Sorry, guys, this chapter is a little interesting. This duo has been in my brain since being back on Tumblr
Pain was supposed to mean something.
Pain meant breathing, moving, surviving, enduring.
Pain meant the thing in the ocean had not swallowed him yet.
The absence terrified him.
He woke choking on nothing.
His body reacted before thought could catch up, jerking violently upward as blinding white lightÂ
slammed into his vision. A sharp mechanical shriek echoed somewhere nearby.
For one horrible second he thought he was still inside it.
The memory hit in broken flashes:
the sound outside the hull
something massive moving beneath him
His remaining hand clawed blindly against smooth flooring.
His breathing came apart anyway.
The alarm kept screaming.
His pulse thundered violently in his skull as he scrambled backward on instinct, body movingÂ
before awareness caught up. Something snagged around his arm—wires, tubes—and panic surged hard enough to make his vision blur.
Trapped trapped trapped—
He ripped free with enough force to send equipment spinning across the room.
Pain flared through the scar where his arm used to be.
The pain wasn’t enough.
It should’ve been worse.
Everything should’ve hurt more.
He stared at his own shaking hand like it belonged to someone else.
No thick blood filling his lungs.
No pressure crushing his ribs inward.
The room tilted sickeningly around him.
The figure shoved off the far wall toward him too quickly, words spilling out fast and overlapping.
“Hey—hey, it’s okay, you’re okay—”
He lashed out immediately.
The stranger recoiled as the wild swing narrowly missed his face.
“Whoa! Okay! Understandable reaction!”
The alarms were still blaring.
The room smelled wrong—clean air, chemicals, electricity.
His heart hammered harder.
The stranger kept talking carefully now, hands raised slightly.
“You’re safe,” the man said again, slower this time. “You’re on a ship. Nobody’s gonna hurt you.”
The word hit something sharp inside his skull.
Panic surged violently again.
He shoved backward too hard and immediately lost orientation.
For one dizzying second the world flipped sideways.
His shoulder slammed against the ceiling hard enough to knock the breath from him.
The stranger cursed softly and pushed off toward a control panel.
The alarms abruptly died.
Silence crashed over the room.
Never true silence on a ship.
There was still the hum of machinery beneath the walls. Air cycling through vents. Vibrations thrumming faintly through metal.
But without the alarms, the room stopped feeling like immediate death.
His breathing still came too fast.
The stranger looked at him carefully from several feet away now, visibly trying not to crowd him.
His eyes darted wildly around the room instead.
And directly across from him:
Huge messy handwriting covered almost the entire thing.
WHO THE HELL IS SPACE GUY?
Underneath were arrows and diagrams and frantic notes scattered everywhere.
His gaze snagged hard on another line.
DEFINITELY TRAUMATIZED ACTUALLY
Something strange twisted painfully in his chest.
The stranger followed his gaze.
“Oh,” he said weakly. “Yeah, uh. Sorry about that one.”
Nobody else would make a conspiracy board about a dying stranger.
The realization felt unreal.
The stranger noticed immediately.
“Okay,” he said quickly, “that one probably needs context.”
The room suddenly felt very far away.
His body shook with leftover adrenaline and exhaustion, every muscle wound painfully tight beneath unfamiliar blankets. The ache in his missing arm pulsed dull and distant.
He knew he should be dead.
So why was someone smiling at him like they were happy he existed?
The stranger’s voice softened carefully.
“My name’s Ryland Grace.”
Then, almost unbearably hopeful:
prguitarman
andulkaphoto
2087
origamiaround
titsay
