Beep.

"Automated emergency landing sequence initialized — registering several anomalous readings on planet's surface. Atmospheric conditions hospitable. Power at sub-optimal levels. Anomaly scanner: Offline. Prepare for landing."

Darkness. Nova tried to gasp out when the beep turned into a piercing, familiar alarm. Water sloshed against the carapace and the lurch almost sent her head straight into the floor of the droid. Somewhere, Thuni cursed, things toppled out from the supply pods.

"Fuck! We're sinking!" Thuni snapped.

Nova dragged herself to her feet when the glass of the window cracked.

Darkness.

It filled her lungs and she tried to find the emergency opening on the side, unable to see past the bubbles fluttering in her vision. Waterfalls of the descending current went around the ramp when she detached it, and it floated deeper. Nova held on tight when shapes rushed for air. Three. Not four. One of them had a tail.

It burned her eyes when she tried to open them again. Her hand fumbled around the sinking wall, a metallic moan filling her ears. Her breath escaped her, inch by inch with her exhaustion and the pressurizing depths. Her arms wound underneath someone else's, and she pulled them out of the last flight of her droid with the sloshing confusion. Her time on the swim team back in highschool only did her the smallest of favours of being able to swim in the first place.

So tired...

Exhaustion never made it easier to hold her breath.

Shadows drifted around her. Maws of dripping void. Until she broke the surface and held onto the person left defenseless in her arms. Nova whipped around, where Thuni, Ulin, and Izerva dragged themselves onto the beach with the supplies wrapped in safe containers. Long lost was her self-preservation, she coughed out a stream of water when Neo slumped into her without another word. "Neo?" Nova adjusted her arms around his chest to keep him from sinking with her droid. "Neo?"

Another splash made her twist around.

Izerva jumped back in.

Her head swam with her legs as she helped Izerva tug them both to the smooth shore.

Ulin slumped to the ground facedown with a groan. All of them, drenched from head to toe.

"Are we alive?" Thuni asked.

"I don't know..." Ulin said from the ground.

Air. Grass. Clouds swirled to their peaks. Trees of blue weeping willow leaves danced all around the edge of the lake they landed in. Nova sighed out another stream, and she rubbed her back and legs. "Better than crash landing into those crags," she hissed through flames and nodded at the distant sheer cliff. It drained out of her limbs again, and she slumped onto her back to gaze up at the sky. It all spun, but she dreamed of being a cloud.

Someone hissed for her attention.

Nova lifted her head.

Izerva loomed over Neo.

Fuck! He was unconscious! Nova fought it all to rush to his side as Izerva placed a hand on his chest. Her hands pressed against his soaked cheeks as Izerva studied him.

"He is alive, Engineer Nova," Izerva signed with a tap over his heart. "Just... he is not here, I should say."

"Here?" Nova rasped.

Izerva's tail swished slowly, sending droplets of water off their fur. "No, do not misunderstand. For a lack of a better word, he is asleep."

Nova sat beside him, and pressed her hands into her face when the other two forced themselves to their feet. In her side view, Thuni shifted in discomfort when something bleated in the forest around them. "Here we are, on an anomalous planet with barely researched lifeforms and without an anomalous scientist — student or otherwise." Thuni knelt beside Izerva. "I'm surprised our rough landing didn't jolt him." He frowned. "Sorry about your droid, Nova."

It stiffened her spine. "It's okay... I can rebuild that."

But if I lose Neo, that's it.

Thuni sighed. "Any way to wake him up if it's possible?"

Nova brushed the back of her hand across Neo's brow. Warm and wet, but not dead when he breathed in clarity and not with bubbled water. Izerva's whiskers twitched. "I don't know if waking him up is wise at this time," Izerva snapped their fingers in a single moment, then sat crosslegged with their tail around their feet. "What you told me makes me believe beyond a doubt that the eye chose him as a carrier to the starless sea. It may have been too much for him to bear. If such is the case, I don't think anything we do will wake him up until he's ready. We can try, but I don't recommend it." Izerva shook themselves out, then patted her on the back. "Let him rest. We will need to figure out our surroundings without him for the time being."

Nova swallowed on clots. "You think he will wake up?"

"I don't know. I shall keep an eye on his energy."

Nova clutched Neo's shoulder, and stiffened when Thuni narrowed his eyes down at them.

"What are you talking about?" he whispered. "What do you mean what was done to him? Look, there's a lot going on that I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around. Can we get a foundation for what... what happened?"

Nova relaxed. "It's a long story. I can explain if you don't understand something."

A better explanation, now that...

Disbelief dragged her to the sky above her head. Stars flickered for the incoming evening.

"Explanations can wait until we find some shelter," Izerva signed, then knelt for Nova. "You are very tired, Nova. Your energy has barely collected." Izerva turned to Thuni and Ulin. "Did any of you go through survival simulations before your arrival on the space station?"

"A little bit," Thuni answered.

"Too bad we don't have the core," Ulin whispered as they stood at the water's edge. "Not that I think it'd be strong enough to send a distress signal back to the Galactic Cabinet... it could've helped us scan the environment, at least." Shoulders up into a shrug, Ulin rushed over to them.

It could be dismantled. It could be replaced.

