Kessie's Short Stories

[Sonic][Shadria] First Rain

Originally published  6/20/2017

Monday, 9:46 PM

He hadn't really meant to eavesdrop on those two scientists and what they wanted to tell Professor Gerald. If anything, they were the ones being inconsiderate, not Shadow. Yes, it was those two being the rude ones, interrupting some test scans Gerald had been running on Shadow to tell him something about one of their experiments. At first, Shadow didn't care, he wanted his own experimentation done and over with so he could get on with his day. But then they mentioned something that made Shadow lean in closer to hear what they were saying:

Weather.

These scientists, whatever they were doing, had created a small, contained weather system here on the ARK. It was still a work in progress, they claimed, and that some minor (or major, depending on what you wanted the outcome to be) environmental factors in the room were still being controlled by an outside console. But other than that, their research for the moment had been declared a raging success.

Gerald was quick to applaud their work, then shooed them away to continue with Shadow. But Shadow wanted to know more. First things first, their identity.

"Professor, who were those scientists that came in just now?"

"Oh them?" the professor offhandedly questioned as he returned to work, "Masha and Fjord Greene. I believe Masha is a meteorologist, and Fjord is an environmentalist. They're here on the ARK to help better simulate the earth's rotation and weather cycles on certain parts of the ship. They've only contained their research to one room, however. But it seems that they're doing better than what they expected."

"Where is the room located?" Shadow then questioned.

"Sector Beta, I believe." Gerald told him without thinking about it. Test room... 114-97-105-110, if I remember correctly."

Shadow nodded and already knew what he was going to do later. He didn't say anything to Gerald about it, but his anticipation was visible on some of the tests Gerald was running on him- but the old scientist wouldn't have been aware of the small spike until some time much later.

. . .

Tuesday, 1:29 AM

If it hadn't been for a rather dim LED light above her bed, Maria's room would have been almost uncomfortably dark. It was likely unintentional, Shadow believed, but it made her seem like the terminally ill patient she was, and not a child with high hopes and dreams. What could have made Maria's room creepier to someone unfamiliar with her was the small stereo on her desk- at night she made sure it played some sort of music or white noise to drown out the general creaking and whines of the ARK's systems.

Tonight she had put on the Adolphe Adam's Giselle suite; the current portion was during the grand pas de deux in Act II. It wasn't contributing much to the room's already ominous environment.

Shadow walked over to Maria's bed and observed her sleeping for a moment. She was having a bad dream -likely a cause from sleeping on something like an uncomfortably firm medical cot than an actual bed-, leaving Shadow to believe that she was going to be easy to wake up.

"Maria..." Shadow whispered at the sleeping girl, "Maria, wake up."

It took a bit of coercing, but the girl gave a sleepy groan as she started to wake up. "I took my medicine already..." she even grumbled. "Leave me alone. I got..." (she took a half glance at the alarm clock on her bedside) "Three more hours..."

"Don't go back to sleep," Shadow told her, making her sit up now, "I've got a surprise."

Extremely unhappy that he wasn't going to let her go back to sleep, Maria gave him a rather venomous glare.