booooooo

"All the horns are yours to toot, honestly," Grace lifts up both hands in surrender, then gesturing at you with open palms as if to say the stage is yours. "I had heard your name come up multiple times the moment I was cleared to handle confidential information." He mirrors your earlier shrug, like he doesn't want to fully commit to his perception. "Stratt sounded oddly self-assured, like you were the one ace up her sleeve that wouldn't fail her."

That draws a short bark of a laugh out of you. Eva Stratt is many things, but unprepared is not one of them.

Having blind faith in people, also. Not her style at all.

"That's an exaggeration," you push at his shoulder like you push away the ridiculous idea, "I had many back-ups like everyone else, I assure you." Stretching out your legs, you sink back into the impromptu pillow fort with a sigh, "I trust your judgement. If you say so, that is how it must've looked like to an observer. Even if so, it's probably just that she saw high odds of success with my presence or something. Nobody is indispensable to Stratt."

"Oh, I would know."

The bitter chuckle that leaves his lips drip with venom.

... You probably shouldn't ask, but what is humanity without curiosity?

"Could be a different case for you," Nodding, you carefully try breaching the subject. "She was very insistent that you join. I know she's bossy and persuasive, but I still cannot fathom how she managed to convince you. That's Stratt, alright."

It takes you a second that might have come off as you underestimating him.

"Not in a bad way!!" Before he can speak, your hands fly up in defense, "I mean, you just seemed so..." Rolling your hands before clasping them together once you scrambled for the appropriate word for long enough, "... Hesitant. Not to say you were meek or bad at your job or anything, but I was under the impression that you didn't want to be involved any more than the bare minimum needed for the science." Taking a breath through your teeth, you offer a quiet "Sorry."

"You're right on the mark," he says, tone somber, and oh, you're not sure if you can bear to look at him. You have come across him with a mournful expression on his face once or twice, seemingly expressionless but the bleak mood hanging heavily in the air as he watches the stars; and it tugs at your heartstrings in all the wrong ways. "She didn't."

"Hm?"

"She didn't convince me."

Heart dropping to your stomach at the implications, you turn your head to face him at the speed of a medieval gate opening.

"I didn't volunteer," His mouth twitches up, though it's more a grimace than anything else, "I refused — tried to escape when she tried to force me into it. The memories are still a little spotty, but I remember being hunted down."

The sheen of tears in his eyes reflects your own, your lower lip wobbling as he continues; "The grass against my cheek. Uncomfortable pressure on my lower back. A rainbow. The feeling of an intrusive needle in my neck."

They didn't give him a choice. He was hunted down like an animal and forced on a suicide mission with one order, all in the name of greater good. And yet.

And yet he works to help those back home — home, if you can even call it that with the newfound revelation. You cannot imagine being stripped of your autonomy in such a way and still have the resolve to help the very people that betrayed you.

Sure, it is not the entire population. A powerful few, if not just one, but still. You don't dare label him a saint or assume his feelings on the matter, with considerable effort.

The feeling of being betrayed, deceived, far outweighs the sorrow, your resentment manifesting itself as molten anger streaming down your cheeks.

How dare they. How dare they.

"I'm nothing like you, Yao, or Ilyukhina," Grace mumbles, the words haphazardly thrown together as he moves to get up. "Sorry I'm not who you think I am."

Your hand flies to latch on his wrist so hard you hear one of your joints pop.

"We," Swallowing thickly, you close your eyes to pull yourself together, trying to refrain from choking on your words, "We were told you agreed. Yao was against forcing you from the very beginning, as were the rest of us. Stratt said after a long discussion, you wanted to be put in the medically induced coma before launch for nerves or something—!!"

Bile raises in your throat. Your ignorance makes you feel almost complicit in what happened to him, even if you had no say in the matter.

"I'm so sorry," you barely manage to get the words out, lightly tugging at his wrist.

Grace crumples in your arms like a flimsy doll, fingers clumsily digging into your shirt in a poor attempt to hold onto you — or to hold himself together. You can't tell.

"Thank you," you barely hear the words, muffled by your own shoulder, "It's nice to know at least some cared."

Your circumstances could not have been more different. The revelation hangs in the air, present yet not in focus.

It's not like you had someone to die for, you have told Grace that much. No heroism or bravery was involved in your decision, you did simply because you could. No grand aspirations behind it.

It would be nice to be hailed as a hero if you succeed, though it's a double edged sword. You have enough grasp on history to know how quick people are to pin the blame on whoever is the easiest target, in which you and Grace are the very ones.

"I still think that you're extremely brave." Grace croaks, breaking the silence. The glassy sheen in his eyes match yours.

Craning your head to meet his gaze, you can't help but furrow your brows in disbelief. "... I just told you I wasn't thinking much of anything. Might as well have been on autopilot the entire time."

"Doesn't change a thing," Grace shrugs with a surprisingly smug smile that comes with proving himself right, pinky bumping against yours as he adjusts his position gaze at the pixellated beach more comfortably, a small oop— sounding in the room at the contact.

"I think you're extremely brave, too." Before he can pull away, you curl your pinky around his, grip loose in case he wants to pull away, "Brave, and kind."

His pinky curls around yours. The gesture feels like making a small promise, though you don't know what you're swearing to.

The space walks are the fun part of this entire ordeal, rare as they are.

Grace — Ryland, disagrees. He has always been more at home in the lab, which, you get it, him being the lead scientist, and being the only one who can manage to get something done and all.

"Are you sure about this?" Ryland grunts, hooking a foot in the net as he spins around, trying to put his suit on to accompany you, despite it being more strategically aligned to have someone on base at all times, having insisted you don't go exploring alien territory on your own.

Especially in the form of a golden ship at least three times as long as Hail Mary harbouring intelligent life.

"More than," you chuckle, floating over to zip him up, stabilising both him and yourself with practiced ease. "We're not saying anything, though. Can't risk jinxing it. But they did invite us in the form of attaching themselves on our ship, so at least we're not uninvited guests. All implications included."

"Alright, yeah, got it, no problem," Ryland rambles, releasing a shaky breath as he raises his chin as you zip him up, giving you the most unsure thumbs up combined with the soggiest look you have ever seen.

Holding back a giggle, you pull his helmet closer, though you make sure to splay a palm over his head to mess up his hair affectionately before putting it on him, finally baiting an exasperated chuckle out of him.

He still looks like an elastic band stretched too thin, threatening to snap any minute, though. Like, you're sure he's going to get cramps from how tense he is from nerves.

The solution to such a problem comes to you in the form of latching onto one another, which proves surprisingly effective.

Until Ryland gets startled upon first contact.

