It was just a nightmare; a false awakening. Space station life can be hard to adjust to, hence Space Sickness. It caused stress and gave me nightmares of things going wrong on the station since the accident. False. It's all false — of course I'd be nervous about things going wrong. I'm always nervous about those sorts of things, but I know Neo would say the mind is the universe's greatest anomaly. False. I'm getting Space Sickness. That's all. Her shoulder pressed against the wall, providing her support and stability when Neo rushed out of the room to 'grab something important'. Just a nightmare.

His blood oozed into her hand.

Just a nightmare, Nova.

Nova lifted her head when the door slid open with a hiss, and he held a metal container in his hands. "What's that for?" she asked to drag herself from the visceral false awakening. Back straightened out against the chair, he slipped into the booth beside her in their room.

"It is a peace offering for Thuni, of course," he teased and opened it with a wry smile, then pushed a sweetrock into her hands. "Here you go — I'm hoping this will help perk him up to the very idea of my existence—"

Neo, talk to me... Nova knelt in front of him, cupping his cheeks and longing for his existence in her life. It filled her mind, but she shook it out and sucked on the sweetrock he gave her instead to distract herself from the imagery of her nightmare.

"—At least, while he investigates the droid," Neo continued and closed the container. "I've also got a little extra something. I haven't gotten a good chance to analyze the liquid with a fine comb. I have a couple tests in mind before I come up with a conclusive hypothesis—"

His hand was limp in hers.

Nova shoved her fist into his side. "Don't put it in your mouth, Neo."

Neo sighed. "I give an anomaly one tiny poke and everyone thinks I'm going to go around licking them," he said and nudged her out of their booth, then raised a finger at her when they left the safety of their room. "I have seen you do worse, Nova Spacyn with explosive compounds. I do still remember what happened to your first prototype."

Sour dust salted her tongue from the sucking sweetrock, to put together the puzzle of her own mind. "Well, Neo Teimea, there is a difference," she said with her own point. "I understand the consequences. A prototype's job is to show me where I can improve. I need to put it through its paces." Nova tapped the back of his head, but drew back at the stickiness of blood, causing him to study her. "I mean, I deal with certainty. It's you who deals with the uncertain, and the uncertain can be dangerous."

"That was my worry." He laughed. "I wasn't certain it wouldn't explode in your face."

"I take precautions."

Beaten at his own brutal game, Nova smiled when he folded his arms and matched her pace as they walked to the south transit.Metal never clanged in an odd rhythm, nothing more than the grumbling of a space station at work. Onto the tram, followed by Neo, she waited for him to place his code into the terminal and the doors closed behind them. Here's what I'll do. Nova swung out her datascroll to write down her dream, all to prove the lie in her head. Write down every little instance of her false awakening, and match it to the truth. I know the last time I was there the liquid hadn't melted through the droid core. I know Neo wants to get his hands on a sample of that liquid again. Nova gave him the tiniest pinch, but with his attention trained on the metal container as if it was the answer to the universe, she let him go. You're right here, with me. Still trying to get through someone's heart with their stomach.

It wouldn't be the first time Neo resorted to food to gain the approval of others.

Images flashed in her mind at the shattered butterfly necklace, soaked in blood. A cold shiver crawled through her spine, but when she pushed the tension away, Neo studied her.

"I don't like it when you look at me like that." Nova hugged herself.

"I'm sorry. You just—" He interrupted himself, then frowned. "You just worried me."

Her heart squeezed at his gentle tone, clear through the mask of a studying scientist. The universe tickled her ear with an unfathomable voice. "I just had a rough sleep." Nova gazed into the greys; but no shadows plagued them nor did death steal the light out of them. "What about you, Neo? I know you have to get up bright and early."

Neo ran a hand through his black hair. "I was doing some calculations. I didn't want to add more stress to whatever it was experiencing. I guess the arrhythmia threw me off." He smiled. "See? I can take precautions." He tapped the container. "Like this."

"I thought the sweets were a mood lift, not a 'don't hurt me'."

"I don't see why it can't be both."

