They never got the engines to run deep in the throes of the Ushavex nebula. It sent out a station-wide state of alert, but not an emergency. Agitation crept through her fingertips at the thought of the engineers toiling in the heart of the reactor to get it to work, to get them out of the pull of the nebula, but whenever she checked outside her window, the engines were silent in the vacuum of space. It gave her no comfort to be swaddled in blankets, waiting for things to change.

Nova stared at her wall and fought for any sort of sleep — a momentary understanding of why Neo turned to sleeping meds. Another sigh left her throat, and she debated her options, until a shuffle caught her attention and changed the rest shift. On her back, she frowned when Neo sat up in one, slow, near sluggish movement, as if someone caught him by strings and tugged him out of bed. Her heart stuttered in her throat when he sat on the edge of his bed, his black hair plastered against his brow, though when she tried to search his gaze, it was grey emptiness.

No, it was a grey coloured nebula, reflected from the window.

...Neo?

Nova went to lift herself up, but Neo hauled himself off his bed. Step by step, he floated to the door and reached for the handle. Alarm sent a bolt of lightning, and sent her out of bed. "Neo?"

His lack of response spurred her onward when he left the room.

What the fuck? Nova rushed to follow before he left the dorm itself. His hand reached out to the handle, but she lunged forward and wrapped her hand around his wrist. "Hello?"

The reflection disappeared out of his eyes, and he blinked. "Huh?" He turned to her, then looked around the room. Her confusion spread through his brow as he twisted back to the door, his expression squished in disorientation. "What?" Nova let him go, and he brought a hand to his head. Nova let him go to let him step from the door, rubbing his temple, and he pursed his lips in thought.

"That's never happened before," she whispered. "Since when do you sleepwalk?"

"I don't," Neo drew out through his own confusion and she kept a hand on him to prevent him from wandering off into trouble even in his sleep. "Hm."

"That's it? Just a 'hm that's weird'?" Neo nodded slowly, and Nova scoffed when he wrapped his arms around her with a quiet hum. "Right, I don't know why I ask, you're half-asleep. Are you sure you didn't take any sleep meds?" Nova adjusted herself to get him out of reach of the door. He clung onto her and gave her no response to her questions. "No? You didn't sneak any from the Medtower when you went over there?"

What... did I see in your eyes?

Nova nudged Neo out of her grip and directed him back down the corridor to their room, but found herself trapped in place beside his dragged escape route instead. Chin squished between her fingers, her mind swirled in confusion. Neo never had any sleep issues other than a struggle to fall asleep, and a harder fight to get up. Sleepwalking was not among anything she noticed — nor anything he warned her about beforehand when they first entered the dorm on campus. His confused reaction told her more than words alone. So... what was that? Hand back at her side, she made sure the door stayed locked before returning to the room, where Neo slumped back into his sheets without another word, eyes closed once more.

Red light haunted the edge of her view, but when she turned, it eased out into a soft splash of mosaic rainbows along the walls. It was no different from her late night studying for tests, but it weighed down on her shoulders with a colder sensation. On her bed, she waited for the nebula to reflect off Neo's eyes once again, but he remained asleep without further disturbance. Maybe it's just stress... Guilt washed through her heart, but she slumped back into bed with a groan and threw her pillow over her face to stifle it.

Upright once more, she scowled out the window where the gaseous particles persisted in crawling around the space station. Her sight of the engines which put the space station in motion never lit with power. A sigh escaped her lungs, and she rolled into bed with an added kick into the wall. It rocked through her toes, and she tossed and turned with the ticking of the schedule.

Luck decreed it'd be the shift where Thuni called her for a discussion within the eastern cafeteria. Sleep twisted on her brow and she rubbed her eyes at the call long after Neo awoke in proper fashion before leaving her in bed with nothing but a smile. Their previous argument disappeared into nothingness, though when she left the wash station, Neo was at his desk, nose in a Xel'nod hieroglyphic text. He followed the hand signals beneath the text with a look of thought as the rough translation pages filled another Codex beside it.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she wrung out the last strands of her hair.

"Well, we still need to decipher that writing. I think if I can get some sort of word out of it I can go back to the Annex to look it over," he muttered. "I might have to ask Izerva for help, though."

Nova loomed over his shoulder, to return her sense of normality. "Figured anything out that could help?"

"Hm..." Neo pinched his chin. "No, not yet." Nova frowned when he rested his temple at the heel of his palm.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, just feeling some pressure in here." He tapped the side of his head. "Probably a headache, especially after what happened during rest." He twisted his legs out of his seat to frown at her. "I'm sorry if I freaked you out."

