Excerpt

"Are you awake?" the voice asks.

I'm trying to answer, but I'm too far down.

"Are you awake?" the voice repeats.

I don't recognize the voice.

I've never heard it before.

I open an eye, but the light is so bright, I close it immediately. I raise my hand in front of my face.

"I know the light is very bright, but you'll adjust quickly," the voice says.

"Where…" I start to ask, but sandpaper in my throat won't allow me to get anything else out.

"Here," the voice says, and there's something plastic in my mouth. "Drink."

I sip and it's cold, wonderful water. I start to sip faster.

"Whoa, there; slow down. Too much too fast and you'll just get sick." What I'm assuming was a straw is pulled away from me.

There's something I'm trying to remember, but it won't come to me.

I open one eye, then the other one. They tear up as they try to adjust from huge, bright blur to a solid image. First, I see my hand, then the ceiling.

I look over at the man standing near me. He's enormous; six and a half feet easy. Dark hair pulled up into a topknot. Sharp pointed goatee. Green eyes. He's got his sleeves rolled to his elbows, so I see that his arms are covered in tattoos.

"Hey, Baldi; he's up," the man says to no one in particular.

"Oh? On my way," a scratchy voice says from somewhere behind me.

There's something terribly important I'm trying to remember but can't.

"Hold still," the huge man says. "We'll get you checked out real fast and then you can sit up."

I hear footsteps clanging on metal coming closer. A shorter, thin man comes into view. He's looks half starved, and his pointy hair sticks out all over. He lowers his glasses from the top of his head and as soon as they are over his eyes, I can see the telltale sparkle that means he's getting information on the lenses.

"Mmmmhm. Okay. Sure," the thin man says.

"This is Baldi. He's what passes for a doctor on this tub," the big man says to me.

The thin man touches his hand to the rim of his glasses, then goes back to staring at me. "Ah, ok. Well, sure," he continues mumbling. After looking me all over, he steps back from the bed I can now see I'm on.

"And?" the big man asks.

"Looks like he's okay," Baldi says. "Careful, though; there's likely to be delayed responses. Maybe some memory loss."

"Alright, kid; you can sit up, now. Nice and slow."

I try to sit up but stop. I ache all over. The big man steps over and puts his hand behind my back. He helps me to sit up.

"Where am I?" I ask.

"We'll get to that."

"Who are you?" I ask. There's something right on the tip of my tongue that I can't get out.

"I'm Eli. The Captain told me to make sure to go slow, so for right now, just know that you're safe."

"Wait," I say. Flames. I can remember flames, and the loudest sound I've ever heard. "Explosion?" I ask.

"Nice and slow," Eli says. "And remember, you're safe."

An explosion. A huge explosion. Flames. Heat.

"Where am I?!" I can feel myself sliding into panic.

No one says anything.

"Where am I?!" I demand. I can feel my heart pounding against my chest.

"We may have to put him out again," Baldi says.

"Nah. It's a shock but let him go through it."

"Where am I?!" I yell again. And again. And again.

The one called Baldi presses a button and there's a pinch in my left arm.

It takes a while to stop yelling. The crying takes longer than that. After a while, though, I can think again. My voice isn't steady, but it's mine once again.

"He's back down out of the red zone, at least."

Somewhere in the back of a memory, warbly, as if through some sort of sound effect, I hear someone say the words "…red zone…"

And then an explosion…a giant fireball that consumes everything it touches.

I blink, waiting for my heart to race, my breathing to speed up again, but it doesn't happen.

"Akari, right?" Eli asks. "Your name is Akari?"

I recognize that name. There's something I'm supposed to remember, I can tell, but it doesn't come to me. I can feel it way down in the darkness, whatever it is, moving around, huge and menacing. Whatever it is, though, I don't remember.

I nod.

"Okay, good," Eli says.

"He's steady. You can probably take the restraints off."

I hadn't even noticed they were on, but Eli removes the cuffs that had held down my wrists and ankles.

"Where am I?" I croak, my voice having gone horse from the yelling. Just then, my stomach growls.

"We're going to get you a whole bunch of answers in just a bit," Eli says. "First, though, I think we should feed you. You were out for a while, and I'm not at all convinced that liquid fed through a tube into someone's arm is 'everything they need.'" Eli says. I can tell that last part was aimed at Baldi. "C'mon," he says, helping me off of the bed.

"How do you know who I am?" I ask as we walk down a long metal corridor. It's cold, and I pull my hands into my sleeves.

"It was on your badge," Eli says. He steers us through a hatchway into a room about the same size as the first. There are tables with benches. Along the wall are lots of metal cabinets and a couple of counter tops.

"Badge?" I ask. The thing way down in the dark of my memory moves again, but still doesn't come up anywhere close enough to see.

He makes a motion for me to sit at one of the tables while he busies himself pulling things from a few cabinets and sliding them through a slot in the wall.

"We found it right next to you. Force of the blast must have blown it right off. There wasn't much information on it, and all the communication functions were trashed," Eli says. There is a small chime and a tray with a bowl comes out of the wall. Steam comes up off the bowl as he brings it over and puts it in front of me. He presses on the center of the table and there's a click. A container rises up from the middle with napkins and silverware. He hands me a fork.

"Here," he says. While I'm looking at the meat in some kind of sauce over rice he goes to another cupboard and comes back with a cup with a lid on it. When he pulls on a tab at the top, steam comes up from inside. He pulls the top off and I see the cup is filled with tea.

"I hope you're not a vegetarian. Nobody else on the ship is, so we don't have a lot of vegetables around," Eli says and his sits.

"Ship?" I ask.