Nova returned her attention to Neo, who laid there in the grass, nothing more than a dream. "I'm not tired that I can't help find somewhere we can set up for the time being," Nova said and dragged herself on her shaking knees. "Do you have any idea of what we should look for?"

"Anything will do for the first night," Izerva signed. "A cave of some sort would be ideal." Another examination of the environment, they pointed to a small outcrop. "It will do for now, but I suggest in the morning we find someplace else."

"And then fire..." Nova mumbled and found the world swaying around her.

Izerva nodded. "Soon, but first..." They pointed at Neo. "Let's get you both to safety. He is unwell and vulnerable. You can barely stand. We can discuss what to do next when we've all had some rest. Thuni, can you carry the provisions?"

"Sure..." Thuni hauled the containers into his arms with Ulin.

Nova helped Izerva lift Neo to the outcrop, and placed him underneath the stone canopy to protect him from the elements. Thuni shoved the provisions to the side, and he sat down beside them.

"As long as we're careful, it should last us for a while," Thuni pointed out.

"I can hunt. It is okay." Izerva nodded at Nova. "I'm more worried about the unknown. We are trapped without information until Scientist Neo wakes up. We should find a way to send a signal. I do not know if retrieving the core is an option, but we don't need to leave it out."

If he...

Her head swam, and she rested the side of her head in her palm at the piercing wave of nausea. She jumped when Izerva rested their hand on her elbow, and signed, "You need rest."

Nova set herself closer to the ground, then whispered, "I can try to explain now—"

Thuni held up his hand. "Don't. We have bigger things to worry about, and I'm not going to push it."

"Can I at least give you the rundown?" she begged for the reality to make sense to tug herself back into a sitting position, causing Izerva to shake their head. "As you... I guess gathered, we were in a time loop. The anomaly we brought in is what caused the disappearance of the D.S Butterfly. I-I'm not exactly sure how, still."

Thuni pursed his lips, then eyed Neo. "Would he know?"

Nova followed his pointed attention. Neo's breaths came out soft, but slow and sure. "I don't know," she admitted a half-truth. "I think he saw something and—"

"It... almost killed him?" Ulin asked.

No. It did kill him. Over and over. Nova hugged herself. Bile tickled the back of her throat. Izerva's ears pinned against their head and they held their arms between them.

"I can tell you what I am aware of," they signed with the tips of their cautious fingers. "I will tell you what I told Nova. The eye is what we of Xelnodai belief call a 'Kairos'. It is both an entryway and a conduit for the sea of space-time. If you are willing to suspend your disbelief for myths."

"Right, and how did it mess up Teimea?" Thuni pressed. Words joined the bile to bubble it closer over her tongue. He frowned at her, then sighed. "You know what, forget it. I'd rather hear it from him. For now, Izerva's right. We need rest. If you don't mind, Ulin and I will brainstorm about either finding a way to retrieve the core and finding another power source."

"Sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be," Thuni grunted. "We're alive." He left the outcrop with Ulin, where they hovered at the bank and their voices disappeared in the soft breeze.

Izerva turned to her, and Nova flinched when they handed her a small headrest from the provisions. "You have been quite a lot, Nova. I advise you to rest."

"I was just living the same day over and over..." Nova slumped to the ground beside Neo.

"And that has taken its toll on you." Izerva nodded and left the outcrop. "Stay. Rest."

Close your eyes.

Fear stiffened her body, but Izerva joined Thuni and Ulin.

In and out.

Out, and in.

Nova curled up and tried to keep her eyes shut. Darkness screamed with blood and crimson, so she gazed at rock instead.

"Neo?" she dared to ask a question.

She got no answer.

Nova bit her lip and burrowed into the headrest. It's over. It's over... but... Chills dragged needle sharp teeth along her spine as she pressed her eyes into the headrest. Time ticked. Alarms rang. It's over. It's over. It's over.

Voices echoed on the expanse she left behind, the loss of life abandoned on the space station within the nebula twicefold.

Nova jumped when someone sent a gentle poke into her shoulder.

Izerva raised their hands when she lunged up. "What—?"

"I'm sorry to have awoken you. You just sounded distressed in your sleep, you were having a nightmare," they signed. "Are you well?"

Nova listened closer to the chirps in the dark. "What time is it, Izerva?"

Izerva blinked, then shuffled out of the way.

Starlight lit up the tips of the grass. On the blue tangles of the willows, they shimmered underneath the silver moon. Nova hauled herself to her knees and dragged herself out from the outcrop. With no fire needed, Thuni and Ulin sat with their backs against the wall in their own doze. Izerva followed her in one slow movement.

In a perfect echo, the void littered the ground with dots of pure light. It wove with night's calming shadows. The moon bloomed across the trees and sent its colour across the clouds. Spiderwebs of a rainbow curled around the stars, betraying the presence of the nebula.

Another dream.

Tears drowned her to reveal the truth of the beautiful dream. "It's night."

Izerva walked around her with a nod. "Yes, it is night."

"And it was daytime when I closed my eyes." Nova raised a hand to her mouth to suppress the sob in the back of her throat. There was never time for tears. Never time for anything.

Izerva nodded.

It's real. It's real. I'm not dreaming... Nova pushed her palms into her brow as she let the cry folding her stomach escape from its torment. Someone's hand rested on her back when she sank to her knees among the stars. Her tears sent them flying to the expanse above, on the wings of butterflies.