Nothingness.

Her hands ghost against the Paine of thick glass separating her from the void, infinite nothingness as far as one could look in the pitch black reach of death's gaze. 

the only thing stopping her from being scooped out into its frigid embrace was metal. Metal  and wires, a rib cage made out of nuts and bolts, with nothing but cold surfaces and sharp edges welded together that encapsulated her and the rest of her crew.

She almost forgets to breathe, her lungs twisted up and tangled with a combination of unfiltered elation and deep seated dread that knocks back and forth within her skull until she becomes lightheaded from the thought of acknowledging either of them.

Instead of that, she grunts, lifting herself out of her chair while her eyes continue to fixate on the electronic timer counting down its life until they reach their new destination. A new place, new opportunities, a new start-

A new home.

She hesitates at the last thought, brushing it aside as she walks away from the machine, her hands slightly shaky from the amount of caffeine she's ingested in the last 48 hours, the empty cups now stacked up into a messy pile beside her desk.

She walks out into the hallway from her office, the bright, fluorescent lights nearly blinding from her extended time cooped up and occupied with work. Even just a few steps out and she can already hear the mutter of chatter flooding from the commons area, Snippets of conversation buzzing to life the closer she gets. A small smile lifts the corners of her mouth as she enters the room, her older sister sitting in one of the many chairs scattered about the room. 

She walks towards her on the bleached white tiled floors, stopping beside her place a comforting hand over her shoulder; and chuckles when the girl nearly jumps out of her seat from surprise.

“Wha -Charlie! I told you not to scare me like that!” the older girl squeaks, a squeezed smirk scrunching up her face subtly. 

Charlie replies with a toothy, smug smile, only patting her sister again on the shoulder, albeit a bit more delicate this time. 

“You know I couldn't miss an opportunity like that!” charlie defends, crossing her arms while continuing to wear the same smirk. Her sister rolls her eyes, and finally chuckles along.

“So you finally decided to come out of your hole, huh?” Her sister nudges charlies side with her elbow, a friendly gesture. Charlie's body tenses slightly, she really wishes she didn't have to. She would rather be anywhere else then on this godforsaken ship, but she never really had a choice.

“You would do the same if you were the one in charge of making sure this tin can doesn't blow up!” 

“guess I can't argue with that.” 

“See, I told you. Now how is the data coming along?” charlie glances over at the clock hung up on the wall; god, it was already almost 2am. She doesn't want to be here.

“Got two more potential sites we could look into, nothing special though.” her sister shrugs.

“Are they actually habitable this time?” charlie mutters under her breath. She feels like she's already said this before, like this whole thing has happened before.

“Yeah yeah,” her sister waves a dismissive hand in the other direction “no more acidic deposits or whatever.” charlie snorts at the response. But it's mostly out of reflex. She can't wait to get back to her room at this point.

“Can't say people would be too happy if the equivalent of an acid volcano blew up their home.”

She jokes back, forcing her face into a smile.

“It sounded like it would be a ‘them’ problem at the time, not a ‘me’ problem.” her sister jokes.

“Whatever you say, rose.” she rolls her eyes, until settling her gaze on the screen of glass on the other side of the room. Her face scrunches up as she easily abandons the shallow conversation, instead making her way across said room; something twisting uneasily in her stomach the same way her awe of the stars did with her lungs. 

“Where do you think you’re going, i'm not done with you yet!” Rose calls after her, a smile still strewn on the taller girls face, while her sister ignores her.

Charlie stops a few steps short of the glass, and places a delicate hand on its surface, her eyes squinting into the nothingness.

“Uh, rose?” she finally responds to her, calling out to her sister as her other crew peers start to glance over curiously, and then follow up with an array of different sounds of sudden panic.

“I'm coming i'm com-” she stops short behind the shorter girl, mouth slightly agape.

“Rose, what is- 

“What the hell is that thing?!” a sudden shriek arises from the room in the back, cutting charlie off from trying to reason out what she's currently seeing in front of her.  Something in her memory seems to click, but she doesn't know why. 

Something blacker than the abyss stares back at them, long, lithe tendrils slowly curling in and out from around it as it continues to approach the ship.

Somebody in the crowd begins to scream, and soon the whole ship is riddled with fear and panic as everyone seemingly begins to scramble. Crowds of people trampling over each other through the small door frames on either side of the commons.

She should be running with them, screaming in terror and ripping her hand away from the glass. But instead she can only stand still as her sister tries to drag her deeper into the false security of their ships from the lurking leviathan in the void. 

She's just so tired. And she just wants to go back home. 

Maybe space wouldn't be that cold after all?

She can hear her sisters voice behind her, muffled but just as grating to her ears. She stares out of the window, glazed over eyes watching the creature sulk closer.

She can finally go home.