hallway on Deck 4 was so isolated from the rest of the facilities that even engines never broke the silence there.

This place was the true manifestation of hell, - it didn't matter he never believed in that entire concept, - it just was. This lack of sound distorted his entire perception of time; even worse, it opened the floodgate to all those thoughts and memories that Ray thoroughly buried in noise and overtimes. Now his mind was hopping back and forth between his own all-time lows and the happiest moments of their childhood. It was a torture.

Damian tending to his bruises after he fell off the porch chasing the largest dragonfly in history, - or at least it appeared so to his five-year-old self.

That camping trip when Damian talked him into stealing a canoe from the ranger station. He got them both into so much trouble, but it was worth it.

Damian doing his crazy backflips of joy in his mud-soaked uniform, - not that Ray's own was any cleaner - their team didn't make it to the regional league again, but they gave it their best, and it felt like being on top of the world standing next to him at that moment.

Damian telling him everything is going to be alright, like he always did.

The one thing he regretted the most right now was that he didn't bump into Damian during the last shift as usual. He was beating himself up for this, and any other time he did his best to avoid his brother. They barely talked to each other since Ray joined Theseus, - whenever Damian tried to start a small talk, Ray fled every time the conversation was about to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

If only he wasn't such a coward.

If only he could talk to Damian one last time... at least to apologize for everything he said back then.

Those five hours were a nightmare, and then, just like this, Damian was gone.

The massive pocket door slid open; in bright light, the Commander's silhouette looked almost like a cutout. Or maybe his exhausted mind just rendered it this way.

"Ray," her voice was soft, juxtaposed with her sharp features. "I'm sorry I have to put you through all this..." 

She flinched and got ahold of herself. "...But we have to follow the procedures."

He stood up without a word and stepped into the portal of cold light. The whiteness of the room engulfed - or rather, devoured, - everything inside it. The white gown of the medic, white drawer units along the walls, the white sheet covering the autopsy table. 

The door closed, and the hallway sunk back into its vacuum.

"Careful, don't damage it."

"'Damage'?! Have you not seen the ship? There's nothing left to damage anymore."

"Still...I don't understand...the maintenance team swears the pre-flights were flawless. Hardware, navigation, everything was perfectly functional. They ran tests twice. Do you think..."

"I'll wait for the official confirmation before jumping to any conclusions. And you, better focus on that lock. Might have shorted out from the impact."

The younger tech sighed, watching his peer re-setting the inverter. The generator grumbled, and the radiant beam from the cutting torch gnawed back into the deformed metal.

"You know, Morrow, I keep wondering why it was in the escape pod in the first place."

"I don't know," the welding mask was obscuring Morrow's face, but his entire posture showed how sick and tired he was of this conversation already. "I don't really want to know, and I won't waste time guessing, either, - let's finish this quick, I have some other stuff to do at the hangars."

With a cracking sound, the massive panel lifted, with a loud 'swoosh' as the pod depressurized. The interior seemed undamaged; the figure confined within the pod remained motionless, chained to the support system by tubes and wires connected to the helmet.

Before the junior tech opened his mouth again, Morrow rolled the transportation trolley closer to the pod and pointed at the wires.

"Just send it to the lab and let Ray deal with it."

"..uh, okay," he unplugged the cables from the support system and stared at the co-pilot for a second before removing the helmet. 

The android seemed unscathed, staring off into space with its colorless eyes; it looked like a human-sized doll clad in a pilot uniform, and even without all the wires, the view was still quite unsettling.

A sudden tap on the shoulder startled him, so much that he dropped the helmet. 

"Creepy as heck, right?" Morrow chuckled.

"Uhm, yeah..kind of...by the way, why there are no normal copilots on this ship? Is it some quirk of local pilots, or?"

"Tsk," Morrow tossed the android on the transport trolley, picked up the helmet and rubbed the glass off with his sleeve, then showed it on the shelf of the cart. "Why, you wanted more victims in this?"

"N-no, just...isn't it safer with someone to back you up? Johanna too, always goes on her own. I mean, they keep calling her the Snow Queen for a reason I guess, I was just wondering..."

"Whoa." Morrow let out a whistle. "Hold it right there. You can either have the Johanna discussions or your job. Choose wisely."