A Ghost of Our Souls

1- EGO

This fic is inspired by a bunch of dumbas- great people who are also my fam and honestly shouldn't be let out there without a leash, I don't expect anyone except for them to read my cringe-ass melodrama but if you do please enjoy the fuck out of it cuz it takes me a long time to write

Arduously, I completed the next logical step in the confusing sequence of movements I was executing- a ray of blinding light struck my eyes as I opened my eyelids, which I quickly regretted. However, I forced myself to keep them open, feeling that I had repeated this action various times and had failed to bring it to its completion. I grunted in pain and confusion, and finally realized that I was in a bed, an undefined source of brightness came from above. I vaguely noticed a human figure standing at the bedside as I made an inhumane effort to ground myself.

-'Oh fuck off'- I managed to mumble, the only remnant of language that surfaced to my lips

The human figure bent forward to me –'you're welcome, asshole'- it said in a male voice, whose facial features were still too blurred in my field of vision. I didn't process the words, they flew over my current understanding like a voidskippper ship, impossible to catch.

I attempted to slightly raise my head out of the pillows, but was stopped by a sharp pain in my whole body- it struck me, this was unusual. I was not used to waking up on a bed I hadn't seen before, in a room illuminated with what apparently was solar light and a man I didn't recognize hanging around. My sleepy breathing began to pace up as the realization sank in, gathering the scarce strength in my body to allow myself the luxury to panic.

I searched for the other person in the room with my gaze hoping for an answer, and I saw him standing next to the source of light- it looked like a window. He chose that moment to turn around, and the familiarity of his appearance had a sedative effect on my agitated breathing.

He looked young, his hair was a faded shade of brown and stiff in every direction, his eyes were of a particularly light blue and his face looked like he could belong to royalty, noble yet somewhat angular. He had a red circle light-printed in his left cheek, something he hadn't removed despite having few practical reasons to keep it. His body was tall and lanky, and wearing comfortable clothes that looked like he hadn't been out in some time.

I had the feeling that he could be trusted, but before I could consciously start to evaluate the state of my neural hardware and eventually find out who that man was, he chose to speak.

-'If you wanted to die that bad you could've at least done that properly, Ryan.'- his face of concern contrasted with the semi aggressive tone of his voice –'Overdose? Seriously? We moved past the fucking stone age long ago, buddy'- the sentence had come out like he'd been waiting an excruciatingly long amount of time to say it and it had gotten stuck in his throat.

His voice finally struck a chord, and warmed the part of me that had remained cold and motionless within the short eternity that had passed since I woke up.

-'Xander!'- I finally exalted, with a raspy and damaged voice, probably indicating said overdose

Any trace of severity was washed away from his face the instant I spoke, but he still sighed as he made his way to sit on the bed –'yeah, that's me'- he lightly smiled, but he seemed exhausted. 

I examined the room around, eager to stand up and find out what this place was, but I abstained myself from taking that action, remembering how painful it had been only a few moments ago. The room seemed standard- one bed, ambient modifier, firestone ceiling, which had adjusted itself to be dimmer than when I woke up. I wouldn't have been surprised if the walls were of holographic molecule, but nothing in them was changing, so my foggy perception couldn't tell.

What bugged me was the light coming through the window. It definitely looked like sunlight- it brought me back many years ago to my childhood in Berezin, where the light used to fill my room as if it was a pool, I'd never learned to appreciate that blessing until I became a nomad strolling from international station to international station, taking UV supplements to make up for the lack of Solar light. I lost myself in contemplation for a fair amount of time, wondering what had led me to my actual life before it occurred to me that I could ask Xander what the light was.

-'Oh, we didn't leave New Juno, that window's just holo- neat, isn't it? Figured you'd like it'- he did a half-smile in an attempt to convey something that went over my head, and although I was relieved I didn't have to be any more destabilized by a change in location, I couldn't help but feel disappointment sting me in the gut. I'd almost felt like a child again- before it all fell through my hands like impossibly thin grains of sand.

Seeing the walls become of a cyan blue spotted with magenta circles and lines, I was brought back to the now in which, for a set of mysterious reasons dancing in my thoughts like a mad carrousel, I had attempted suicide. I let the thought sink in without fleeing away from it. I felt it in my guts, like stone dropping inside my stomach, a shiver like cold flickering neon on my skin.

If you wanted to die that bad you could've at least done that properly- Xander's words hit me with the force like that of a particle gun, with a long delay. I'd had wanted to end my life, and quite unprofessionally had tried to do so. It was so unlike me that the concern in Xander's face ultimately made sense.

-'I didn't try to kill myself'- I suddenly said on an impulse. I'd remembered something, a flash, my dysfunctional memory didn't hold it for long enough, but in that moment I'd been as certain of it as of the inevitable heat death of this universe, and it became more and more obvious- it could've been an irrational fixation, damage done to my neural hardware, but the phrase ached to repeat itself like the chorus of a particularly insistent song.

My friend's expression of disbelief gave me a quick clue of the situation in which he had found me. Reviewing the familiar urge to puke my guts out, I thought of the tramaline-9 comedown. I always carried some with me. I knew where the overdose threshold was at. I couldn't possibly have done it unsuspectingly. I clenched my teeth, trying to prevent the vague feeling of dissociation from taking over me, but I didn't feel like myself. I hadn't done that. I'd prove it once I could run a full memory repair.

It was a chemical drug, Xander always insisted he didn't see the point of it since tech drugs were less biologically damaging, but he'd never understand the much more pleasant body high of biodrugs. Body- in the 26th century it had become as relevant as maybe apartment or car- you needed it, but it was not really you anymore. I quit the thought and ignoring the pain I pulled myself up, sitting on the bed.

Xander was notably silent, he seemed to be absorbed in the sort of thought he rarely allowed himself. Strangely, I was the first one to speak

-'I need to go to the W.S, to repair the memory chip'- I said pulling my legs out of bed –'we don't risk much to see if Katya is in there'- I stood up and immediately regretted the sharp bolt of pain running through my spine, the dizziness that made me fall down and the overall feeling that I was bound to stay in bed for the next couple of centuries.

-'Hey, no, Ryan don't- look, we're gonna stay home, and we're not talking about this until you can at least stand up, right? I didn't mean to be harsh, so you can chill the fuck down now-

At that moment, the room's automated voice echoed, interrupting him: 'You have a visitor, identifying himself as Matthias Helvar, do you wish to make him enter?'

Xander froze, a look of terror in his eyes

-'What the FUCK?'- he blurted out, a curtain of impending doom over his usually cheerful eyes. 

END CHAPTER 1