Chapter Text
The captain's seat of the Hail Mary jitters beneath my legs when my body twists to flip a switch. The ship is spinning completely out of control. I can hear lab equipment slamming into walls and the robotic voice screeching about the ship's damaged hull. Until now, the ship had no issues for the entire trip to Erid from Rocky's abandoned ship. According to the still blaring warnings, we’d somehow missed a blip hurdling right towards us–what I now realize was likely an asteroid. By the time the computers picked up on it, it was too late to move fully out of the way.
The ship doesn’t stop its rotating turmoil, so I drop the task of manning the cockpit and unbuckle the straps holding me in place. Gripping the edge of one of the windows, I pull myself forward through the narrow tubes connecting the ship's rooms. When I look out the window damaged metal can be seen detaching from the side of the ship and disappearing into space. Not giving myself too long to assess the damage I start back towards the laboratory. Hopefully, Rocky will have at least one idea on how to fix this. However, before I can reach it the ship suddenly jerks to a stop, throwing me into the nearest wall.
When I press against the inner side of the spaceship, my trajectory isn't stopped as abruptly as I expect it to be. Instead, it almost feels like the wall disappears and when I open my eyes I realize I've dropped into a shallow pool of water. My ribs pulse with a dull pain and I take a second to appreciate the shallow waters that allow me to lay down for a few more seconds. Once I finally pull myself to my feet, realization crashes into me and I turn to face the wall I had just, apparently, fallen through. I press against it in hopes that it'll just let me back through. The wall doesn’t budge.
I quickly remember Rocky is still on the severely damaged ship with absolutely no means to pilot it or go out and repair it. I can feel my heart beat pick up as I look around the unfamiliar room. The walls are white and the blue of the water makes a stark contrast to the bland color. It’s not very deep, and seems to constantly ripple regardless of movement. I start to dredge through the neon waters, pulling up the bottoms of my pants to help them dry– my shoes are a lost cause by now. Hopefully, I can find a dryer area.
My hopes are immediately squashed as I turn the corner and the small room opens up to what could almost be considered a waterpark, if it had any slides. The water only gets deeper in this room, probably around 12 feet, but there's platforms lining the sides of the walls that offer shorter placement– no completely dry areas. I stick to the sides, running my hands on the walls to see if any of them give. I don’t know what I expected from a place that reasonably shouldn’t even exist here, but I’m still disappointed when nothing is presented to me. As I push further into the watery rooms, they seem to be completely random in size.Soon, I reach a fairly large room with no visible shallow platforms. I’ll have to swim.
I swallow down my nerves and drop myself into the water, pulling myself through the salty depths. I can feel myself shiver even though the water is decently warm and the fabric of my clothes sticks uncomfortably to my skin. A few times I stop to float in place, arms aching. Still, I push forward and eventually reach a small platform in the middle of the room that is miraculously dry. Taking a breath, I push myself on the platform for a small break. Looking around the room at the blank walls pulls me back to the medicinal environment of the Hail Mary. Sweat and water mix on my brow. I could tell the ship wouldn’t last long if it wasn’t fixed, and the longer I wasted time the longer I left Rocky in an impossible situation.
I immediately drop myself from the platform and finish swimming to the other side of the room as quickly as I can manage, determined to return to the ship. I move toward a still patch of water and quickly realize the surface doesn’t ripple with my approaching form. I try to ignore the change and keep moving, but as I start to pass through it I feel like the entire room shifts. I close my eyes from a bout of nausea, and suddenly I’m not in the water anymore.
Instead, I’m sitting on the floor of another unfamiliar room, still soaked. This one has cafeteria tables and vending machines. Down a wide hallway, I can see stands where there appears to be various types of snacks and meals. There are no people, but it looks like it was recently visited. There's food wrappers on the ground and mysterious stains on table tops.