The scream scared off himself, you, and the creature, until the situation was somehow diffused, and hopefully written off as a misunderstanding on both sides.

The creature is extremely intelligent, and you love it immediately.

Similarities in culture is not impossible by any means even across stars, though it's still astonishing that body language and gestures convey their meaning this well, mimicking aside. You gesture for it to wait, and after a few demonstrations, it understands, and waits. Mimicking the gesture as closely as his physiology will allow, it tells you to wait as well, and you wait.

God, you're communicating. You're actually communicating with an alien creature.

You decide to take shifts to avoid losing time — or brainpower. Ryland tripped four times just trying to bring a clock over, and you walked in circles back and forth between Mary and the Blip-A for seven minutes before it dawned on you that you forgot what you were searching for.

The process of breaking the language barrier is as close to smooth sailing as possible after the arrangement, so much so that after you take off the soundproof earphones when you wake up, a robotic voice greets you.

"Hi friend!"

You take off your eye mask to see Rocky greeting you with a three-clawed wave.

Any semblance of sleep you had in your body evaporates.

"Hi Rocky!!" you coo, voice going up several pitches from excitement as you jog to meet him behind the xenonite, waving at him before turning to Ryland, "You gave him a voice?"

"Makes things a lot easier," he tilts his head, voice laced with sleep. "Welp, guess it's my turn to sleep." He places a hand on your shoulder, lingering before it slips off your bicep, "Knock yourselves out."

"What Grace mean, question?" Accompanied by two taps for emphasis.

"It's an expression, Rock. He means have fun."

There is a void all around you.

No sound, no sight, no feel. No memory of what happened.

Inhale, exhale.

You feel your lungs fill with air before you force it out. That means you can breathe. Good.

There is still no feeling in your fingertips. Nor your face, for that matter, and you worry it's blunt force trauma. Chances of you being treated in some void pool meant for sensory deprivation is quite low. You try shifting your weight somewhere to test where you are. On the floor, probably, until you feel your entire weight pull you down, and suddenly you're like a marionette on a string.

Not the floor, then.

The tension tells you you're strapped in, and—

Blue eyes blown wide with terror flash in your mind. A hand reached out towards you, not your face, but in front of it before your memories cut off.

You yank the safety belt off with pure muscle memory, your entire body protesting as it tries to stand upright, your arm shooting out to find support wherever the panels are.

Your senses come back to you slowly, like static sounding more and more coherent until you stumble upon a channel when searching for one in the radio.

The once muted sound of beeps are now deafening alarms blaring in your ears. The once blurred lights are now blinding as they flash red. The smell of something burning makes you gag.

An inhuman wail makes its way to your ears, and the sight that greets you is of Rocky in the corridor, trying to pull a limp Ryland towards the Lab.

Rocky is out of his space, wisps of black smoke rising out of him. So I no die in Grace and friend atmosphere, you recall. Ryland is unconscious, and probably in worse shape than you are.

You lunge forward before your brain can register what you're seeing.

"Your results are everything I could hope for," Says Stratt, and though her voice remains stoic as ever, you can tell she's impressed as she looks over the report in her tablet, your chest swelling with pride. "To call your body durable would be an understatement. Your performance has not fallen under the optimal metrics in any of the environments we tested you for; not to mention your short recovery time. The textbook definition of sturdy, really."

Your hand hooks into the back of Ryland's collar as you throw your body forward to drag him faster without falling over, barely managing to avoid slamming into Rocky, putting one foot in front of the other with unprecedented determination.

The moment Armando is in sight, you grab the first thing you can reach, which happens to be the insulated blanket Ryland has left lying around, and you flick it in Rocky's direction.

Before you can rasp out the command; ever so smart, Rocky steps onto the blanket, and you waste no time dragging him to his enclosure with all the strength you can muster, even with the world swaying beneath your feet, vision growing dim.

The small wail that comes from the medical bed falls on deaf ears.

"I will make it," you hiss, more for yourself than for Rocky, eyes trained on the clear xenonite, "I've got you, buddy."

Only one out of you three set out on this mission to die. You're not about to let either of them be the ones to die, not when Ryland wants to live. Not when Rocky has a mate, a home to return to.

Your hand slams on something as you lose your footing, though you make sure to curl your arm up, just to save Rocky a few steps.

"Please, God, anyone—" you croak, not having the strength to even lift your head to see if Rocky made it, "Please let them make it. Let them live. Kill me instead. I'll do anything. I'll die, I'll live— anything."

Your world descends into darkness like your plug has been pulled.

"Eye movement detected. Good morning, Doctor Grace."

There is an eery stillness around him.

Blinking to shake off any uncertainties he has, Ryland sluggishly gets up, gaze dropping to a faint trail of black, peppered with red spots, leading out of the lab.

Dread weighs on his shoulders heavier than a boulder as he moves slowly, trying to brace himself for whatever sight that will greet him with each deliberate step.

He sees you first.

Laying face first on the floor, your face is shielded by your arm curling around your head. If he didn't know any better, he would have assumed you had taken a particularly nasty fall but was too embarrassed to get up.

Swallowing thickly, he brings a shaky hand to your neck, resting his fingertips on your pulse—

There is a faint rhythm beating against the pads of his fingers.

He releases a breath he didn't know he was holding, curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut, letting his tears fall.

Your other hand reaches out to the xenonite, towards Rocky, and a sob tears itself from his throat when there is a slight move, quiet wheeze of a sound, followed by a thrum.

You sat on a spinning office chair in the lab, you were spinning slowly in circles with your legs up to your chest. Ryland stood in front of you staring at a whiteboard of stuff on astrophage.

“Why do they go to venus?” He asked vaguely, his arms crossed in front of him.

“Maybe they are like birds.”

“What?” He asked, readjusting his glasses.

You continued spinning in your chair.

“I read an article that they found fossil of birds from 73 billion years ago with hatchlings and–”

“You know I love your tangents, but I’m sort of working on saving the world right now.”

You stopped your spinning and smacked his arm, rolling your eyes.

“They discovered that they went to the arctic to breed.”

Ryland rubbed his eyebrow in thought, bringing his glasses to hang below his chin.

“Okay? Birds migrate to breed, I taught that to my students all the– wait! You’re saying–”

“Maybe astrophage go to Venus to breed! Exactly!”

Ryland leant down and pulled you out of your chair, hugging you tightly, before running off to the corner to grab some duct tape.

The memory brought you to tears, mostly because it gave you physical relief, since it felt like you had been literally holding everything tight in your brain and you didn’t have the key to unlock it. But all the emotions from the memory felt so familiar to you. You obviously felt a strong sense of familiarity and comfort around Ryland, but now you knew a small part of exactly why that was. Of course it didn’t tell you exactly how you met, or how you ended up on Mary, but it was something.

