Is this really real?

Morning came and she lacked a wink of sleep. Nova hovered beside Neo for one simple truth when he slept through the rest of the night. Will he wake up again?

Nova squeezed his shoulder with a small shake. Time dragged at his lackluster response. Bile crawled through her throat, but she waited for him; waited until there was nothing left in the universe to wait for.

A soft exhale escaped through his nose and he pried open his eyes. He glanced between all of them, but Nova leaned forward. "Neo?"

"I'm..." He drifted off, unfocused. "I'm alive, right?"

"Yes. Yes," Nova echoed and squeezed his hand. In her peripheral, Izerva headed out of the cave entrance. "Yes, you're alive. I promise. We're on Movium 1XH. We're not on the space station anymore." You're not drowning in the sea of time. Nova urged when he blinked, "How do you feel?"

Neo shut his eyes tight and shook his head. "I don't know..." he mumbled. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Tension fluttered out of his shoulders, but he sighed. "...how long, Nova?" He breathed deeper, then asked under his breath, "How long was I out?"

"You were out for a couple days," Ulin answered for her.

"It doesn't feel like that." Neo trembled, and Nova held his hand tighter. "Feels longer... feels like I..." He arrested his forearm across his brow with a soft, shuddering breath. "Movium 1XH, you said?"

Nova nodded, but then turned to Thuni and Ulin. "Can I have a moment to talk to him?"

"Sure." Thuni dragged Ulin outside to join Izerva.

Nova waited for them to be out of sight and earshot before returning to Neo, who never looked away from her. "I'm sorry if this is hard," she whispered. "You don't have to answer, but how much do you remember?"

He pressed his hand harder against his brow. "I'm not sure." His fingers trembled when he raised them into the air, but set them on her hand. "I don't know, it's—" He hesitated, then tried to haul himself into a sitting position, but Nova stopped him when he winced. "Wait—the space station? We're not on it?"

"No, Neo." Nova released him at the rippled confusion in his voice. "We're not anymore. I promise."

I promised. You're safe. You're alive.

Neo shook his head and his brow furrowed. "Why is this not making sense?" He squirmed and held the side of his head. "I was asking something—something to someone and I can't remember what it was..." he muttered under his breath. Though the habitual verbal thought process brought a sense of familiarity, it returned with a wave of concern when he curled against the wall. "Asking a question..."

"You asked the anomaly if... if the D.S Butterfly could be saved?" Nova rasped. "If we could still be saved."

Neo tensed, then dragged his attention back to her. "The Butterfly?" He blinked in rapid-fire, and Nova lunged forward when he brought both hands to the sides of his head with a sharp gasp and a shudder. "I'm alive?" he rasped and hid his face in his hands, and Nova held his shoulders. "No, no no no... I asked that question and—"

"Neo, don't, I shouldn't have asked," Nova whispered. "I'm sorry."

I'm sorry I hurt you.

A shot rang in her ears.

Neo dragged his fingers down his clammy cheeks, staring wide-eyed at the ground. His silence choked her, and she whispered, "Neo, can you talk to me?"

His breathing tapered off and he switched back to her. "Talk? It feels like we were talking just seconds ago... or it could've been ages." He hugged himself. "All at once. Movium 1XH?" He snapped his head around to the entrance with a soft groan of confusion. "You... wanted me to talk to you. We were having a conversation..."

"We're not looping anymore," she said. "It's over, Neo."

He fell quiet.

Nova edged closer. "Also... I just want to know how you're feeling."

"Tired," he admitted, then rested his head back in his hands. "I'm sorry. It's coming back to me in waves but I'm... confused."

"I think you're putting it lightly," she replied. "Neo, it's fine." Nova embraced him from around the shoulders, and chewed on old pain and tears when he returned it without hesitation. "I'm just so happy you're alive and with me." Nova brushed his back when he rubbed his eyes with the back of his palm. "Try and get some more rest. We're not going anywhere for a while." Nova held him at arm's length. "Ulin's picked up a signal that might be the lost scout."

"The scout?" Neo leaned on the wall with a huff. "I thought it got lost in the nebula."

"It somehow crash-landed somewhere on the planet," Thuni's voice said behind her, and sent a ripple of fearful nerves through her spine. He raised his hands in placation when she whipped around to face him. "We're hoping if we find it we can bolster our communication range and send out a distress signal for anyone to hear." He stepped to the side to let Izerva pass, who headed through their provisions. "How're you feeling, Teimea?"

Neo studied Thuni, then slipped down the wall to hit his makeshift bed. He said nothing, and Thuni frowned before leaving the cave once again. Nova bit her lip at the cracked tension, and she whispered, "Neo, are you hungry or thirsty at all? You were out for a day or so." And while we're in the loops... we never had a chance to exist.

"I don't know..."

Izerva knelt at his other side and pushed a capsule and nutritional packet into his hands. "Even if you don't feel hungry, you should eat," they signed and then poked the capsule. "Water. We saved some provisions for you for when you woke up."

And here I wondered if he would wake up at all.

Neo sat up once more with their help and drank the capsule without further resistance. He sighed, eyelids droopy when he looked between them. "It's just us?" he asked and set the capsule down at his side. "No one else got out?"

Nova frowned at his question. "Yeah... it's just us. I don't think anyone else escaped."

