Ellie hugged her knees tightly to her chest. The cold wall behind her. The hard floor beneath her. The blackness all around.

Safe. Safe now. Safe here. In the darkness. Where no one can see me. Where no one can find me. If I don't move they'll never know I'm here. They can't hurt me if they can't find me. Best to stay here. I'm safe here.

Ellie repeated the refrain to herself over and over again. Had she been able to see, Ellie would have noticed the skin on her fingertips and arms where those same fingers gripped was white. She held herself tightly as if she were both shield and prey. Her forehead pressed on her knees. Her eyes hidden and shut tight. Her fingertips gathered up the fabric beneath them and buried themselves under any crease and fold they could, as if this was some additional layer of protection she could weave over herself, over any exposed skin.

She wore the darkness like a blanket, and wrapped it close around her.

Stay small. Harder to see.

She breathed as slowly and quietly as she could, forcing the terror back down, deep down inside where it wouldn't betray her.

Stay quiet so no one will hear.

She rolled her head slowly from side to side, slowly in case someone heard the movement. So absolute was the blackness that her eyes betrayed her. Instead of the phantom lights of ordinary darkness Ellie saw the Juggernaut.

She imagined herself in the deep dark places of that wreck. A dangerous place by any measure, but still it was home, and home was always safe. It was the unknown dangers that she should fear. But if she stayed hidden and small in the darkness, no one would ever know she was here. No one would find her.

What about Tila and Malachi?

They were friends. Friends help. Were. Past tense. They were friends in the light, but here she was alone.

No friends here. No one to help. We came together. We were separated. I was trying to rejoin them. But they're gone now. We got separated, and now I'm lost in the dark. They need me. No, I need them. I should go. They can help me. I'll be safer with them. With Tila. All I have to do is stand up. Just let go of my arms and move my legs and stand. But I'll have to move. I can't move. Best not to move. Stay here. I'm hidden here.

But I have to move. I'll be safer with them. Here someone can find me. But if I move someone might hear me, or see me. If I stay here they won't. If I move I'll be found. I don't want anyone to find me. I'm safe here. I can't move.

I'm safe in the dark. It's quiet. If I make a noise I'll disturb it and people will know and see me. And there's no one to help me.

The infinite black consumed her. She wasn't trembling anymore, or shaking. She barely breathed. Every part of her became still and silent in the dark, safe and quiet in the night that surrounded her. As she buried herself in the safety of the darkness she remembered why this was the best option she had, the only real option she had open to her.

It was very simple. She had always been safe in the dark.

Ellie was born in space, a child of the night sky. Darkness had always surrounded her. But that darkness was somehow different in nature, as if blackness could have a tint.

The darkness she remembered was not oppressive and dangerous. It was the safety of a quiet hiding place, long forgotten. But now she remembered.

She remembered when, as a little girl, she would be frightened by the scavenger gangs that roamed the Juggernaut. She was too small to fight them, and had nothing of value with which to offer them, so she hid. Behind the pipework and gratings of arterial conduits, where no light shone except the one you brought with you, she had hidden. There she was safe from danger in the dark.

When she raced, encased in the cockpit of her ship, the only light she saw came from the control panels before her and the starlight filtering through the canopy above. But she remembered that sometimes she would suppress the console and system lights and fly on muscle memory alone. Long-familiar routes around and over the surface of the city held no surprises for her anymore. She could do what few others could, fly blind around the hulking structure, safe, in the dark, where no one could catch her.

I won't be able to race again but that's okay. It's okay. If I try to race I have to move and then they'll find me. I'm safe here.

When was the last race she had? They were so long ago. Time had become something vague and insubstantial. She searched through the years in her mind. Her last race was on the Juggernaut. No, it was to one of the relay stations nearby. That wasn't it. Her eyes flicked back and forth in the darkness, as if trying to see the memory in front of her.

No, the last race was on a planet. Through canyons and into caves. Into the dark. She was safe there. She had guidance she trusted. And she won the race. Her lips almost twitched in memory of the victory. That was a good day. A good race. Especially When she burst through the waterfall into the sunlight.

The part where she left the dark behind.

She caught herself. She was almost betrayed. The sunlight wasn't safe. It was bright. It showed everything. There was nowhere to hide from that great yellow eye. The sunlight revealed it all. All the verdant richness of the trees and plants. Even the blue sky.

Ellie had never seen a blue sky before. She had seen pictures and video, obviously, but until Parador she had never stood under that enormous dome and seen a thousand shades of blue stretch from apex to horizon. And people described the sky as merely blue, like one colour alone could capture it all.

Jayce had described the sky as overcast, but it was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. Shafts of sunlight fanned through broken clouds and kissed the ground beneath. One void in the clouds had passed over them, touching her in a brief, surprising warmth. Through the space between the clouds she had seen, high up in the atmosphere, shining white skeins of cirrus cloud stretched across the heavens. The clouds had moved in parallax, each pushed by a different wind.

She remembered the wind. The Juggernaut provided a steady flow of livable air from its feeble recycling systems that made it taste of metal and grease, but it was an afterthought, no more than a dying gasp next to the living atmosphere of a planet.

There was no wind here. There was nothing to whip up her hair and snatch the breath from lungs.

It was bright too, to be exposed on the surface of a world. Not like here where she hid among the forgotten corridors of an old ship. It was dark, but it was familiar. She knew how to hide and how to make herself small when danger drew near.

There was no sun to warm her here, and no blue sky to lift her heart.

This was what she knew. This was better. She was returning to what she had always known. Her world fit within her experience and contained no surprises.

But not anymore, a small part of her disagreed. It used to be this way, but not anymore. Now you have walked a world, seen the sky and felt the sun.

I'm safe in the dark, she argued back.

But you'll never see it again, said the still, small voice. Don't you want to?

I can't move, I can't run. I should stay here.

But the grass had just been cut. It smelled like life waiting for its moment. It was soft underfoot. Not like the metal floors and walls she had known all her life.

That was the thing about the darkness. It was unchanging. You can rely on it. It will give you nothing, but it will always be the same.

Yes, always the same. The same fear. The same dread. The same cloak to hide the unknown.

Don't you want to see the sun again? Ellie asked herself.

Yes, she answered.

Yes.

Ellie uncurled clenched fingers and flexed the stiffness out of them. She took hold of the crates either side of her and pulled herself free of her hiding place.

She made a noise and froze rigid. The sound of her heartbeat and shallow breaths deafened her. She swallowed, stayed very still and counted to ten. The heartbeat faded. She heard no other sounds.

She waited a few seconds more, ears straining for any sign she had been discovered. Nothing came.

The darkness surrounded her just the same but she held tight to the promise of sunlight and sky. She told herself that she would only have to walk through the darkness a little longer and then she would see the light again.

She decided to leave.

And Ellie stood up.