When you rushed into the lab and brought it up to him, he told you he didn’t remember, and moved back to his work. 

To his defense, you could tell Ryland was trying so hard to remember, he really did want to remember. Throughout the day he tried to squint his eyes hard, even rubbed his forehead to try and simulate some neurons or something, and he felt extremely bad when you laughed at him in those moments. You couldn’t blame him, both of your memories were just waiting to bloom, it just was taking a bit of time.

Ultimately, despite him not remembering, your knowledge of astrophage helped you both remember why you were on the ship to begin with. 

After some time Ryland was beginning to stare into space instead of tracking the ship’s trajectory. You put your computer down.

“Ryland, you’ve been up for way too long, go take a nap.”

When he went down for a nap you began to log your memory into your tablet, you didn’t have much there yet. You groaned as your back ached, you hated the lab stools because they hurt your back, but it’s not like you had patients to tend to. So that was what you could do without Ryland’s supervision.

After an hour or so Ryland walked into the lab after his nap. You turned around at the sound of his feet on the floor, and when you saw him, your smile dropped as you noticed the tears in his eyes, his glasses long abandoned, and his stature falling. 

“Ryland?”

He crossed the floor immediately toward you and pulled you into a tight hug.

“What’s going on?” You asked as you brought your hands up behind him to run through his hair maybe instinctively, yet still nervously.

“My head hurts—you—you met me at—we stayed up all night together—we—” He stammered.

Your eyes widened and you rubbed his back comfortingly. His sobs made his body shake against you.

“I remember. I remember it all. You’re my best friend.”

You smiled into his shoulder, and let yourself for the first time tighten your arms around his waist. 

Two.

You stood in front of a whiteboard. Ryland sat on the floor in front of you beside Rocky. 

Ryland could tell you were excited by the way you kept swaying side to side and the giant grin on your face. He knew your passion was human biology, you had told him that everything about it fascinated you, which is why you became a doctor in the first place.

He asked you while you were both trying to get to know each other better in the mental health room, he remembered spending late nights in the lab with you, he remembered eating in the dining room on the boat with you, the jokes you’d make together, but he didn’t remember why you became a doctor. He knew you remembered and maybe told him already before, but insisted you tell him again anyway. And you insisted he tell you why he became a teacher. It was like watching a flower that had been planted last spring bloom again after the long winter.

However, because Ryland was a microbiologist and a biologist he knew as much about human biology as you did, but sometimes he’d pretend not to remember just so he could see the excitement on your face when you did.

Ryland knew, by the way you fidgeted and constantly reminded yourself of basic medicine by reading textbooks on the online database, that you missed medicine so much. So when Rocky asked Ryland to explain human biology and to explain what human doctors do one day while he was in the tunnel meeting Rocky for one of the first times — while you slept — he knew exactly who to talk to — you.

The whiteboard contained info about specialities that weren’t your speciality, but you felt were still important to take note of. You had written down, OBGYN, and neurology, and surgery, you were discussing surgery just then.

“Humans cut people open when there is a problem inside their bodies, that is what surgery is.” You explained.

“What problem, question?” Rocky asked, leaning closer curiously.

“Like…uh, heart problems. Or to get these harmful growths called tumours out of our bodies.” Ryland explained, he moved his glasses to rest on the top of his head.

“Bad bad bad! Human bodies inefficient statement.” Rocky squealed.

“They sure are sometimes.” Ryland groaned. 

You nodded and laughed.

“I was in emergency medicine before I was on this mission, and one time there was this guy who came in with heart issues,” You started explaining, your hands moving all over the place. “and we ended up having to crack open his chest, we cut his chest open so we could see his lungs and heart, and we found out there was air from his lung entering into his bloodstream. This is called an embolism–”

Ryland’s mouth formed into a smile, wide at you, a smirk on his face like he was about to laugh. He was just perplexed, some of the memories he remembered best were ones where you went on heated tangents in response to his questions. 

You paused when you noticed Rocky giving you excited jazz hands to laugh, then noticed Rylands gaze directed at you. You suddenly felt shy for the first time in front of him. 

Did you explain anything wrong? You admired Ryland for his intelligence, and you loved his tangents as much as you loved going on tangents. You were overcome with a desire to impress him constantly. But you sometimes worried you were getting things wrong when Ryland let you talk too much. There he was staring at you making you flustered?

He watched as you shyly bit your lip, clearly nervous.

“What?” You asked.

He shook his head and his lips moved to a more serious expression, hoping you couldn’t read his mind. He moved his glasses onto his face so he could see you more clearly, overcome with wanting to watch you more. 

Ryland pulled his legs in front of his chest and crossed his arms overtop his knees. 

“Nothing. I like watching you explain things.” He said.

You smiled in relief, and looked away.

Three.

When you woke up one morning, you found yourself becoming anxious at the sight of the stars out your window. You wanted desperately to revisit Earth, and you knew the one place to do it — the mental health room. 

You and Ryland had bonded in the mental health room twice before, he showed you all his favorite places on Earth — and also the places he wished he had visited — but Blip-A, or Rocky’s ship showed up before you got a chance to show him yours. You knew what you needed to calm your anxieties was to visit Greece, or Canada, or New York, or to see a tree for God's Sake.

You headed down the ship, toward the semi spherical room, climbing down the ladder leading down. When you jumped off the ladder and turned around you saw Ryland sitting on the platform, staring at a projection of the beach. 

“Hi.” You said.

Ryland turned around, lifted his glasses off his chin and looked at you.

“Hi.”

You walked toward the platform, stepped around him and pulled yourself down on the metal grate to sit on the left of him.

“Everything okay?” You asked.

He shrugged, he closed his fox cardigan further with his hands.

“Yea, I just missed the beach. I miss Earth.”

You tilted your head in a nod. 

“Me too.”

A moment of silence passed and neither of you interrupted it. You felt as though you might’ve been intruding on his peace and silence, on his moment of reflection. So you stood up.

“Alright, well sorry to interrupt, I’ll let you have your peace.” You said, stepping around him.

You felt his hand grab your wrist to stop you, you looked down at him. His face was comically almost in a pout, and his eyes stuck glued onto you. You couldn’t help but admit he looked well…attractive, in the lighting of the room. You brushed that aside as you stepped closer toward  him.

“Stay. I like this room better with you in it anyway.”

“I guess I have to stay then.” You fake complained, which earned you a chuckle from Ryland.

Ryland Grace had a way of saying the nicest things anyone had ever said to you. Your mouth formed a grin shyly, and you lowered yourself down next to him again, you playfully brushed your shoulder against his and you both laughed. Finally, you wagered against something blooming inside of you and the urge to rest your head on his shoulder, and shyly without looking up at him, lowered your head to rest on his left shoulder. 

