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He’s shaky for a while after, so are the others. Amber has been louder than normal, jesting in a way that feels forced. Zoox has spent long hours in the Etherbath, longer than usual. As for Devo, he can still feel it. The panic and the anger, followed by the stretching. There was no other way to describe it. As if someone was pulling a rubberband taut, except he was the rubber band, and at some point, it would have to break. It’s a feeling he’s familiar with, if not in such a physical way.
“-and so I was telling him, Ol’ Joshy you know, that-” Amber is telling a story as they all sit on the bridge eating rations. She’s smiling slyly, but Devo and Zoox are both aware of the way her foot has been tapping, her free hands restless on the table.
It’s Zoox who speaks first, cutting Amber off. “Should we talk about it?” He’s got his crossbow resting on his leg, and if had the features to do so, Devo imagines he would look placated, tired.
Amber frowns. “Well, to be honest with ya, I’d really rather not.”
“Well,” Zoox says, hesitating. “I almost died the other day, and to be frank with you, I’m still thinking about that clam. It tried to, uh, it tried to see my memories? But I don’t have memories, I-, I don’t really have any.”
Devo eyes him, now intent on joining the conversation. “Do you remember what you did yesterday?” He asks.
“Well, yes.”
Devo nods, “That is a memory, no? You are making memories now, that will become more memory- like tomorrow.”
“It said that I was empty. That it was glad to have a hole to call a home, as opposed to nothing at all.”
They sit in silence for a while after that, but the ship is never really quiet. The engine can be heard throughout the whole ship, the creaking of walls, and the rushing of water. Not to mention Urchin rummaging through the walls. It’s a soundtrack that you can forget about after a while, the same way you quit hearing a clock. The same way you quit hearing church bells.
The first one to speak up is Devo. “Well, to be honest with you, I do not have a home either. It would have been the Church, but that obviously did not work out. To be even more honest, I have felt more comfortable here, than I have anywhere else.”
Amber who had fallen silent during this exchange drums her hands on the table, like a mock drum set, building up her courage as well as her percussion. “I guess if we’re all sharin’ - y’all know what happened to my home. We saw part of it earlier, down in that shithole.”
“The Shithouse?” Devo clarifies, though due to his accent or his lack of experience with the term, it sounds more like shith-house .
“Mhm, that’s the one.”
Devo pauses, “What I am saying Zoox, is that you are not alone in this aspect.”
_
They part ways after that for the night. Though the air is still heavy, it is also a little more bearable. Devo sleeps in the bridge that night, Zoox to the Etherbath, and Amber retires to Amber’s Place. If he strains, he can hear each of them, and none of them are sleeping.
He realizes that he meant what he said earlier. He is more comfortable here than he was at the Church. That familiarity though is frightening because it means it could be taken, it could be betrayed or befallen.
Bringing a hand forward he splays it out in front of him, obscuring his own vision of the view screen, just as Amber did earlier. He can still see it, the way it had turned translucent in the water. That’s how he feels, he thinks. Like he’s fading. What is it that he is fading into, he wonders? He doesn’t have a suitable answer.
Then he spreads his hand as far as he can, straining the bones against skin until it hurts. It’s not enough, it’s not what it was like earlier. Channeling that much power into a bomb, making yourself into a living circuit board? Probably not his best idea, but he was desperate, and he was scared. It was the way he stretched, the way he changed, that just thinking about makes him angry. Makes him frustrated, panicked, it makes him feel - well, it makes him feel awfully young.
He shouldn’t feel this way anymore, but he does. He will. Out of the Parish, but not away, and he can only wonder who it is he is becoming. He’s excited to meet them.