Two hours ago, the Apahanta reached this new system. Something was off, because usually, when we enter a new system, we don't just stay near the jump hole but instead start exploring it. This time, however, there was silence. Sombra and I decided to go to the observation deck. A few others joined us. We looked out of the window and found ourselves surrounded by a giant blue nebula in a system with an type O star, guessing by size and color. Most notably, however, was the fact that the space around us was constantly discharging. Thousands of little lightnings from what looked like out of nowhere to nowhere. Our first assumption was that this kind of environment was the cause for the unexpected stop.
A few minutes later, when Ezrael realized that everyone was likely speculating about the situation, he made an announcement for us all to come to the canteen. Despite him having said, in the very same sentence, that there is nothing to worry about, people were slightly worried, including me. So the crew gathered and sat down in the canteen, a bunch of them prefering to stand while most simply sat down at the tables. Ezrael and Sherry then moved to the counter and he began speaking.
"First of all, as I said, there is nothing to be worried about. We're not in danger. That being said, we do have an irregular situation here with this system, in multiple ways. The first and most obvious thing, as most of you likely have already heard about, is the local environment. We don't exactly know what it is we are looking at, but it does not seem to affect the Apahanta itself. Shields are holding and these electrical discharges don't seem to be strong enough to harm them in any way. For obvious reasons, we'll keep the shields up, however, meaning we can't cloak in this system without risking, you know, getting hit by those discharges, which could fuck around with our electronics and all that." He rubbed one of his eyebrows for a moment before continuing. It was obvious that there was something that bothered him.
"I mean, you know we're all alone out here, so that doesn't really matter. I just feel naked without the cloak. Anyway, the actual issue is that we can't use the jump hole to return to the system we were coming from. That, too, is likely not much of an issue and more of a small inconvenience, since so far we backtracked only twice since leaving Sirius, and then we also have the jump drive as our get-out-of-jail-card."
"What concerns us is the fact that the phenomenon that destabilizes the jump hole possibly covers this entire system, meaning other jump holes might be unstable, too. This means we could be trapped in this system for a while until we either use the jump drive for either a blind jump, a jump back to Sirius or we find a way to deal with this phenomenon." The Commander put up what could be vaguely interpreted as a smile. "As the Captain said, this is more of an inconvenience than an issue. It technically does not matter whether we move around or stay in a system for a longer time, unless the system is hazardous to us. As this system here, which is Uncharted System 37 - so far no better name - does not seem to pose a threat, we can stay here for a while."
"The Rover exploring the system before we got here located a few cool sites to visit. There is a gas giant with a volcanic moon, and apparently there is goldilocks planet orbiting this sun, too. We don't know it for sure yet, but there is a chance it could be habitable."
This made some of us exchange looks. So far we had been avoiding planets because of the entire trouble with biohazards like bacteria and viruses. Everything we needed was on the Apahanta anyway. The fact he mentioned it was unexpected, not just to me. Luckily, Ezrael was good at picking up on those clues. He continued.
"If this planet really is habitable, I would like to send a few robots down there to set up a small camp. If we're going to stay here for a longer time, we can use that to have the robots do some mining. It is always better to have more resources than less. And in a worst-case-scenario, we would have a potential shelter prepared planetside, similar to the little base we set up in U-S-3-2. Investing the resources for a dozen robots so that they in return provide the resources for hundreds of them, you know, a clever investment."
"Nothing to worry about, but we're preparing for the worst, regardless, huh?" Sombra asked, almost provokingly.
"One could say so. Again, nothing to be worried about, but we're so far away from Sirius that we can start slowing down and actually take a look at everything around us. We have everything we need, now, but we can afford preparing some back-ups." Maybe it was just me interpreting too much into his body language, yet the way he sighed after that made it obvious there was more about it. "I want all five Rovers to be scouting the system. The Little Blue and the Apotheosis stay with the Apahanta. Everyone else should take a look at the sensor readings. I want everyone to help with finding out what is going on with these electric discharges and what exactly affects the jump holes."