"It only freaked me out because it's never happened before since I met you," Nova pointed out when Neo shuffled back to his texts. "You don't have to apologise for that."

A hum left his lips, and he asked, "Where are you going?"

"I have to go talk to Thuni," she said and groaned with exhaustion between her teeth. "Probably about the reactor if I had to guess. Or the droids. At this rate, I don't know anymore. I just want this to be over." Lead cracked her shoulders when she tugged them against her neck. "I'll see you later. Try not to lose track of time."

"I'll try."

His easygoing response returned the normality to her heart, so she left him to his research to head to the canteen. The energy from before dimmed. People sat at the long tables in small groups without much chatter, if any. She found Thuni and Ulin in a similar setup, though alone in a corner with Thuni surrounded by reports. Nova grabbed a small plate for breakfast, but found her appetite lacking when she slipped in beside them. "I'm here, what do you want to talk to me about?"

"Since you're an Intern, I need to let you know about the state of things," Thuni said and closed the reports. "You noticed they couldn't get the outside engines running when the nebula — for a lack of a better word — ate us?" he questioned, and his hesitancy after begging for a response. Back in school, leading questions to guide her to the right answer.

"I did notice," Nova confirmed. "They figure out something, like how to turn it back on?"

Ulin and Thuni shared a look. "I'm afraid not," Thuni admitted. "We've had the reactor maintenance working overtime, but the energy fields are completely nullified by whatever is happening outside or what the particles of the nebula are made of. I can't wrap my head around those things, but they're trying. Until then, though they haven't called it to keep panic at a minimum... we're in a state of emergency." He rested his hands flat against the table. "I'm only telling you this because it wouldn't feel right not to. Both our droids brought that thing in." His tongue pressed through his teeth with a scowl. "What that means is access between the station will be very limited, and under constant watch by the GAC forces." He sighed. "Since you're my responsibility as a student intern shadowing me, I don't want you wandering around outside of your designated areas when we don't know what's going on. The south is completely barricaded now."

Bile swirled in her throat, and her nutritional bread and jelly looked less appetizing by the moment. "So, overcharging the reactor didn't work either?"

"It wouldn't even turn on," Thuni replied.

It's worse than I thought.

"That's all I wanted to talk to you about," he reiterated. "I just wanted to give you a heads up. Things are going to start shifting towards keeping everything locked unless necessary. Shifts will change in response to that." He got off the table. "Sorry if I ruined your appetite." He gathered his reports to slip them against his datascroll. "We still have some time before everything's in place, but don't expect access to your droid for a while. I don't even have access to mine now."

Nova nodded as the two left her. Alone, surrounded by silent voices and screaming stars. Knife in her hand, she dug her fingers into the handle with a half-hearted attempt to spread the jelly and eat something before the bile burnt a hole in her tongue.

The state of emergency hung over her shoulders, and it appeared to affect everyone else. It was never stated, but everyone knew. Heads low, on one spoke but kept on their routes of work without falter. Back in the safety of her room, but without Neo's calming presence.

She waited.

Waited.

Space made her wait for so long for its end, and she paced with nothing to do.

Her fingertips dug into her knees at the continued silence, until the soft alarm dictated the start of the rest shift. Left in darkness, with zero appetite to grab anything resembling a lunch and a dinner.

Neo hadn't returned.

Great... now is not the time, Neo. Out of the chair, she stomped out of her room and got her keycard ready to try and weasel her way into center command to go get him from his habit of completely forgetting the world around him. Explanations for wandering past curfew, she let it go at the sight of Izerva at their usual post beside the tram station, tail flicking with alertness at her approach.

"Engineer Nova," they signed with a small step for her. "You should be sleeping."

"Neo hasn't arrived, has he?" Nova questioned, causing them to stop and their tail to stiffen. "I know he works in central command, but he hasn't come back since the shift ended." Agitation prickled her legs at their silence. "You can come with me, but I know where he should be."

"I can take you, but you cannot dally," Izerva signed with two ear flicks before guiding her onto the tram. "Scientist Neo should not be out this long either."

Nova sat down, and tried to find the right questions to ask a soldier. None came to the forefront of her mind with the same ease Neo found his, so when the tram stopped, she relented herself in following Izerva to Neo's place. Soldiers paid them no mind when she passed with Neo, tipping their heads at Izerva in respect and authority. Izerva came to a stop at the Class Z bulkhead, loaded blaster at the ready when they nodded at Nova, then took their place in front.

Nova entered with ease.