"I promise—answers coming very soon. First, though, eat."

It turns out to be a kind of okay chicken curry over pretty good rice. The tea is lousy but it's hot. After the first forkful, I realize I'm starving. While I'm scarfing down food, a woman walks in. The second she does, Eli sits up straighter.

She's shorter than me, with brown hair that comes down to her shoulders and big green eyes.

"Captain," Eli says as she sits across from me.

"How is he?" she asks him while looking at me.

"Baldi says he's stable. Looks to be hungry as a horse, so that's a good sign, I think," Eli says and the Captain nods.

"Akari, this is the Captain. Captain, Akari Tatsuro."

Is that my full name? It feels strange to have someone else know it when I am not certain.

I finish the last of the food and down the last bit of tea and burp loudly before I can stop myself. The Captain grins and Eli laughs. "Sorry," I say.

"Well," The Captain says. "I'd say that's a good enough way to start."

"Where am I?" I ask.

The Captain nods. "You are aboard The Hokhmah, my ship."

"Why?" I ask.

The Captain looks at Eli for a second, then back at me. "There was an accident. Your outpost was…destroyed," The Captain says. "I'm sorry, but you were the only person we found alive down there, after."

They both just look at me for a few moments.

"It was your badge, actually," Eli says. "It somehow had enough juice to send a signal through all the rubble. You're lucky you had it on…or, at least, that it didn't fly too far from you when it fell off."

"And…uhm…you're sure that…" I don't look at either of them.

"We looked for a long time," The Captain says. "I'm sorry."

I tear up.

There's a beep and The Captain looks down at her wristband. "Go ahead."

"Looks like the coast is clear, skipper," a voice says through the static.

The Captain gives another look at Eli, then at me. "Give us just a second, okay?" She stands and Eli stands, too. He follows her back out into the hall.

Even as I do it, I know somehow that I shouldn't. I know it.

It's like a reflex.

I close my eyes and steady myself with a quick deep breath.

A quick, deep breath and an image comes into my mind.

The bud of a flower opening up to the sun.

As soon as I do, I feel myself stepping outside myself.

I'm hit with a wave of dizziness…

…and immediately I am inside Eli's head. Luckily enough, he seems to be a very calm person. As he's talking to The Captain, he is paying close attention, and not having a lot of stray thoughts.

"I have a bad feeling about this," The Captin says.

"Well, yeah, okay, but what were we going to do? Just leave him in the rubble? We had to do something."

Eli feels care for me, which is good, but also danger.

"This whole thing went south so fast…" Eli says.

The Captain stares for a minute.

"Like it or not, he's here now. We can decide what to do with him soon. For now, though, he's going to freeze to death if we just let him run around the ship in regular civvies," The Captain says. "Break into the stores and at least try to keep him from dying of hypothermia before we figure out what to do. He's your responsibility."

I hear her boots clang on the metal floor as she walks away. Eli sighs, then walks back in.

I let go of his mind, the flower in my head closing, wrapping itself back up like a little cocoon.

"C'mon, kid; I think there's some spare body suits and jackets down in one of the lockers. Maybe we can make one fit."

I'm numb and I don't know what else to do.

He turns away and starts walking and I follow.

"That looks like about the best we're going to be able to do," Eli says as he steps back from me. The suit is about two sizes too big, but we roll the cuffs on the pants and the sleeves. "Not going to win any fashion contests, but it'll keep you warm. Old ship like this, the heaters can only do so much, y'know?" Eli finds a tech vest small enough to fit, too. I zip it up and feel not just warmer, but safer.

"Here," Eli says, handing me a small black rectangle. "Zip this in one of the pockets. It's a locator so that we can find you if, y'know, something happens." He nods at me and I nod back.

"Yes, please," I say.

He leans forward, "Huh? You gotta speak up over the generators on almost all the decks. You're kinda a soft-spoken little guy, I can tell, but you if you don't, no one can hear ya."

"Yes, please," I repeat, louder.

Eli laughs. "What?" I ask.

"Please. That's about the first time I've heard anyone use that word on this ship." He laughs, turns, and I follow. "Let's get you in a bunk for the night and we'll figure out what to do in the morning."

"Morning?" I ask. Before the explosion, it had been early. I can't remember what time exactly, but I remember that the sun was just coming up.

"Ship's time. You'll get used to it if, y'know, you're here long. For us, this is the end of a very, very long day." I follow him around a few corners and down a ladder. Eventually we stop in front of a door. He presses the green button beside it. The door opens and The Captain comes out.

She pauses for a second at the door and I can tell that she and Eli are having a conversation without talking like adults do sometimes. She shakes her head and sighs, then leaves. I follow Eli into the room.

There are two bunk beds set up along the walls. There is a woman with brown hair, a long tan cape, and expensive looking clothes standing near one. On the top bunk, there is a lump of blankets that moves a bit but then settles.

"Hello," Eli says to her, then gestures to the other bunk across the room. I sit down on it. "Settle in and try to get some rest. I'll come get you in a bit when it's morning." He nods to the woman as he walks out.

I lie down and turn my back to the room.

I close my eyes, do the breaths nice and slow, then picture the flower open and I jump over into the woman's head.

…poor thing. I hope they treat him well, but I can't get involved. I have to make sure that Cassandra makes it to safety. That has to be my only…

She's thinking about me and she's not dangerous, so I let her mind go.

It's then that the enormity of all of it hits me.

It's all gone.

Whatever happened, it destroyed my whole life.

Even if I can't quite remember what that life was, I still feel its loss.

I don't want to cry, but I end up doing it, anyway.

At some point I fall asleep.