The briefing kept going on for a few minutes. Sherry told everyone what to do in detail. In the end, Sombra and I got no specific assignment apart from the usual "if you can make yourself useful, do that". Not much to do on a ship that is maintained by an AI, 400 robots and a bunch of trained experts. So we decided to go back to the observation deck. Some time ago, Sombra decided to get some furniture in there as so far there had only been a few benches. Now there are multiple couches in front of the big windows, meaning people could make themselves really comfy while looking out into space.
"I haven't thought about that before," Sombra said without any context, looking at the blue nebula. She sat on the couch, while I lay on it, with my head in her lap. Her hand was gently brushing through my hair.
"What do you mean?"
"This journey. We were so eager to leave Sirius, that we didn't really think about what the destination is. Now we're at least 37 jumps away from Omicron Kappa. That's very far away. So what is the destination? Do we just keep going endlessly or are we settling down somewhere? Build a station or a settlement?"
I looked up at her. "What would you prefer?"
"No idea. I don't really care, really. As long as I have you and our needs are covered, I don't care whether we are in space or on a planet or whatever. I'm just wondering what Ezrael's plan is."
"He probably doesn't care either. He just wanted to leave Sirius and get as much distance between him and Maren and the Order as possible. I can imagine he'll keep hoping for something similar to Curacao, though. Maybe that's why he's so curious about the planet."
"I wouldn't mind a planet like Curacao. It wouldn't be the same without OSC, though. Much of the charme of Curacao comes from the people that go there to party."
A short burst of air left my nose. "Two thirds of this crew are female."
"And?"
"I'm certain that's enough women to make him feel like Curacao again."
"Wait, two thirds, really? That's kinda bad!" She looked down at me, one of her hands now on my chest, the other caressing my cheek.
"Why?"
"Well, we won't see any other humans for the rest of our lives. And as long as we don't die by some kind of sickness or by accident, we'll be alive for a very long time. We age a lot slower thanks for nanobots repairing our stem cells, so as long as we have those, we'll look like now for a very long time. And you're extremely pretty. I know there are at least three people on this ship who wouldn't mind having sex with you, aside from me. You get my idea?"
"Erh, I'm more concerned that you said people and not women." I sighed. She had a way of saying very nice things in a very casual way, which I adored. "You don't need to be worried, though. I can barely keep up with your, ehm, daily needs, so I don't care about any other women at all."
She gently smiled down at me. "I'm trying my best. But thank you for saying it." Leaning forward to kiss me on the lips, her long black hair fell all over my face, tickling me, while her boobs pushed against my temple. It was awkward and funny, I had to giggle.
"Now that you mentioned it, who are the three people you were talking about?"
"I won't tell."
"You know, if you don't tell me, I'll paranoidically assume it could be anyone and stay away from everyone."
"Works for me." She smirked at me like the little troll she was.
Warmth. I looked out of the window into the nightsky of Curacao. The streets were lit in colorful lights, many couples were walking around in the streets and the promenade. Mojo was cleaning his fur, sitting on the window sill, basically presenting his brown star. Funny cat. Didn't matter to me. I felt extremely cozy. Their air was full of nice scents, almost aphrodisiac. There was music coming from the promenade.
I turned around, looking around, checking whether everything was perfect in the little apartment. Not much space in here, but there was a lot of this maritime charme about the decoration. The wooden walls, the dark carpet, the couch, the big screen below the window. Everything seemed fine, I thought. Food was prepared in the kitchen, even a bottle of wine. I never was interested in alcoholic drinks, but a friend of mine always praised red wine for taste and effect, claiming it definitely was a must-have for a date. That, and candles. Because of Mojo I had to improvise with the candles, only buying fake candles so the cat wouldn't set the apartment on fire when pushing them off the surface.
The door opened, Sombra entered. She looked beautiful. A black dress, very modern, but of course not very long. It didn't take long for us to sit down on the couch and get comfy. It was one of those pull-out-couches that turn into beds - for the lack of a bedroom, this was the best deal I could have made with my bit of money. I didn't waste a thought about my job this evening. All I had in mind was Sombra.
Everything went according to the plan and I soon found myself beneath her. It was incredible. Her gaze, full of love. Her touch, electrifying and warm. I felt like hot butter in her hands.
