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Wind buffeted against mountaintop spires, sending snow rushing to cover heavy footprints that sunk into the thick frost blanketing the earth below. Next to the footprints, silver stained the snow, and at the end of the trail, a ghost. A ghost currently kneeling, weary, at the entrance to an observatory, concrete stairs a blessing in contrast to the brutal frost.
The ghost clutched her side–the source of the silver blood that dappled the snow. She let out a sputtering cough, then gasped at the stabbing pain in her ribs, a result of her crash-landing on this unfamiliar planet. She had died on impact, that was clear enough, and her body seemed to be taking its sweet time regenerating, regaining consciousness far before any other part of her healed, though she was in too much pain to think during the days that passed while her insides pieced themselves back together. The ghost took a shuddering breath, wincing once more at her pain. The cold air stinging her sinuses had long since become background noise.
Every muscle in her body told her to stay put, to curl up, to lose herself once more and become a frozen mummy under the weight of the snow slowly gathering at her feet, but her mind wouldn't let her go just yet. Not again, not now.
With what little strength she’d saved, the ghost stumbled to her feet, making an effort to turn the handle on the observatory door, though the sudden exertion sent her toppling over with a shout, her vision dark with spots of fuzzy black and sparking with fireworks in colors that couldn’t exist yet. She slammed into the frozen-shut door, the weight and impact of her body enough to break through the ice cementing it closed. The shriek of the door’s rusty metal hinges moving for the first time in what seemed like eons was the only sound the ghost had heard in days save for her own labored breathing and violent coughs.
She collapsed with a thud onto the floor, cold, dusty, and littered with debris and cobwebs. The ghost rolled onto her side, wincing as she dragged her heavy body back onto its knees, hands placed to either side of herself for support as the dizziness in her head spun to a slow halt, same as a tide would roll in and fade out.
Steeling herself for the next waves of lightheadedness to come, the ghost gripped onto the wall, and guided herself to her feet. She leaned her head back against the wall for just a moment, regaining her composure as her eyes trailed upwards, finally allowed a moment to take in the observatory itself.
She first fixated on the rubble around a small door–a storage room, perhaps–where a large telescope may once had been, though was long since gone, evidenced by the old stone that lay around it. Even if there had still been a telescope, the observatory roof was closed to conserve what little heat was left inside, sacrificing a view of the stars for some much needed warmth. Snaking their way across the floor, to the rubble, to the walls, thick black wires lay like snakes in hibernation–still, but pulsing with life. Beneath the heavy tendrils, machinery lay dormant, embedded into the sides of the wall, rendered useless by cold and rust that ate at their gears. In spite of that, the wires live on. The ghost could tell that much.
The ghost took hold of the nearest wire to her–settled right up against the wall, one of many towering columns in the pantheon of this ruined observatory–and pressed her face to it, her shaking hands clutching the sides so as to not fall over again. The slightest hint of warmth rushed through her and she could feel how terribly alive it was, the hum of electricity pulsing through the wires in ways all too similar to the flowing quicksilver blood in her veins. The ghost held herself to the warmth of the cabling and as she took small, careful steps towards the small basement door into which all the wires eventually led into. It sang to her.
And as she clung to the wire like climbing rope, she began to remember.
Formerly too tired, agonized, or distressed to even think clearly, all of her pain, fear, and hopelessness washes away–if only for a moment.
Nastya Rasputina finds herself in Aurora’s corridors once again, cold, yes, but welcoming and familiar. She runs her hand along the walls of the starship, the quiet hum of her lover’s heartbeat growing ever more noticeable as she glides closer to the engine room.
Nastya Rasputina finds herself in Aurora's kitchen, rehydrating old food she found tucked away in the storage bays, just to get it used up. She’d feed it to the octokittens, perhaps, the little monsters had been awfully quiet as of late, and she hated to admit it, but she missed them. She did consider, just for a moment, that she might feed it to a particularly annoying first mate, though has better things to spend her time on.
