Chapter Text
I don’t think I was ever too anxious on Earth. You know, the regular level of “PhD” anxiety was always there. But I don’t remember it ever truly affecting me.
Now it does. 6 months into our trip to Erid, it started. One night I woke myself from sleep, sobbing, gasping for breath. I couldn’t get my bearings. It’s never happened to me before. I didn’t know where I was. What was real, what wasn’t. It was just 30 seconds, but it felt like hours. It scared the heck out of Rocky. It scared the heck out of me. It was weird.
“Grace okay, question?” he squealed, dropping the project he was working on, pressing himself against the xenonite, tapping furiously to get a better look at me. I had pulled myself against the wall of the sleeping compartment, grasping at my bed sheets, not sure where I was. That is what scared me. I truly didn’t know where I was, just for a few seconds…my San Francisco apartment? The cell I was held in before launch? A space ship in another star system? Each answer was more terrifying than the last. And the true answer was worse than all of them; I was headed towards an alien planet where I was sure to starve to death, confined to these sterile walls, never feeling another breeze against my skin as long as I lived.
My eyes stared wildly ahead of me, not truly registering anything as my body was wracked with desperate sobs. Where was I? Why am I so panicked? The episode began to fade as I recognized where I was and the familiar feelings around me. The hum of the ship, the feeling of my jumpsuit against my skin, the view of Rocky directly in front of me, suspended in his xenonite hamster tunnel. Rocky. Oh yeah. Lord. Yeah. That’s where I am.
“Grace okay, question?” he demanded, stomping his foot twice. He was clearly anxious, confused by the whole situation.
My eyes shot towards him, blinking harshly. “Yes…uh yeah…” I breathed, finally. My chest still heaved, but I knew where I was. God, that was weird. What was that? Everything is fine now. I mean, as fine as it’s going to be for the rest of my life. I don’t even know why my body had that reaction. I can’t remember what I was even dreaming about. I exhaled deeply, slumping into my bunk, trying desperately to play off the whole embarrassing encounter. “Weird human thing. Not quite sure what happened there Rocky”, I shrugged, my hands still shaking.
Rocky “stared” at me for a moment, pivoting back and forth in the way I knew meant he was reading me inside and out. “Grace okay…question?” he asked, more slowly this time. His claws clicked nervously. This had shaken him. It had shaken me.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I told you about dreams, right? Guess I had a bad one,” I laughed weakly. This was a night terror, I think. I’d never had one of those. This had never happened to me before. “Happens sometimes. Weird human thing,” I reiterated. I awkwardly shifted in my bunk, pulling myself out into the dormitory. I didn’t want to go back to sleep now.
“Only sleep for 2.46 hours. Need remainder of sleep,” Rocky chided me, pacing along the xenonite walls to match my step.
“Oh…no no, I should be fine,” I quipped, making my way to the lab, avoiding eye contact. Like eye contact meant anything. I quickly wiped the remaining tears from my face with the collar of my shirt and I shoved my hands in my pockets to pause their trembling.
“Grace, extreme reaction. Rarely hear those noises from heart. Supposed to be sleeping. What happened, question?” Rocky pressed. Can’t hide anything from him.
“Oh yeah, you know, sometimes the human mind is just too active,” I chime, waving my hand dismissively, busying myself with pointlessly re-organizing a random shelf in the lab. “Can’t stop thinking.” I had this sinking feeling that this was going to happen again. I smiled at him meekly. “Hey, let’s practice some more Eridian now that I’m up”.