#pfstarter

‘‘this isn’t right.’‘ 

she saw him just last night. they had spoken briefly before doe had left in favour for someone she knew better. and now he was missing, potentially dead. and doe had never bothered to get to know him better.

Evan's dinner plate laid untouched in front of him, his jaw tight as his brooding gaze fell on the grand table that the professors were sat at. Specifically on Albus Dumbledore. The Slytherin unconsciously scratched at a nonexistent itch on his left forearm, and Evan stood up abruptly. "Excuse me." He muttered to his classmates who looked at him in surprise and Evan strode out of the Great Hall.

Doe grinned brightly, leaping up from her seat and bounding across the hall. "Guess who!" She clapped her hands over their eyes, squealing delightfully in someone's ear.

There is a moment in the middle of the night where all is not well. A moment filled with all the memories you'd rather left forgotten, and the faces of the people you've lost or left behind. For Augusta, this moment had come hours ago and lingered in the air of her room like a damp towel. She had tried everything to distract herself, she had tried yoga, a glass of wine, she had straightened her hair, painted her nails, done push-ups, crunches, lunges, and pull-ups. No matter how exhausted she was, she couldn't sleep. She had been without medication for her anxiety for nearly three months and Augusta wasn't sure she was ready to fall back into the comforting coma if it wasn't a natural one. 

Instead, she pulled off her pyjamas and pulled on her running clothes. A sports bra, a UNSC issued training shirt, and a pair of shorts she had bought on meridian. She felt a chill as she stood alone in the mostly empty room, the steel walls doing nothing to comfort her. Augusta was used to the hollowness of these ships but the vast emptiness of this one only added to the disconcerting notion that this was just a tomb. A tomb that held the living, waiting to die. 

She started out of her room at a slow jog, but not before peeking at the digital clock that hung on the wall. 0502. Early enough to say she just wanted to get a jump on the day. No questions as to why she was doing laps in the middle of the night. The last thing Augusta wanted was questions. Or maybe that was exactly what she wanted. No, not what she wanted. But certainly what she needed. She needed questions because she needed to answer. She needed to answer the most fundamental questions of all, questions she refused to ask herself. Questions like: what am I supposed to do now?

When she ran there was nothing to say, no questions to ask, no answers that had to be given. There was only the simple bobbing up and down, the repetition of motion that would take her to some spot unknown to her. Relaxation, a song of forgetting. 

Her feet carried her across the ship and down ladders until she found herself in the rec room. She came to a halt and her hand rested lightly on the sofa, she lifted her leg up slightly to stretch out the muscles again. They were tired. She was tired. She didn't want to go back to her room. There was nothing for her there. She could unpack the rest of her things, but to what avail? Just more memories, just more things to keep her up at night. Being sick had been easy, her mind had been foggy and she had slept well. It was health that was driving her crazy.

She surveyed the room, taking it all in again. Almost as if she was trying to see if things had changed since she had briefly left the ship. Not like she had known it well to begin with, but the idea still itched at the back of her neck. Little details were always different, things that always changed. But what had been changed by the people who lived on this floating rock and what had been touched by strangers? Well, not strangers. She would argue they were all strangers, really. But different strangers, the strangers with names and faces and families and friends. 

Augusta moved towards the pool table and gave it a long hard look. There had been a time when her squad had done nothing but play the game. It was always high stakes too. Money, drinks, clothing, dignity. Something was always on the line. A distraction from the all too real realities that death surrounded them. It was all part of the soldiering life.