I rested my face in my hands, watching from the other table as Amon sat Leah down to eat in the mess hall. From the short distance, I silently eyed the two as they conversed while the rolling clouds of dark space thundered outside the viewport.

  “What happened?” Amon asked as Leah looked down at the plate, reluctant at the rations we usually had to eat on the Aphelion. Hunger overcame her however, and she quickly began shoveling food in as fast as she could.

  Amon gently put two fingers on her fork, slowing her down so she would talk.

  Leah swallowed. “I-I don’t remember.” She glanced my way. “He burst into the room at the last second. He hugged me and then everything was water. And then you came.”

  I buried myself in my hands, looking away and not knowing what to do with these facts. Only I knew fully what happened, the silver alien, the vision into the room years and years ago. And although, while all logic dictated that I had somehow gone into the past, there was so much room for doubt. I still remember glancing back at the exhibit that was still there, everything in that room as horrible as it had been before. I didn’t think Amon looked close enough to realize. He had been too busy with the two children for the horror of what was behind them.

  As I thought about it, if I—no that was not right. If that… alien had changed the events of history, shouldn’t that have changed too? Instead, it was both ways. She was there, and yet my sister conversed with my father not a few feet away.

  “But…” Amon shifted in his seat, drawing my attention back to the conversation. “I’m sorry I have to tell you this, but you should be much older than you say you are. In your thirties at least. You don’t have any memory of the Rakasa putting you in a chamber, injecting something in you, anything at all?”

  Leah ardently shook her head, and then for a second, she looked my way. My heart skipped a beat, although I tried to crush this feeling as soon as possible. I admit, a surprising resentment had begun to fester within me. I knew it was childish, but it was simply… odd. I had been the center of attention for so long, the one human child onboard the Aphelion. It was something I never expected, to be shown the cold shoulder for someone else.

  But that wasn’t what got under my skin so much as the utter reaction of fear and disgust my sister had at the mention of my name. I knew it wasn’t at me particularly, but what I meant. The baby she knew was now somehow older, and that came with terrible implications.

  I do not know. I had wanted all of this to be happy, but that was far from what I felt now.

  Yes, there was much worse, especially all that I saw with the Rakasa, but it still hurt. I had experienced so much—I had sacrificed so much—and yet I was at the lonely table.

  I dipped my spoon into some gruel and ate it. Staring out into the void of dark space, I wondered of the Xurak. It was them who knew the portum, who knew what it truly did. And I was the only one who knew that my sister had been drawn from one of the visions. So—and this was an insidious thought—what if Leah was another of their plans? What if she was a trap that Amon couldn’t predict? Or worse, was she just here to torture me, like everything else I had seen?

  I didn’t know. Each time I was reassured that this wasn’t just another nightmare, the creeping suspicion somehow always found its way back. Perhaps I expected tentacles to burst from my sister, or a Xurak drone to teleport in and rip her in two. Any second now, reality would commence again, and I would be hurt. After all, this was the perfect way to hurt me. I had beaten the phantasms, the visions. I had made fun of them in their own domain. What better way to make me lower my guard than to promise compassion, to bring something over into my real life?

  I found there was a great deal of hatred left in me as I stared at the thing which looked like my sister as she talked with Amon.

  “Where’s the Aurora?” she asked, finally finding the courage to ask that terrible question, rubbing her arms and looking away.

  Amon coughed, uncomfortable. “It’s not…” he trailed off.

  “Where!?” My sister slammed her hands on the table, familiar tears forming in her eyes.

  I had never seen Amon so defeated. “Gone,” he said.

  “So that’s it,” my sister swallowed bitterly, coming to terms. “I’m alone then. They’re all gone.”

  It wasn’t an unusual story. In fact, for our time, it was quite common. Our people had long dwindled into tribes, tribes into groups, and groups into survivors. The Aurora was no different, and Leah, young as she was, must’ve known that they would all be picked off until there was only a single survivor remaining.

  I have long discovered that is always the curse of the sole survivor. We never think we would be the last ones left.

  The room was silent for a long time. I tried to focus out into dark space, keeping my eyes trained on the dark, stormy horizon. Every few seconds, Leah glanced my way, but then would avert her gaze just as quickly. And Amon sat with his arms crossed, staring somewhere off that was not here. I suppose he had the most difficult position out of us three, trying to make sense out of something that was impossible.

  Finally, it was Leah who broke the long quiet. She nodded my way, careful not to make eye contact. “Is that…” she hesitated. “Is that really him?”

  Something about that question set me off. Again and again, it was that reaction of pure disgust. And no matter how many times I tried to understand, there was always that quiet whisper in my head.

  So this was what it was going to be like from now on.