Into the safety of the observatory, she shuddered at the emptiness with no scientists to discuss findings or theories. Nova twisted to the window, and followed it when Neo came into view, back to her as he stepped with the same, stiff motions closer to the anomaly. Her hand found the same button Miss Zynaia used to communicate to the outside.

"Neo?" she snapped, causing him to jolt. "What are you doing? It's rest time."

Neo put a hand over his heart. "I thought you were Miss Zynaia." He sighed and returned to his normal movements to head to her, on the other side of the window out of reach. "I requested some more time to try and read the glyphs. I know it's Xelnod, and I figured out at least one word on it that matched up with modern Xelnod." He gazed at her, a scientist through the glass. "But what are you doing here?"

"Came to get you."

He blinked, then smiled. "I forgot again, didn't I?" he whispered. "It's so easy to lose myself when in front of something like this. I want to figure it out." His grey gaze splashed with crimson when he turned back to it. "None of the senior scientists have been able to crack it, but I think they're not asking the right questions." He fell silent, and Nova froze when he left her at the desk to head to one of the terminals, flipping one of the buttons. The gyro groaned and slid back into perfect pieces to lower the containment unit and reveal the anomaly. "I need a closer look."

"Neo, wait," Nova hissed. "You don't know what this thing is. If scientists with decades more experience than you can't figure this out..." Nova scowled at his lack of response, where the puppeteer motions returned. Out of the comfort of the desk, she rushed through the decontainment fields to enter the laboratory proper to retrieve her hyperfocused friend.

Universe's worth of flames and ice crashed into her face and filled her lungs, but she pushed through it. Burning desert suns and planetary ice caps spread gooseflesh through her skin the closer she came, but she reached him and caused him to stop. "Whatever you're about to do, just think about it. I don't think giving it a poke is going to help."

Neo sucked in his lips, but refused to look directly at her. As before, the nebula reflected through his eyes, though there were no windows. Nova blinked out the strange sight, and the anomaly mirrored his pupils instead. "Observation is a step in the process," he said, something far wiser than his age entered the greys. "Through the studies of the IAR, the Galactic Community has found a way to use anomalies as an energy source... and sometimes as a weapon." His staredown with the anomaly shattered and he lowered his gaze to his feet. "We have to ask questions. We have to see every angle for the truth." Nova brushed his arm when he raised his hand to shield his butterfly necklace, which sprinkled with stars unseen. "I want to know the truth — even if that truth is dangerous. I want to know — not to take lives, not to destroy them or ruin them... but to improve our lives, to make sense of the universe around us." He frowned, and though his chatter sounded familiar, it was far more serious than she longed for. "I don't agree with the weaponization and misuse of anomalies. Especially those that have shown signs of life, but just because we don't understand it makes it so much easier to use it." He tucked his butterfly necklace closer to his neck. "How can we reach the center of the universe like the IAR wants to find, if we can't even accept that simple truth?"

"Neo," Nova began, but stopped when Neo turned to her with a soft smile.

"It's been nagging me since I got here," he whispered. "I can't sleep well thinking about it. And ever since they pulled this in, it's like the answer is right on the edge of my mind. I don't care about what this thing could give us in information. I don't care about the black-box and flight recorder. I want to ask what happened to the lives of the D.S Butterfly."

He let go of the butterfly necklace, and it shone further with no added light.

Is that how far you want to go?

Neo gave her no answer to her thought before coming closer to the lowered metallic sphere which hid a heartbeat behind its thick chrysalis. His questions and thoughts plagued her as he reached out to it. His fingertips brushed the edge, until his entire hand drifted along its surface.

One moment stretched onto eternity as the crimson swallowed the grey nebula.

"Neo, maybe you should go to sleep...?" Nova reached for his free hand, and held it.

It tore through her mind with a singular screech and a static shock. She jumped as the sensation of lightning tore through her heart and straight through both sides of her brain, but she refused to let go of his hand. He drew his hand off the anomaly, unfazed from the shock, and unchanged from the touch.

She dared to ask the question, "Well?"

"It... just feels like metal," Neo mumbled and rubbed the tips of his fingers.

"No burning?"

"Apart from that little static shock you just gave me, nothing at all." Amusement grew with his smile as he showed her his other hand. "I guess you're right. Maybe I do need sleep."

Nova let his hand slip out of hers as he turned his back on the anomaly, flipping the switch to return it to the containment field.

A little static shock? That isn't what I felt.

Nova followed in his shadow and frowned at the silence of a heartbeat.

Why can't I hear it anymore?