Nastya Rasputina finds herself in Aurora’s common room. The noisy banter of her crew drowns out her dwelling anxieties–the gunner’s harsh laugh that cuts through the air as if to say ‘I’m here! I’m here!, the quartermaster’s smug remarks, the airy lilt of the scientist’s voice as she goes on and on about her topic of choice, the doctor and the first mate belting out songs, the both of them drunk out of their minds, even the occasional comment from the archivist, correcting a song lyric or a fun-fact shared by the pilot or the soldier. A drunken first mate notices Nastya sitting off to the side and stumbles away from his karaoke, elbowing her and offering a few words of encouragement before returning to his duty.
Nastya Rasputina finds herself in the engine room drifting into a deep sleep. She rests in a bed of wires and cables that sing with life. Her body is pressed against her lover’s whirring machinery, just barely cool enough not to burn her, though it’s a comfortable contrast to the deathly chill of her own flesh.
Nastya Rasputina finds herself in a gray city where wind beats down in torrents like heavy rain and throws itself through tall blocky buildings, a city in which she has to dig her heels into the small cracks between the stone brick streets to keep herself upright. The motion is second nature to her, the weight of her body and the traction on her thick-soled boots the only thing keeping her from toppling over turning her into something not too different from the lifeless concrete that surrounds her. Nastya turns a corner, vanishing into the alleyway, nothing but a ghost in the shadow of her city. She ignores the voices of her crew, drowned out only partially by the howling wind.
Nastya Rasputina once again finds herself clutching a plate of sheet metal–the very last of her lover. She shakes as she stares into the thick window atop the airlock door, not allowing herself to turn back despite how desperately her eyes wish to take one last look at the home she grew accustomed to over the millenia, though she knows she’d have second thoughts. Nastya attempts a deep breath, though all that comes out is a shuddering sigh, before she hisses a curse as a bullet slams into contact with her arm. Quicksilver drops to the floor and stains the sleeve of her centuries-old coat as she whirls around involuntarily to see the first mate holding a smoking gun at his side, staring back at her, wide-eyed. If only for a moment, Nastya reconsiders.
Nastya Rasputina once again finds herself in the cold. The darkness as she shut her eyes was no different from the darkness of space.
–
A ghost laid crumpled atop a mess of wires, opening her eyes to see a near-empty chamber that smelled of death and earth, though the hum of life from the electronics was even stronger here. Powered-off screens dotting the walls like windows buzzed quietly, and a speaker in the corner of the room crackled alive.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
The ghost flinched at the sudden noise, turning to face the source. The voice that came through was distinctly robotic, though seemed to be trying its best to sound human, it was quiet, strained, and hoarse, like it had been rusted over.
“I didn’t have much of a choice.” She shifted to her side, wincing in pain as her clothing brushed her hurt ribs, then extended her arms to push herself up. With an exhale, she sat hunched over, looking up at the speaker.
“With the state you’re in, one would think you fell out of the sky.”
The ghost only let out a short breath from her nose. She held up a wire, heaving the thick cable between her hands. It pulsed with life.
“Is this you? A part of you, at least?”
The machine hummed a sound of approval. “Correct. A part of me, one of many.” The lights in the chamber flicker, and the screens flashed on in an instant, illuminating the previously pitch-dark room. “And so are these. As are the wires outside.” The machine pauses, camera shutters focusing in on the ghost that sat beneath it.
“How did you get here?”
“I fell.” The ghost replied flatly, watching the wires for any reaction. “I used to work with machines, on a starship. Machines like you.” She gestured vaguely at the room around her.
Silence hung in the air for far too long as the machine began to compute the information given.
“There are others?”
The ghost nodded, though her face quickly fell. “I ah.. I did leave them. That’s how I ended up here and-and I’m not sure how in hell I could get back–” Words spilled from the ghosts mouth, too quick for her to keep up with, though the machine’s voice quelled her worry like a tourniquet.
“There are others..” It mused. “I can find a way.”
The machine flickers once more, and its screens begin to shift as it thinks, a wide clear window, through it, a lush forest far below stretching off into the horizon, where twin suns are rising over distant mountains.
And Nastya smiles, if only briefly.