  My heart lurched in an awful way. I quietly got up from my table and quickly left the room as fast as I could, and only when I well out of sight and sound, I let myself break down into tears.

  …

  I took down the lonely corridors of the Aphelion, searching for a place where I could not be so easily discovered. I knew the layout of the vessel well enough to find those sections where the sensors were still blown out, from that battle with the Xurak all those years ago. I did not want Amon asking for Kybit for my location, and I certainly did not want another sit down with my sister.

  It was frustrating that things never resolved as they ought. And if they did, then even that wouldn’t stop the dark thoughts from swirling in my head. If Leah was who she was, that was painful. And if she wasn’t, if she was some Xurak deception, then that was also painful. I suppose I should’ve warned Amon, told him the entire truth of what had happened. But what if he knew something I didn’t? Unlikely, but what if in his vast experience, something like this had happened before? And what if that had been something terrible?

  It seemed that a miracle had happened. But if I held it close, it caused me pain. And like a barb, if I plucked it out, that too caused just more pain.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  I ducked into a junction closet with a large power conduit inset into the ceiling. A viewport looked out into dark space, and one wall was covered in switches and blinking lights. It took me a moment to realize this small space was cluttered with small objects and debris. Metal candles burned in the corner, and I saw a distinct plumed shape hanging boredly from a hammock. Rykar peered up at the newcomer to his nest—one of many scattered across the Aphelion. He was surprised at my sudden presence.

  “Thought you would be with the girl and Amon,” the old bird spoke, snapping open a zakon dart.

  I turned quietly to leave, but Rykar called out. “Stay! If you’re down here, I can only surmise you’re not feeling good. And you don’t want to talk to the usual suspects.”

  Annoyed, I frowned at the old bird for seeing through me so clearly.

  Rykar shrugged. “You can go if you want, but I can already tell it’s not going to get any better if you leave it to your own thoughts.”

  I mulled it over for a moment before closing the door behind me and taking a seat next to the viewport, pulling my knees up close and keeping my head low. I didn’t speak, however, preferring to remain silent.

  Rykar stared at me with his yellow eyes, contemplating something for a while. “Did something bad happen?” He asked.

  “Not yet,” I replied.

  “Is something bad going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Rykar nodded slowly. “Then I can only guess the reunion isn’t going as well as you hoped.”

  I didn’t answer that time, sinking further into my knees. Rykar sat up in the hammock and swung in the air, tapping his feet talons rhythmically on the metal floor panels. “Give it time.”

  I snorted, dismissing that out of hand.

  Again, Rykar trained his unflinching yellow eyes on me. “Oh, now I see how it is. That’s the problem with you humans. You think you’re the only ones in the universe who’ve gone through this. And I suppose who’s to blame you? You and Amon are—were—all you got.”

  “Get to the point,” I muttered, quickly growing tired of Rykar.

  Rykar leaned forward. “I can see it on your face plain as day. I’ve known you long enough. You’ve had your heart ripped out one too many times. And now, all you can think is ‘Me. Me. Me. Me.’ That’s the thing about hurting. It makes you lose perspective till it’s the only thing you can ever think about. Maybe you should try to think about someone else.”

  It took a moment for me to put together what he was saying. I didn’t sneer at Rykar, but I didn’t look at him with a happy expression either. “Are you saying that I’m being selfish?” I asked incredulously, blindsided by the bird’s insinuation. It seemed such a simple and childish accusation for everything that had happened. And especially after the Xurak, it seemed cruel.

  Rykar looked at me gently. “You’ve been through a world of pain, kid. Not denying that for a second. But you look in and in and in again, and you’re surprised that all you find is more of the same? You’re not the only one who’s been through a planet-load of hurt. That’s why you need to look outward. Take it from me, it’s hell to only think of yourself. Find something good and then think about that.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  The old bird sighed, swinging in the hammock. I wanted to turn away to dark space, to those flashes of eerie light, but something about Rykar kept me from the viewport.

  “Happiness is a hard thing,” the old bird finally said, releasing a long trail of smoke in the small space. “There are three ways to lose it. Regret of something you lost, crying over something you might lose, and then hating what you have because it isn’t good enough.”

  “Might lose?” I asked, scornfully.

  Rykar tipped his beak. “Fair. Will lose.”

  “It’s just going to be like all the other times,” I told him, feeling an unexpected dampness in my eyes. “I just know it.”

  But even as I said that, the word caught in my mouth, remembering precisely what that silver alien had said. For the longest time, I had dwelt in the heartache of what had happened with the Xurak. There were so many nights I spent grieving, and Ingrish could not be there to help me through them all. I had tried a thousand times to rationalize myself out of that pit. It was over now. They wouldn’t find me again. The visions weren’t so bad. I can move on.