It was great. I wanted to be on top. It went on like this for a while. She had her arms wrapped around me, and I looked down at her, feeling the love. It was perfect.
And then... something felt wrong. I suddenly lost control over everything. I couldn't move my body. It was moving on its own. Her smile vanishes. I felt the urge to vomit. Something was moving up my throat. She panicked, then froze. I felt the slimy tentacle pushing my mouth wide open and then saw it entering her mouth. Inwardly, I was screaming in panic and fear. I started to remember.
---
Screaming I woke up. It was dark. I looked around. Sombra was not around. It took a few seconds to realize that I was on the Apahanta. This was our room. Just a few tiny light diodes and displays showing some letters and numbers. My heart was still pounding like crazy and I was drenched in sweat. "Apahanta, light to 20%", I mumbled, but the ship's AI was able to understand it. The spot next to me was empty. Sombra was not here. "Apahanta, where is Sombra?"
"Observation Deck."
"Huh." I glanced over to the clock. I was 2.55 AM.
I was sitting there for a moment, just thinking about what I had dreamed. It was the first nightmare in a very long time. The fear and the panic were still the same. It was been years since that incident, but I never fully recovered from it, and likely, never will. Some wounds heal, some leave a scar.
Sleeping was out of question for now. Especially not without Sombra next to me. I got out of the bed and grabbed my Apahanta suit. A minute later left the room, heading for the observation deck. When I arrived there, I stopped as I heard voices. It was Sombra, and apparently Ezrael. They didn't seem to have noticed me approaching, so I decided to remain at the entrance for a moment, simply to listen what they were talking about. Sombra sat on the couch in front of the large window. Ezrael was standing in front of it, topless, his arms crossed. He was looking at her.
"... yeah. It's... I don't know, it just felt more real. But then again, that's usually always the case, right?"
"What was it about?" Sombra asked in a rather weak voice.
Ezrael exhaled audibly, shook his head and began to walk up and down, every now and then looking out of the window, then back at Sombs. "Curacao. I was at the beach, looked up at the sky. The Apahanta was there. Nomad warships, too. Osirises and Gebs, Makos and Bullheads, Gallia, Liberty, Bretonia, Crayter. In hindsight, nonsense, but, you know, you don't think like that when it's happening. Debris was falling from the sky, hitting the buildings left and right. Explosions, loud noise, corpses in the sand and in the water. I try to run away, but where can you run when thousands of ships fight in the sky above you."
Once more he exhaled audibly, obviously hassling to continue. I didn't see it but I heard Sombra patting the place next to her, so he sat down. "Paradise Lost..."
"It wasn't just that. The Apahanta was in the middle of all of that, and I didn't really see who was fighting whom. I got distracted because... Maren was there, hugging me from behind. It was scary. I didn't feel safe at all. It was less like a hug. More like an attempt to keep me in place. I heard her voice, and suddenly all kinds of horrible people showed up around me. Loyola, Golanski, Nodtviet, Dagon, Raven, Yoshida... It was extremely intimidating. I heard the telepathic screaching of the nomads, the chanting of Gloria Eterna Est, more explosions. And Maren. They all had guns, except for her. She just kept hugging me. I can still feel her hand on my cheek."
"Buttcheek?"
He smiled about that, a shot of air leaving his nose about that question. "No. Not my buttcheek. These people were around me, and between them, in the sand, I see the mangled corpses of... Sherry and... Leon... and Abigail, and Noel... and you... and I wanted to cry. Maren try to soothe me, saying Shhh... everything is alright... you're with me now... and I looked up at the sky and see the Apahanta burning, breaking apart, falling down like a fireball, directly heading for me. The air started to boil and as the nose of the ship hits me, I wake up. The nightmare was over. Maren is very, very, very far away. No Loyola, no Nodtviet, not Golanski, none of them. No nomads."
"And no Curacao." There was a moment of silence. "I'm sorry. I miss it, too. Maybe not as much as you do, but... I think it is a small price to pay. We needed to leave Curacao behind to stay alive."
"Yeah. Probably..." Again, silence. "I'm happy you're not dead. After all we've been through, I don't know if I could handle losing you or Noel or any of you..."