The shy touch felt different than the touch you both usually shared before, and you almost wondered if you made a mistake. But when Ryland lowered his head to the left to rest on top of yours, you were filled with relief and a feeling you hadn’t felt since you were a teenager.

Four.

“Grace and Rocky teach y/n how to fly ship.” Rocky said matter of factly.

You were all headed up to the pilot deck, floating through the halls of the ship. You knew you had to learn how to fly it in case anything were to happen to Ryland when he grabbed the sample from Adrian. You were just nervous. You had very little driving experience, let alone flying experience.

As you floated with Ryland and Rocky into the control room and pilot deck, Ryland reached for your floating body and guided you into the pilots seat. His glasses floated off of his face beside him, before he reached and put them on.

“Pilot detected.”

“Ugh.” You groaned in response to Mary as you lowered yourself into the chair.

“I know, but if I have to fly this hell machine, then you also gotta fly this thing.” Ryland responded.

You pouted up at him and a laugh tumbled out of his mouth.

Ryland helped you strap in, his hand brushing lightly over your body in the process, and it some how felt like the most intimate touch you both experienced. When he buckled you in he made sure to tighten the straps to your liking.

“Grace ready teach, question?” Rocky asked, his body moving enthusiastically in his geometric ball.

“Yea Rock, I think we’re ready, right?” Ryland grabbed your shoulders with his hands and looked at you for a response.

You could feel him scanning your face. Something in his expression reassured you.

You simply just nodded out of nervousness.

“It’s time go!” Rocky exclaimed.

“You mean ‘go time’, but yea.” Ryland mumbled.

He pushed Rocky toward a metal spot right beside you and clicked Rocky’s magnets to stay in place.

“Okay so you see that joystick thingy?” Ryland asked, floating beside you.

“Yea, that thing?”

You placed your hand on the joystick, Ryland grabbed onto the pilots chair and floated behind you.

“Yea, so I’m going to guide you the first time, since it’s sort of…sensitive. Then you can try on your own.” He explained.

You weren’t exactly sure what he meant by ‘guide you’, until he leaned down behind you so his mouth was close to your ear, and his right arm reached around you to put his hand overtop of your hand onto the joystick. You could hear his breathing, his breath on your ear. 

The touch was again, different than the rest. It shot up your body, and you tried your best to make it seem like it didn’t affect you. If anything it made you more nervous, but you trusted him to not let you make a huge mistake.

“Alright now, we’re gonna go slightly forward like this, smooth and steady.” He whispered.

You had to resist the urge to let out a laugh at the sensation of his breath on your ear. God, you were embarrassed by how much that was affecting you, and hoped he couldn’t tell. Afterall he was just doing what he did best — teaching.

“Careful!” Rocky chimed in, but you had barely heard it over the sensation of Ryland.

He guided both of your hands slowly to move the joystick forward, you gasped as you felt the ship move.

When you gasped, Ryland felt the way it affected his body physically. He had forgotten for a moment, how intimate this kind of touch was. The conventions were different in space. But the way you gasped, made sparks shoot up his body. He was suddenly aware of how close your skin was to his.

He watched you move along with him, and when your touch felt a little too similar to something unplatonic, he pulled back suddenly.

“Uh, that was great,” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, go ahead and try it yourself.”

He watched as you slowly moved the ship forward, and as you did, you turned to face him giving him an excited expression. After a few minutes of you attempting to navigate different maneuvers effortlessly, you stopped, and leaned forward to unstrap.

“How’d I do for my first try?” You asked.

“Much better than Grace first try!” Rocky said. “Grace almost make Rocky die!”

Ryland rolled his eyes, patting Rocky’s ball.

“A bit dramatic don’t you think?” 

“Well, I had a good teacher.” You responded. You met eye contact with Ryland that for — the first time — felt a bit awkward.

You unstrapped yourself and leaned forward to activate centrifuge.

“I’m gonna turn on centrifuge, since we still have a bit more work to do.” You said.

Ryland nodded, remembering he had found another case of the specific coffee you liked in the storage room. 

“I’ll make you coffee. When you’re ready in the lab.”

You watched him excitedly hurry down to the lab, and you activated the centrifuge.

Five.

Rocky finds Ryland on the floor of the lab.

Ryland laid in the fetal position groaning, his eyes opening slowly from sleep, trying to remember how far away Erid was. He placed his hand on the cold floor feeling for you in the spot in front of him, confused at your absence, he heard the sound of Rocky’s geometric ball rolling toward him. 

“Grace! Grace friend need help statement.” 

Ryland’s eyes shot open wide as he weakly pushed himself off the floor. He grabbed his glasses that laid on the floor and put them on. 

“Okay Rock, just give me a second to stand up.”

“Hold ball so no fall.” Rocky said. “Grace weak.”

Ryland just nodded his head, standing up and holding onto Rocky who led him slowly toward the lavatory. 

When he saw you on the ground he collapsed on the floor next to you.

“Grace here to help, statement, no worry.” Rocky reassured you.

“No more taumeoba, it tastes so bad.” You whined.

You could feel your ribs through your skin, you had lost a significant amount of weight when you started to run out of food on the way to Erid. You both knew it was going to happen, but you didn’t think it would happen so quickly. You hated the taste of taumeoba, but you and Ryland had been relying heavily on that for a while, careful to preserve enough for Erid. 

Rocky in particular was sure to feed it to you both, chastising you if you didn’t eat it. You had been taking care of each other well enough, until you secretly slipped away from your spot on the floor next to Ryland to throw up.

You leaned above the metal toilet and gagged again, dry heaving, tears stinging your eyes as you sobbed in pain. You refused to open your eyes, the lights were making your head spin. Your face was pressed against the toilet seat, you groaned.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Ryland asked.

“You don’t want to see this.” You said vaguely waving your hand toward yourself.

“Rocky, go get my hoodie on the floor.”

“Where is, question?” Rocky asked.

“It’s in the lab I think.”

You heard Rocky scamper around away from you and Ryland. 

You felt Ryland’s arms slither around your waist as he sat behind you, he pulled you into him. You felt his glasses prod at your shoulder. Your eyes shot open, not because physical contact was not common between you two, but because you really didn’t want him to see this side of you. You shivered as you felt his cold fingers graze around you and above your ribs. 

The feeling of his fingers specifically now, made your heart speed up, him trying to hold you at your most vulnerable made something bloom inside of you.

“You’re trying to keep me warm, it’s not working, you’re cold too.” You struggled to say.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try, you’re too important for me to lose.”