His lips parted in shattered despair, but he twisted to Izerva when they pushed the packet closer to his face. "Eat, Scientist Neo. You need your strength," Izerva signed with a firm chirp through their teeth. "We will move to the suspected crash site when you feel better."

He took it from them, and he chewed on it without meeting either of them in the eye. Nova leaned around the entrance to check on Thuni and Ulin, who sat outside on the outcrop in quiet conversation. Unable to pick up what they discussed, she switched her attention to the immediate problem at hand. Neo finished off the nutrition packet and laid back down with a soft moan.

Izerva patted her shoulder to leave and join Thuni and Ulin. Nova frowned when Izerva signed to Thuni, and the two of them walked into the forest without looking back, leaving Ulin on the outcrop alone to work on their datapad and the foundation of a geomap. Nova shuffled to sit closer to Neo, then tipped closer when he shook his head with a deepening frown. Mist clouded the grey nebula.

"Neo?"

He shut his eyes tight. "Muddled, it's all mushed." He curled onto his side with his back to her, his hands shaking when he tucked them closer to his chest. "Slowly..." He sank into his shoulders when she rested a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry..."

"Why are you apologizing?" Nova asked.

Neo laid there without answering, gazing into the abyss. Nova dug her fingers into his arm. "Neo, you can talk to me. If something doesn't make sense, I can—"

He shook his head, and his breathing evened out from his previous jagged life. Nova left him to rest to check on Ulin.

"How's the map?" she asked and sat beside them.

"It's coming along," they said. "I wish we had the use of that antenna, but I can't get it to work now. I gave Thuni the last one I had, so I'm hoping they don't run into a slime forest." They shrugged and swiped their hand across the pixelated map. "There's also the matter of whatever is blocking the scout's sensor. I have no way to determine how far away it is..." They sighed. "Or whether it's on the top of the mountain, or like your droid sank to the bottom of an ocean somewhere..."

"Figured out a way to pull my droid from the lakebed?" Nova asked.

"No, though Izerva seems to think the bottom of the lake can't be too deep," Ulin explained. "Even if we could drag it out, it'd be banged up pretty bad. Vital pieces might not work. We could maybe fly for about a minute before crashlanding again. No worries, though, I know the scout is out there. We just need to find it — and with Teimea awake we might make some headway about the planet we're on."

Nova checked on neo, who hadn't moved. "I'm not sure how long that will take."

It fell silent between her and the AI programmer. Ulin closed their datascroll with a huff. "I feel like I should mention something to you. Thuni is all but certain something happened between you three." Ulin raised their hand. "And seeing as none of us but you really remember—"

Nova squirmed in bubbled discomfort. "It's nothing... important." Just a thousand of my mistakes and choices. It got Thuni killed. It got Neo killed. It almost killed me. Her throat itched in old pain and drained oxygen, but she kept her hand pressed against the rock to feel reality. "I'll talk about it when I'm ready."

"I understand." Ulin hauled themselves to their feet. "We'll keep trying to see if there's a way to drag your droid off the lakebed. I'm not done with the geomap, so we're stuck here until I am. Anything to make sure we don't get lost." They smiled down at her. "I like to think we have that one small win."

"And what's that small win?" Nova dug into her knees.

"Teimea is awake," they pointed out. "And the fact is we're alive from whatever was happening on the space station." Their arms went limp. "It's weird... something in my gut tells me it's nothing short of miraculous that we are."

"Deja vu?" Nova whispered.

Ulin hummed. "I don't know. Maybe. Thuni's been getting it a lot though. I can tell it's starting to bother him."

I know. I don't even know why that's happening to him of all people. Even in the loops Thuni seemed more... subconsciously aware of what was going on besides Neo. Void Hells, Thuni was showing signs of remembering before Neo — but he also wasn't seeing time. Nova chewed on her lip to make sense of it all. Maybe... Neo's mind tried to shield itself from when the anomaly made him a host. If that same thing happened on the D.S Butterfly when they pushed their way through, they weren't so lucky. It turned them into an amalgamation. Nova waited for Ulin to shuffle to the edge of the lake. So many things that I can't make sense of. Neo touched the anomaly, and then touched me. I know that's probably why I could remember while he glimpsed the sea of time. But if these three were also getting the same sensations... why them? Nova rested her chin on her fingers.

Questions with no clear answers.

Nova slipped back into the cave. "Neo?"

"Is Ulin gone?"

"They went to the edge of the lake, why?"

Neo twisted to rest on his back, face ashen. "I still feel it."

"Feel... what?"

Vibrations shook his hands when he held them out. "The weight," he whispered and clenched his fists. "But then it wasn't heavy at all. I lifted it... and just like that..." He faltered, and closed his eyes and hid in the shield of his blanket.

Is he... talking about what I think he is?

Another shot rang through her mind, and Neo's blood splattered the metal. Nova knelt beside him when he rasped, "I'm going to tell them."

"What? Tell them what?"

Neo opened his eyes. The universe bared its cold fangs. Another shield, but no less startling when viewed through the lens of a black hole. "I'm going to tell them that I touched the anomaly even though I shouldn't have. I'm going to tell them that I raised a blaster to a living being with the full intention to kill even though there might've been another option." He shuddered. "The fact that I... that all those people are dead or worse... because of me. Because all I wanted was to be a part of this. All I wanted was to be here, and look at what I've done." He smiled, but there was no glimmer of light. It was fraught with torment, pain, and desperation. "I am going to tell them the truth of everything, and I hope they hate me for it."