The transit car beeped for the incoming approach of the spaceflight transit terminal. It slid to a screeching stop on the tracks. Out of the tram, she stopped at the musty odor in the air.

Rustic, and moldy.

Nova grabbed Neo's forearm at the flickered lights, sizzling in the bulbs. Shadows dripped. Nova checked around Neo, who gave her a curious frown. Every light pulsed down the transit terminal as the black hole moved through space. Back around, the lights had blazed to life while her back was turned.

What?

Neo touched her shoulder. "Nova?"

One more sigh escaped her nose, to test the lie. It smelled sterile instead of bloody. "I thought I heard something, but I guess not..." Nova shrugged and headed down the corridor to Droid Bay A. The giant bulkhead slid open.

Into the void.

Neo frowned at the clash of light and dark, before stepping into it, and causing her mind to scream at the deja vu. "Thuni? Ulin?"

Nova lunged to grab his hand, but kept him close to her side before tugging out her sensor, guiding their path to the single lit terminal at the launchpad. No, I won't take my eyes off him. Not here.

Neo wandered to the control panel, tapping in a couple settings before tugging the lever. Energy coursed through the circuits to spread the truth of power into a bay sprayed with crimson.

The metal container dropped to the ground and scattered the sweets of good intentions.

Viscera splattered inside the workshop. Several shapes piled into corners, twisted into broken images. One leaned face first against the door. Thick slime coated Thuni's droid and curled the metal panels into writhing pain. In the seat in front of the terminal left shining, a near unrecognizable heap of a broad-shouldered visage. Nova crept closer. Bile rose into her throat to join her despair at the final moments etched on Thuni's horrified expression. Innards scooped into his lap and dripped to the ground and all over the keys to the terminal.

Another lost star in the pulse of the crimson song.

No. No. It wasn't real. It couldn't have been. I was dreaming! I'm dreaming now!

One shuddered breath of the three dimensions of space-time.

No, this isn't happening.

No. No. No.

It swept down the drain of her heart and she tried to blink out the disbelief, and the shadows swallowed into her vision as someone caught her from behind when she tried to sink to her knees and sink in the blood of a false awakening. It shouted her name through the call of the distress beacon, and she squirmed when something dragged her through the dark.

"Nova, stop fighting me," Neo begged through the white noise.

His voice woke her again.

Stuck in a nightmare as he held her close and guided her from the shining terminal, glitched in the blood. Neo tugged her sensor out of her quivering fingers to cast it into the air. Hazy crimson particles hung underneath the vents, where black sludge oozed, but no creature born of the black hole revealed itself. Free from her burden, she drove her fingers into the back of Neo's labcoat as he investigated the crimson mist gathered around the destruction. He hooked it onto his belt with a huff and brought her closer to rest his head against hers, one last comfort in the uncertainty of space.

"Neo, we need to get out of here," she rasped with its monstrous rumble and held onto him before it could steal him too.

"Right. I'm going to call—"

The space station beat him to it.

"WARNING — ANOMALOUS BREACH DETECTED—"

No, this can't happen again. This won't happen again.

"Lockdown level Z initiated," it said with a harder, colder voice.

Fuck.

Warmth clasped around her hand, and she jolted when Neo dragged her out of the yawning event horizon. Into the scattered red of the emergency alarms along the station and transit tracks. Neo hauled her onto the tram, and she fought with the difference between dreams and reality. Neo shoved his keycard into the emergency override and tapped into the terminal. "This is Intern Researcher Neo Teimea," he said into the distress radio, calm against the roar of the ending universe, and she wrapped her arms around his middle to keep herself standing. "The hangar bay was compromised with a violent anomalous breach. Keep all routes closed leading from the southern spaceflight terminal to the central towers and all other facilities..." He faltered, and Nova swore the nebula splattered across the greys once more when he grabbed onto the overhang railing with the rumble of the tram.

Nova held onto him with the metal screaming. It scuttled across their route, left without her blaster, her means of protection. Her fingers twitched and she let go of Neo to turn and investigate what they left behind.

Another echoing gasp left her throat when it slammed into a stop again.