The words shot up your body, you assumed they weren’t that unusual to say, after all you were best friends, but it hit you differently just then, but soon they were immediately interrupted by your nausea.

You knew this moment was going to happen, you knew he was going to see you at your worst, he was your crewmate and your best friend and you were both dying of starvation. However, there were things you had felt you didn’t want Ryland to witness. You just knew you had never been that vulnerable in front of anyone in a long time.

Hell, from what you remember Ryland hadn’t even seen you drunk vomiting since you had no time to drink between your time in the lab and on the boat. If he had, maybe then you’d feel more comfortable with him witnessing you like this.

Despite what you felt, you grabbed his arms and pulled them away from you.

“Ry, go away, you don’t want to see this, I can handle it–” 

Another gag escaped your throat, and your spit dripped into the toilet. 

“Did you know–” Ryland gulped, his own reserve slipping. “if you don’t get enough nutrients when you’re starving, then you’ll start throwing up blood?” He leaned forward to whisper in your ear.

His voice was smooth and calming despite the pain you were both in, you laughed at him quoting you.

“I told you that.” You mumbled, head falling backward onto his shoulder, finally giving into him. You could feel him exhale in relief.

“Yes you did.”

Rocky scampered back, and you felt Rylands arms coming over you. He put his baggy hoodie over your head, and you tried your best to slip your arms into the arm holes.

You laughed as you wiped the spit from your mouth.

“You’ve only seen one side of me, this is something new I guess.”

He ran his hand over your forehead to wipe your hair away from your face.

“I’ve seen just about all sides of you.”

You turned around to face him, grabbing onto his shirt tightly, as if letting go of him would make you fall into space. Ryland picked up a pack of wet wipes beside him and started wiping your face gently. His eyes occasionally drifted to your mouth, and you caught it, you told yourself it was because he was wiping your face.

You stared at his face, the way he looked when he was concentrated — his eyebrows folded down, his glasses now askew, his tongue sticking out of his lips, and his eyes squinted — always made you smile. So you let your smile appear on your face, and admired your best friend in front of you. The only source of warmth in that moment was the warmth coming out of your chest.

“Now, stop acting so tough. Let me take care of you.”

Six.

When Ryland and you finally arrived at Erid, the Eridians welcomed you both with open arms for helping save Erid. Ryland and you got to meet Adrian for the first time when they launched a ship to attach to the Hail Mary. Adrian was able to quickly replicate some nutrients you both needed to get you both back to health before moving you down to the planet's surface.

Adrian asked Ryland and you individually where you wanted to live. Adrian began building separate houses under the same biodome. Ryland shyly insisted you live relatively close to each other, hoping you wouldn’t think he was creepy or clingy. He wanted you close, he knew he was going to miss sharing a space with you. You agreed. Adrian tried to make sure everything was perfect for you both.

Ryland stood in his kitchen, reluctantly eating the food Adrian had replicated, some kind of protein shake. He admired his home, he was amazed at what the Eridian architects could do, and wondered what your house looked like, how you asked it to be designed. He knew you were particular with those kinds of things, while at the same time, kind of a slob.

He put down the protein shake and looked out the windows, the day cycle was set to night, Ryland was usually very productive at night. So Ryland’s laptop was opened in the living room, he was focusing on working on a lesson plan for the Eridians that Rocky said wanted to be taught by him.

He reached to grab his glasses from the kitchen counter, when he felt a pain in his right arm near his scar. He winced and put on his glasses, he watched as the scar opened and blood started to pool. This had happened once before the weeks leading up to arriving at Erid — because of malnourishment the burn opened into a wound. This was probably waiting to happen, he had only just started to get the nutrients he needed.

“Fudge.” He whispered, trying his best not to fully look at the blood.

He turned to grab a rag from under the kitchen sink. He thought through all his options. He could wake Rocky or Adrian with a press of a button that Adrian designed if Ryland ever wanted to contact them. Or he could show up at your door, late at night, asking for help. He knew — despite not wanting to — that he had to go to you, you were a doctor. Eridians didn’t know about tending to human wounds the same way humans do.

He groaned, leaving his house and slamming his door on the way out. He walked to your house that was conveniently a few seconds away. 

He peeked into the window, he could see a lamp on but nothing else. He reluctantly raised his hand to knock on your front door. He heard some commotion before you opened the door.

“Hi.” Ryland said, waving.

By now the rag had turned from white to red, his blood seeping in.

“Hi what are you—whoa,” You grabbed Ryland’s arm with both of your hands. “It opened again?” You asked as you pulled him inside and closing the door.

He nodded silently. Shutting down at the memories from earlier.

You pulled him through your surprisingly clean house and sat him down in your bathroom, pulling a chair beside the sink. You pulled out medical supplies left over from the Hail Mary: suture supplies. a squeeze bottle full of saline, and gauze to hold pressure to your wound.

Ryland’s hands were shaking, he noticed how steady your hands were removing the rag and placing the clean gauze overtop. Once the bleeding stopped to a minimum, you removed the gauze and held the wound over the sink, you began spraying saline into the wound to flush anything out. 

Ryland felt how gentle your fingers were against his skin, watched you bite your lip in concentration. He couldn’t understand how you were so calm, he hated the sight of his own blood. When you finished you started preparing the materials for stitches.

When his burn turned into a wound on the ship, you were just as calm and collected as you were in that bathroom. The moment made him think about how starved you both were, how afraid he was of losing you, how much he really cared for you.

You looked up at him, and smiled, Ryland was surprised when one of your hands reached out to cup his cheek. He felt your thumb running over his stubble, the touch making him melt into you. Then he began crying. Uncontrollably. There was something about you that often made him come completely undone. Sometimes in an adolescent way, but sometimes in a way that made him wonder if he could have you for the rest of his life.

“I’m so sorry.” He apologized between sobs.

You reached out to cup his face into both of your hands, the tears he felt fall from his cheeks were being wiped away by you. His heart sprung at the idea of it all. 

“Hey, why are you apologizing?”

“I could’ve asked Rocky for help or I could’ve figured it out but–”

“Hey, we both know I have the most knowledge on human medicine out of anyone on this planet.”

Ryland laughed through his tears.

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“It’s my job to worry about you,” You leaned forward and planted an innocent kiss on his cheek. 

Ryland blushed, and was thankful you missed his expression as you leaned down to grab the suture kit.

 “however…you’re going to hate me when I jab stitches into you without anesthetic.” 

Ryland grimaced.

Seven.

You had been with Adrian all day when you were rushing home.

You loved Adrian so much, you both had become attached by the hip, you loved gossiping about Rocky and Ryland…Adrian was insistent on the fact that you and Ryland would be perfect ‘mates’. You denied their statement over and over again, but admittedly, it was getting harder to rationalize to yourself why you weren’t falling for Ryland.