  And each lie felt more hollow than the last. But it was in those alien’s words that I realized made some of the darkness go away. “Handed over” seemed such a cruel thing, even though I barely knew what it meant or implied. But the idea that it had all been so I could have my sister back, that changed something.

  I wondered then, knowing everything that I did now, whether I would choose the Xurak vessel all over again. And it astounded me, for some reason I could not possibly fathom, that I no longer regretted what had happened.

  And if something so terrible as the Xurak had turned out this way, why was I so afraid of my sister?

  …

  I spent the rest of the day on chores, keeping my mind off everything. I walked in the de-pressurized parts of the Aphelion, welding hull plates back together and reconfiguring damaged circuitry. Those few times I came back inside, I quickly scavenged some food from my stashes, avoiding the mess hall at all costs. I buried myself in my work, until after finishing another hull patch, I straightened and realized the ship’s lights had dimmed for the night. No one had come to fetch me, and I knew that Amon must’ve warned them off.

  Stripping my space suit off, I took a quick shower and discreetly returned to my quarters. I had looked at bigger rooms to settle in over the years, even considered turning one of the ship’s lounges into a new bedroom. There were many areas of the ship that were nicer, which were closer to the few amenities the Aphelion had to offer. But I always returned here as a place of private solace. It was the first part of the ship I had grown to know. All my maps and sketches led back to here. For me, it was the center of the Aphelion.

  In the years since the Xurak, I had installed a Rhodeshi sleeping hammock in the compartment. On one wall was a shelf of data-slates and trinkets and baubles I had picked up from the many worlds we had visited. I had installed a sink in the corner to take water, and the vents above softly glowed red—from the many laser nets Rykar had helped me set up. I also had several small cargo containers filled with med kits, a week’s worth of rations, and various other survival necessities. One wall I repurposed into a gun rack; it housed a small station for weapon maintenance. A pistol was still disassembled, the parts stuck haphazardly to the magnetic tray.

  It was cramped, and I liked it that way. I also added a simple biometric lock on the door, nothing especially fancy. It was a crude scanner that could be bypassed by Kybit in a heartbeat, but it made me feel better. This room was closed off as much as possible from the rest of the ship. I was even saving up credits for a backup life support ventilator, though I did not know when we would be visiting another trading station again.

  Just as I was about to sling myself into my hammock for the night, I suddenly decided against it. Clearing a space on the floor, I threw a blanket over myself and held my ear to the Aphelion’s deck, letting the soft hum of the ship lull me to sleep.

  I didn’t feel much better. So much had changed so quickly, and I suppose the Aphelion now had a new crew member. It was surprising how the addition of just one person shifted the entire world under my feet. I was already thinking of what it meant. Amon would have to split his time between us. Kybit and Rykar would have to bring her up to speed with the ship. And Ingrish… I didn’t know with Ingrish. This sudden jealousy was new to me. For the longest time, everything had seemed standstill. And now things were changing too fast for me to keep up with. I didn’t know who I was going to be in this new Aphelion—what I was supposed to do. But to take Rykar’s advice, maybe it was better that I simply moved on, to stop thinking of all the disappointments and the fact that some things simply couldn’t be undone. Even after gaining someone I thought I loved back, it wasn’t true I could piece everything back to what it once was. And even the Aphelion I had grown to love wasn’t coming back like it used to.

  Drifting off, I departed into that dreamless world, waking and falling asleep, hour after hour, until deep into that long night I heard a rustling on the other side of my door. Thinking it was Amon and not wishing to talk, I rolled over, hoping he would go away. Instead, after several minutes of tinkering, the biometric lock snapped open.

  Sleepily, I sat up from the floor and rubbed my eyes. In the open door, my sister had thrown one of the medical blankets over her shoulders. Amon had probably put her in the bay until he could find a proper place for her. She looked at me wearily as I did her.

  “I can’t sleep,” she complained.

  “So?” I asked, bitterly.

  She sighed, with no less sadness in her face. “I’m sorry. There was… one other thing I didn’t tell Amon. I do remember one other thing. I just didn’t think it was real.”

  “What?” I yawned.

  Leah looked at me. “A silver alien, promising that my brother would rescue me.”

  “That’s nothing,” I said, turning on my side away from her, tired of all this.

  “I’m sorry,” Leah gulped. “It was too much. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Go to sleep,” I ordered her and settled my eyes shut tight.

  The door to my quarters did close, and there was such a long silence that I finally relaxed, thinking she left. But just as sleep tugged at my mind again, I heard soft footsteps in the darkness and a shape rest by me on the floor. Throwing the covers on the both of us, Leah rested next to me.

  “I don’t know how it happened. But I’m glad I have you back. I promised Mom I would never let you go.” Leah hugged me.