Confusion ripped through her heart at the lack of stinging pain across her cheek and nose.

Neo grabbed the back of her jacket in an instant of timely reaction. Nova straightened herself out of the soreness of her false reality.

"Thanks," she mumbled and sat down on a chair to support the jelly in her legs. Stars, no, it's not happening again. It can't be, because if it is...

"I don't want you to trip again." He returned to his insistent tapping of the manual override. "Come on..."

Wait... again? Nova rubbed her cheekbone. "Neo, what did you just say?"

"I... don't want you to trip?" He omitted again, but Nova heard it, clear as time. He gazed into the abyss outside the tram before a huff escaped his nose. "I'd rather you not get hurt when you're the one capable of... using a blaster." He waved both his arms closer to his chest with a small confused hum through his lips when he shook them to press his fingers against each other, a self-soothing, stimulating action of his.

He knew exactly what he said.

Alarms blared when they rushed into the east station, and it fell silent into the vacuum as she considered his nervous, furrowed brow. He tugged out his datascroll with a shaky hand. "I'm frazzled," he mumbled under his breath, but nodded at her. "We're going to head straight to center command to figure this out. I can temporarily bypass security checkpoints."

Nova followed him through the bulkheads and took a different direction when they got through the first level of security throughout the eastern sector. People scrambled as power drained. Red dots scorched the holomaps on the wall warning of activity within the facilities. As the A.I rattled off the procedure, panic ensued.

But we're not in the north branch...

One last transit.

In the darkness where she let him go and he walked into his death, alone.

One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Blood coursed through her ears. In and out. Overhead lights fizzled and drowned the clarity of the environment. Neo readied his keypad when the doors opened.

Admiral Mythrai and several guards stood at the ready, but drew back their high-powered lasers at their approach to the platform.

"Research Teimea," Admiral Mythrai said. "You got the message?"

Neo began his tirade, "Admiral, there's no time. I don't know if my distress alert went out but whatever the breach is it hit Droid Bay A. Thuni Horizol is dead and Ulin Fazlyr is missing." Neo stiffened. "It was a mess in there."

Admiral Mythrai waved them off the transit and sent it back to the other side. "I have soldiers scouring the station for the source of the breach, and we need all the help we can get, Teimea. I am not going to send my men in without some knowledge on what we're dealing with."

Nova managed out, "What about the rest of our team?"

"Izerva made their way here earlier at Mr. Teimea's insistence."

Neo drew around her. "Were they allowed in to read the script on the anomaly?"

"You might have to ask them yourself," Admiral Mythrai said. "The senior research team shut down all access to the anomaly labs. Other branches are shutting down as we speak." He nodded at another guard, whose own reptilian tail shuddered in anticipation. "Researcher Zynaia is assessing the situation in the communications tower as we speak."

"I'll see what I can do to help your personnel," Neo said.

Bright lies tore into her eyelids as Admiral Mythrai directed a soldier to lead them to the communications tower. Metal shutters closed the reinforced glass and blocked the sight of the creeping nebula.

Neo continued on.

Nova grasped his hand and planted herself in place as they came closer to the crimson splattered lab.

"Nova?"

"Talk to me," she whispered and came closer to him. "You have to tell me what's about to happen."

But why do I already know the answer?

"It depends," he answered, alive. "If this is as severe as I suspect it is, it might warrant a—"

"Emergency warp, backwards to our last coordinates." Stars, no. Soul tomized in the black hole, she dug her fingers into his knuckles. Don't make me do this again.

"Yes... that is one of the options."

It went silent between them.

Neo blinked, then came to her instead. "Nova."

It was just a false awakening. He's not dead, but they are. Nothing more than a false awakening. False. False.

I can't do this again.

Neo hugged her.

Grey tendrils crept closer and embraced her.

Into the abyss, pulled past the event horizon to the last connection of her other half.

"I'm sorry."

Nova jolted at the words of another nightmare, but Neo squeezed. "I know this must be a lot," he reiterated. "But we're going to figure it out."

Guilt and pain drowned her. "Yes, let's go up the tower and figure out where we're needed."

Let it be false.