This day in particular was stressful. Adrian asked if you could try and teach a course for some Eridians interested in human biology. Adrian also just wanted to know what to do in case they had to take care of you or Grace when you got older.

Essentially, you were teaching a human CPR/first aid training course to a small group of Eridians.

You rushed home climbing the hill away from the beach, textbooks in hand, opening the door and dropping them on the floor. You slammed the door, and took notice of your house. It was a huge mess, papers were thrown everywhere, coffee mugs were gathered in the sink and your other Project Hail Mary jumpsuits were thrown on the floor.

You took it all in just as you heard a knock on the door, you groaned and turned around to open it expecting Adrian.

“Adrian I’m–”

It was Ryland. Your heart contracted at the sight of him, then panicked as you remembered your plans.

“Oh Ryland,” You sighed as you ran your hand across your face before dropping it to your side. “I forgot we had plans tonight.”

Ryland rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. 

“Is this a bad time? I can come back tomorrow.”

You shook your head, desperately wanting to spend time with him. 

“No, no, come in, I just need to clean up.” You blushed as you said it.

You and Ryland made plans constantly now that you settled in. You proposed that he come over every other day to have a productive evening, since you both now had lesson plans to work on. You also proposed that sometimes he comes over and you watch one of the many movies provided for you on the Hail Mary’s media system. You selfishly proposed this because you couldn’t handle not seeing Ryland everyday. You were relieved when he was as enthusiastic as you were. 

When Ryland stepped in you watched the expression on his face go from shocked, to serious in a second. His eyes scanned the mess carefully.

“Yea…I’m sorry, I’ve just been planning everything with Adrian today, and–”

Ryland placed a hand on your lower back, you blushed as he did, his touch had been making you more flustered than usual lately.

“Hey, it’s okay. Sit down, I’ll clean for you.” He said.

He leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead, and you swore to god, you saw him blush as he turned away.

Eight.

One of your movie nights, you and Ryland had found a stash of leftover vodka from the Hail Mary in his kitchen. You had long abandoned the movie playing in the background on the monitor Ryland had installed in his living room and instead you were sitting on his kitchen counter, Ryland standing in front of you taking turns drinking out of the bag of vodka.

The porch light shined through the darkness of the window, and the only light in Ryland’s house was coming from a warm yellow lamp and the slight flashes of Jurassic Park.

Ryland was admittedly intoxicated, his glasses askew on his face, and he could tell you were too. You both laughed at the mere sight of it. You had never been drunk together before, and now that you were just getting used to the food provided by the Eridians, you both had a much lower intolerance than anticipated.

“So then Adrian says to me,” You drunkenly explained. “‘Rocky always messy, Rocky always grumpy.’ and I’m like, that sounds like Ryland.”

Ryland watched you throw your head back in laughter. 

“Hey, you’re the messy one!” He responded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Okay fine, I’ll give you that.”

A drunken silence overcame the both of you.The sounds of roars and voices emitted from the ‘tv’.

Ryland stepped closer to you instinctively placing his hands on your thighs. You shivered, the drunken clarity making you realize how much you wanted him. You took the glasses off of his face, to see him better.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Adrian.” Ryland barely whispered.

His eyes stared into yours, his mouth open. He grazed his thumb up and down your thigh, shivering as you placed your arms over his shoulders.

“Yea,” You pondered, then suddenly he watched as realization spread across your face. “Oh, I’m sorry I should’ve told you, Adrian said the Hail Mary is fueled, we can go home…I mean if you want.” 

“Rocky told me.” He said, his eyes drifting down to your lips, a question in his mind he didn’t realize he had been holding onto for a while.

Another beat of silence. And suddenly everything made sense for Ryland, you sitting on his kitchen counter, your head thrown back like a little kid, watching you bloom into this amazing person, it was all making sense. 

“Okay good.” You whispered, not waiting for a response, as if you both knew the answer already.

And as if you both came to the realization at the same time, you pulled each other both in and kissed each other's mouth. Hard and sloppy at first, but when Ryland moved his right hand to cup your face, you tilted your head to allow him to kiss you more passionately. His stubble brushed against your face, and you moaned as you deepened the kiss. You allowed yourself to melt into it, his arms reaching to skim your waist, then slipping his tongue into your mouth experimentally.

Ryland pulled away with a gasp, his face blushing, his breath ragged. You both stared at each other intensely, you waited for him to tell you that this was a mistake, that he was mad it came from Rocky instead of you, that he wanted to go home. But instead he said,

“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life here with you, but if that’s not what you want then we can stop right now.”

So while he talks, explaining his stupid discovery in his own stupid way, you aren’t really listening. Just staring at him blankly, Stratt next to him.

Did she bring him onto this? How did she find out about him? Was it through you? You had helped him publish his life ruining paper, did she see your name attached? You had been smart enough to call it quits when you did, resulting in the end of your relationship in Denmark. 

Your career survived because you knew when to call it quits. 

Ryland didn’t.

Stratt had found you due to your specialization in extraterrestrial lifeforms. Had dragged you on as an expertise, and recruited you as an astronaut for Project Hail Mary. It’s not like you had anything to lose, you stopped the whole “relationships” thing when Ryland ran. 

Fate is cruel, you think. Whatever God that’s there is cruel, only a cruel one would bring your ex-fiance to your glorified funeral. 

You had already imagined the last time you would hear from Ryland, he’d see you on the news and realize you were going up into space to save everyone. He'd say something stupid, and thank you for what you were doing, maybe apologize for what happened. You’d send a thumbs up back and that’d be that.

Instead, while looking out at the sea, you feel someone stand next to you, staring at you with sad eyes. You don’t have to turn your head, you don’t even need to think twice.

“Seeing a ghost?”

You can almost imagine his frown worsening, and if you didn’t spend months crying into pillows about him, you’d feel bad.

“I didn’t think you’d be here. Stratt… recruited me, due to our-... my paper. Which, I’m sure you know, is still useless, but I uh… was able to learn some stuff anyways. Stratt has kinda made me an expert in Astrophage. So… I guess we’ll be working together.”

Great. You’ll be working together.

You keep your eyes on the water, it’s calmer than you feel. There’s jealousy in your chest.

Ryland shifts beside you, hands fidgeting, tapping against his thighs, like his body can’t keep up with his brain. Some habits don’t change, apparently.

“Look...”

You beat him to it. “If this is an apology, you’re several years too late.”

He exhales, a soft, wrecked sound. “Yeah. I know.”

Silence again. It’s the kind that used to be comfortable, that used to mean everything was understood without saying it. Now it just feels wrong.

