Chapter Text
-“Eye movement detected”-
A robotic woman’s voice rings out. God, she sounds loud. You almost instantly try to move to cover your ears, but find a dull pain and a thump of two hands in place of your arms working correctly. You instead let out a throaty groan as you now stare—er, squint—at the pristine white ceiling above, decorated with a horror movie like contraption of a robot.
What happened? Where were you? You tried to remember, but your brain was clearly preoccupied at the moment with everything else. It felt wiser to focus on your breathing now as you attempted to calm yourself down.
Instantly, you hear a thudding seemingly far away, but the robotic voice continues past your confusion.
“What is two plus two?” She droned on, pausing awkwardly as you tried to sit up. “Incorrect, body functions may temporarily be weakened, please refrain from straining yourself.”
Tuning out the robot’s repetitive addition question, you manage to sit up and dangle your feet over the edge of your bed. You slur out a quiet “four” before two shadows emerge from the corner of your eye. As you whip your head to the side—vision blurring to alert you it was a bad idea—you hear a hushed whisper and another robotic voice talk before something thumps away.
When your vision clears, you’re met with a man staring at you like you had a third eye.
“Oh my go-“ he cut himself off, “gosh.” He took a deep breath, slowly approaching you. You knew his face, but you didn’t know why. “You’re awake… I was starting to get worried. Do- do you know where you are?” The man asked cautiously, tilting his head like a puppy.
You stared at his—admittedly attractive—face, before slowly shaking your head. Wasn’t his name something with a R? Like a weird one too…
The man cleared his throat awkwardly and rubbed his neck. He shifted from foot to foot before speaking again, “you might want to come with me then… it’s a little much.” He paused before brightening up, “oh! And I’m Ryland, uh, Ryland Grace.”
“Ooh…” you involuntarily let out before nodding, “nice…nice to meet you. I’m...” Your voice was strained from the lack of use, but he could make it out anyways. You clear your throat to reattempt the blurry idea of your name but he speaks up first.
“I know, no worries,” Ryland—or Grace? No Ryland—said calmly. He reaches out to take your hands and stand you up, then suddenly lets go and facepalms, groaning. “Sorry, should’ve asked before trying to get you up, I just haven’t talked to anyone in a while.”
You shrugged, muscles finally starting to relax. “It’s okay…” you trailed off quietly. Shuffling off the bed, you hit the ground with a quiet thud, but your body recoils like you fell fifty times the height.
“You’re already doing better than me. I wiggled around like a worm for ten minutes before I actually stood up,” Ryland comments, laughing at the memory. He stares at you for a moment, before looking down at the—mostly—opaque jumpsuit you found yourself in and yelps. “Shoot, yeah I’ll go grab your clothes, sorry.”
He practically runs out the room, and you find yourself alone in the quiet sleeping pods. The next minute you just stood up and stretched, before a pile of clothes flew into the room. You laugh and grab the pile before shakily changing out of view.
Ryland smiles as you peek out from the doorframe, sheepishly waving. “Okay, uhm, ready?”
———
You’re in space.
Oh my god you’re in space.
I mean, it was obvious you weren’t just in some hospital from the time you woke up, but it’s truly insane to think you’d be in space of all things. It almost feels like a big joke, like at any time people were going to jump out with excited grins on their faces like a surprise birthday party. But the only thing that “jumped out” was the awkward silence between you and Ryland.
You clutched onto the desk table next to you as Ryland suddenly rambled on about what was happening. It felt familiar, and you could call back on a few memories as he talked through them. You knew you were a journalist, but it still was fuzzy when you tried to think back on who Eva Stratt was and why you were on board in the first place.
“Ahem,” Ryland calls out softly, looking at your confused face with an expression that seemed like a mix of pity and self-embarrassment. “I- I know it’s a lot, trust me. I had a hard enough time finding it out myself, but I promise you’ll start to understand more once you get acclimated.”
You go to speak, but words don’t feel like coming out. So you just sit there, rocking back and forth on your heels in silence.
“Rocky come out now, question?” The far away robotic voice from earlier chirps.
At the noise, you perk up and glance around the room. Nothing stands out, but you stay vigilant nonetheless. What even was that? Another robot? Why would it ask to come out?
Ryland sighs quietly and rubs the bridge of his nose, clearly stressed from relaying all of this information to another human. He raises his voice and calls out to the thing, turning his head to yell out, “not now, Rocky. Just wait a sec.”
“…what was that?” You ask hesitantly, now calm enough to stand up on your own.
Ryland looks back at you with a nervous smile, and an anxious chuckle can’t help but bubble up. “Yeah… about that.” He mumbled.