“You left,” you say finally, still not looking at him. “Not just the apartment… or me. You left everything. Your research, your colleagues, your life.”

“I didn’t leave my research,” he says quietly. “That was the problem.”

That gets you to look at him. He looks… older. Not in a dramatic way. Just worn down around the edges. Like someone sanded him a little too hard. There are lines you don’t remember, a tightness in his jaw that never used to be there on his soft features. If you were a stupider person you’d try to smooth it out.

“You blew everything up.”

“Yeah.” A humorless huff. “That too.”

You shake your head, turning back to the ocean. “You didn’t even fight for us. You just decided you were right, and that was it. You were done- with me and your job. No discussion. No compromise. Just… gone. You just left.”

“I thought if I stayed, I’d drag you down with me.”

That wasn’t the answer you expected.

“I was already going down,” he continues, words coming faster now, like he’s been holding them in for years. “The paper, the backlash- I knew it was going to get worse. And you… your career was just starting to take off. You were getting cited, invited places, people actually respected you. I couldn’t-” He breaks off, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I couldn’t be the reason you lost that. The reason you lost what you always told me you wanted so badly.”

“So your solution was to make that decision for me?”

“I thought I was protecting you.”

“Well, congratulations,” you snap. “You did a great job. Really. Nothing says ‘protection’ like running away without a real conversation and letting me find out you moved across the country through facebook like a coward.”

He flinches. Good.

“You don’t get to rewrite it now, you don’t get to turn it into some noble sacrifice.”

“I’m not trying to,” he says. “I screwed up. I know that. I’ve known that for a long time.”

“Then why didn’t you ever say anything?”

That lands harder than anything else. You can see it in the way he freezes.

“I wrote… letters,” he admits after a moment. “A lot of them. I just… never sent them.”

You stare at him. “That’s not better, Ryland.”

“I know.”

God, you hate how easily he says that now. Like he’s had years to practice admitting fault, just never to your face. Another wave crashes against the vat below. The wind picks up, tugging at your clothes, your hair, filling the space where words should be.

“You don’t get to fix this,” you say eventually. “Not now. Not here.”

“I’m not trying to fix it,” he replies. “I just-” He hesitates. “You deserve an explanation. I didn’t expect to see you again. Not like this.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Funny how that worked out.”

A humorless almost-smile flickers across his face. “Yeah. End-of-the-world reunion tour.”

You huff despite yourself. It’s brief and involuntary. You hate that it feels right.

For a second, something like the old Ryland is there… lighter, softer, the one who used to make you laugh in the middle of arguments just to break the tension. It’s gone just as quickly.

“I didn’t know you were on the project either. Not until I got here.”

You believe him. You’re not sure why. Maybe because lying was never his problem.

Being *right* was.

Another long pause settles in.

“You’re really doing it?” he asks softly. “Going up there?”

You shrug, like it doesn’t matter. Like you didn’t already say yes to a one-way trip into the dark. “Someone has to.”

He nods, eyes dropping to the ground. “Yeah. That tracks.”

You study him for a moment.

“You?” you ask. “Are you volunteering too, or are you sticking to ruining things on Earth?”

He lets out a quiet breath. “They haven’t asked me to go.”

“Would you?”

He looks at you then. Really looks.

And for a second, it feels like being seen again in a way you haven’t let yourself be seen since he left.

“…I don’t know,” he admits.

Honest. At least that hasn’t changed.

“Figures,” you say, turning back to the ocean. “You always ran when it mattered.”

That one hits.

You know it does.

But instead of snapping back, he just nods slowly, like he’s accepting the blow.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

The wind carries the words away before you can decide what to do with them.

You cross your arms, staring out at the endless stretch of gray-blue water, and wish, just for a second, that this was any other reunion. But it isn’t.

It’s this one, and he’s here, and before you know it, you won’t be.

Years pass faster than they have any right to. It’s not because time is kinder here, quite the opposite actually. It’s harsher, measured in simulations failed, candidates lost, bodies that couldn’t adapt, minds that couldn’t hold. But routine has a way of dulling sharp edges, and proximity has a way of wearing people down into something… softer. Or at least something quieter.

You and Ryland have not fixed things.

You have schedules that never quite overlap unless Stratt forces it, meetings where you both speak, but never to each other, papers passed back and forth with clinical notes, stripped of any kind of personality.

Then one day, somethings different.

He makes a mistake in a calculation, something simple, something old Ryland would’ve caught instantly. You point it out without thinking, scribbling over his work with a muttered, “You dropped a factor here.”

When he stiffens you expect defensiveness, maybe an argument. 

Instead, he just says, “Oh. Yeah. You’re right. Thanks.”

And it feels like how you both used to work together, what brought you together and then tore you apart. It feels right, which is all too wrong.

And it happens again, and again. Conversations become less like landmines and more like… negotiations. You’ll still snap sometimes. He still shuts down sometimes, but neither of you runs anymore. You’re figuring out how to know the new versions of each other, and something about it makes your heart ache. 

It’s months before launch now, and you find yourselves alone in the lab at 2 a.m., surrounded by equipment and the dim glow of samples pulsing like captured starlight. You both are exhausted, which is probably why you fall into conversation.

“You’re holding it wrong,” he says, nodding at your setup.

You don’t even look up. “I’m not.”

“You are. The thermal gradient-”

“I accounted for it.”

“For the old model,” he replies, stepping closer. “We updated the parameters after-”

You shove the tablet at him. “Then show me where I’m wrong.”

If this were a year ago, you’d argue, he’d give up on the conversation and you two would call it a day. But he just… takes the tablet, leaning in beside you, though not quite crowding you. Your shoulders brush, which should make you feel nothing.

Apparently nothing is right today.

He scrolls, frowning in concentration. “Here. This assumption… see? It doesn’t hold if the replication rate spikes under radiation stress.”

You follow where he’s pointing, and… he’s right.

“That’s new.”

“Yeah.”

“...Good catch. Thank you.”

He glances at you, checking for sarcasm that isn’t there.

“…You’re welcome,” he says.

You fix the model together, movements syncing in that old, familiar rhythm you swore you’d buried. Passing tools without asking. Finishing each other’s thoughts before they’re fully formed.

You both recognize the familiar dance but don’t say anything to break it.

By the time launch is close enough to feel real, the distance between you has changed. It’s a gap now, one you both stand at the edge of, neither quite willing to cross.

You eat in the same room now, almost together. Conversations happen, not about either of you. Never about either of you. Instead, about work, about the mission, about stupid things like whether Stratt has ever slept in her life.

(“She doesn’t blink enough.”

“She blinks.”

“Name one time.”

“…That’s not the point.”)

You almost let yourself think things are like they were. 

The night before final simulations lock, you’re staring out at the water.

“Hey.”

You don’t turn right away. “Hi.”

He comes to stand beside you, closer than he would’ve before. Not touching. Just… within reach. For a while, neither of you speaks, and it’s almost that same comfortable silence it used to be.

“That’s it, huh?” he says eventually. “We’re actually doing this.”

“Looks like it.”

“You’re… ready?”

You shrug. “As I’ll ever be for a suicide mission.”

He exhales softly. “Yeah, that’s… that’s fair.”

Silence settles again. You’re both anxious, you messing with your necklace under your shirt and him twiddling his thumbs.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say,” he adds.

“If this is another apology-”

“It’s not.”

You glance at him. He’s not looking at you. Just out at the water, hands shoved into his pockets like he’s trying to hold himself together.

“I meant what I said back then,” he continues. “About not trying to fix it.”

“Good,” you say. “Because you can’t.”

“I know.” A beat. “But… I also meant that you deserved an explanation. And I gave you one, but-” He hesitates. “It wasn’t the whole truth.”

You sigh, turning fully toward him now. “Ryland-”

“I was scared,” he says, cutting you off, “I told myself it was about your career, about protecting you, and part of that was true, but mostly… I was scared of being wrong.”

You blink.

“That paper, the backlash- everyone looking at me like I’d lost it. I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was you looking at me the same way.”

“I never-”

“I know,” he says quickly. “You didn’t. But I thought you would eventually. And I didn’t want to watch that happen. So I left first.”

The words hang there.

“…Running away is a terrible strategy,” you finally come up with.

He lets out a quiet, breathy almost-laugh. “Yeah. I’ve had some time to reflect on that.”

“You think?” You stare out at the ocean, before sighing, “So what, now you’re not scared anymore?”

He considers that.

“No,” he says. “I still am. I’d still run. But I feel… I feel like I’m moving in the right direction.”

There’s something in the way he says it that lands differently than anything before. You nod slowly, like you’re filing it away.

“Good,” you say. “That’s… good.”

“Hey,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“If things were different…”

You shake your head, a small, firm motion. “They’re not.”

“I know.”

Silence.

The kind that says more than words could.

After a while, you let out a breath. “You know, for what it’s worth… you’re not the same person you were. So… if things were different. Yeah.”

__________

It’s been a month on the Hail Mary, and you and Ryland have gotten to know each other pretty well. He’s a bit dorky, kind, and witty. You have to imagine you were friends back on earth from the way you two get along.

It feels like you two were two parts of a puzzle, no wonder you were chosen for this mission together. A team like this? It happens once in a lifetime. 

You’ve managed to be set up pretty well as you approach Tau Ceti, Ryland’s sleeping now, you technically should be too, but you wanted to finally look through your personal things. Ryland had already seen his, including the lone photo of himself. You assume your belongings might be similar, and they are for the most part. The only difference is you have two other photos, one a photo of you grinning next to a woman you remember as Eva Stratt, holding her in a bear hug, and the other…

The other photo.

You and Ryland, with your left hand held up to the camera where a ring is being shown off on your left hand. You two look much younger, and he’s holding you close and staring at you with something in his eyes. 

Like you created the earth itself.

Your hand reaches for the necklace you have on, the ring hanging off it.

Weird. 

Guess you were close friends?

_______________________________

6. shuffle your favorite music and write something based on the first song that plays. 

7. choose a scene from your least favorite book and try to rewrite it in a way that you like. pay attention to the changes you make and why, in your opinion, they improve the scene.

8. choose an object in the same room as you and write as much as possible about that object: descriptions, history, personification, etc.

9. choose an author whose style you like and read one of their works for about twenty minutes before sitting down to write.

10. write a short scene with no adverbs (words ending in -ly such as quickly, hastily, quietly, dimly, etc.)

11. reread a scene from a book you like and write down what you think the author did well: characterization, use of literary devices, foreshadowing, dialogue, etc. then write down the characters, goals/motives, and conflicts of the scene.

12. go outside or look out a window and simply write what you see.

13. write a scene with no dialogue.

14. write a scene with only dialogue.

15. choose a scene from your current work in progress and rewrite it from a different character’s point of view.

16. without editing, reread the last couple of scenes you wrote.

17. describe a room where you live.

18. learn a new word and try writing a few different sentences that each use that word.

19. reread something you’ve written out loud. pay attention to things like sentence flow.

20. write an alternate ending for a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

21. write a short story based on a side character in a piece of media you’ve enjoyed recently.

22. rewrite a classic fairytale, but find a way to turn it on its head.

23. go to a random word generator and write a quick scene based on the first word that comes up.

24. describe your day as if it were the first chapter of a book.

25. choose a book from your shelf. find the fifth word on the fifth page and write something based on that.

26. go for a walk. or, if you can’t do that, try to find a way to move your body around.

27. choose an emotion and write a scene where that emotion is the central focus.

28. rewrite a scene you’ve already written, but switch the perspective—so, if your story uses first person present tense (I, me, my, mine), try third person past tense (they, them, their, theirs), or second person present tense (you, your, yours).

29. rewrite an important scene in your work in progress from the point of view of a complete outsider with no stake in the plot.

30. read three pages of a random book, making note of the author’s style, and then try to write a page in that author’s writing style.

31. write a news article about one of your characters. what is the headline? what is the article about?

32. in public, transcribe a conversation happening near you.

33. write a short dialogue exchange, then choose an emotion to highlight and rewrite the dialogue with that emotion in mind.

34. choose an object near you and describe it three times. each time, try to capture a different emotion or vibe.

35. if you’re within earshot of a conversation, write down 2-4 lines of that conversation and then continue it by making up your own dialogue.

36. write brief, 1-2 sentence descriptions of people you see in passing.

37. pick something you love and write about it as if you hate it.

38. pick something you hate and write about it as if you love it.

39. read something you wouldn’t normally read: an author, genre, style, medium, or subject matter you’d usually avoid.

40. write a goodbye scene between two people three times to capture different emotions: somber, cheerful, angry.

41. find a random photograph online of a person or place and write a story about it. what is the history behind the image? how did the picture wind up being taken—why?

42. find a random image online and write 1,000 words describing it.

43. watch a scene in a tv show or movie and try to adapt it into a written format.

44. read a few pages of a book about writing.

45. describe your main character’s home.

46. describe a day in your main character’s life.

47. set a timer for five minutes and list as many words as you can think of.

48. write a page of pure stream of consciousness. put down anything that comes to mind.

49. write a page describing the appearance of a side character.

50. choose one of your characters and create a new character based on them. for every trait your character has, this new character will have its total opposite—so, generous → selfish, cowardly → bold, short → tall, etc.

---------------------------