"Mhm... same here."
"Do you want to talk about your nightmare?" he asked.
She hesitated. "... It's not that big of a deal. I don't know..." A moment of silence. "The Apahanta was under attack, no idea whatsoever. Red alert, and I tried to find Noel. The AI was offline, the ship was shaking. I was in panic, running around while the ship was breaking apart. I just couldn't find him. I cried. Didn't see anyone, so I decided to check the bridge. Both of you were there, and then something exploded and... you died. It was horrible. Noel got hurt but survived, so I picked him up. I felt strong, wanting to save him at all cost. So I ran, trying to find the escape pods. At some point, I found them. Noel was bleeding, unconscious. I opened the airlocks, wanted to put him in the escape pod, but instead he somehow tossed me in and closed it without joining me, and he shot me into space. I screamed and cried, the Apahanta blew up, Noel died... and I was all lone in the pod, with nowhere to go. What a stupid idea..."
"That's... a nightmare, indeed."
"It wasn't that I was trapped in there, Ezrael. It was that... he wasn't with me. Neither you nor him... what's the point of surviving if you can't be with the ones you love?"
There was a minute or two of silence. He took her in his arms and she started crying. "It was just a dream. I'm here, and Noel is alive and happy, too." He held her for a while until the sobbing stopped. "So, you had a nightmare about losing Noel and the first thing after waking up is not staying with him?" he asked her, more jokingly. For a moment, I had the same thought.
"I didn't want to wake him up. He sleeps like an angel." Unlike her, who steals blankets and pillows in her sleep. "It felt good to see him after the nightmare. But, you know, after a nightmare, can't go back to sleep, otherwise the next dream will just be another nightmare. So I came here, and then you came here, too."
I thought about joining them, maybe even telling them about my own nightmare. But then I wondered how that would look to them, we all sitting there, talking about having had nightmares. So instead of doing something, I did nothing. I just remained in place, looking at them. Sombra stood up, Ezrael then, too. She turned to him, smiling.
"Well, thanks for listening. I'll... I guess I'll try to get some more sleep. I don't want Noel to miss out on our morning ritual." She leaned in to hug him. He wrapped his hands around her.
"He's quite lucky to have you. I miss the things you do."
She chuckled and leaned in for a kiss. He accepted. It took me a moment to realize that they were kissing a bit longer than I would have expected. A few seconds later, she abruptly pulled her head away, made him let go of her and took two steps back. For a while, they just stared at each other, remaining silent. "... just keep us alive, alright?"
He nodded. Sombra walked off. It was the moment where I started to run, too, wondering what that was all about.
I don't know where to begin. It's been weeks since we entered this system, and we were still trapped here. It was wearing us down. On one hand, we had this weirdly beautiful system, with pretty little particles whirling around the Apahanta, like little fireflies. There was the occasional flash of light from the ionic discharges between them, but it didn't harm the Apahanta. At some point, we didn't even hear the collisions with the hull anymore. It was like rain hitting the roof of a cottage or the glass of a window. I remembered the few days on Curacao, when Ezrael and I just had a great time doing nothing for a while. Just being there, enjoying the climate. He tought me how to swim in the pool of his mansion.
The memories of those days were something that kept me sane. Those memories were good, I kept telling myself. Those times were good. I needed to remind me, because this system was a trap. There was no way out, as the jump hole was unstable, and while we initially had hopes for this water planet, a few days in this system made us realize that something horrible was going on.
For some reason, whenever we went to sleep, we would get nightmares. Vivid ones. Every night cycle was a horror, and sleeping became less and less appealing. It didn't take long for us to realize that this was not normal. Almost every single person on this ship was suffering from those nightmares, except, apparently, Ezrael's daughter Luna. Nobody knew why, but Abigail assumed that her brain was not developed enough for whatever was affecting us to affect her, too.
The situation was bad, and it got worse each day, as the constant exposure to nightmares quickly changed the mood among the crew. People were more aggressive from the lack of sleep, and Abigail tried her best as the ship's counselor to comfort those who suffered more than others from it. Generally it seemed that people with a regular sleeping pattern managed to handle the situation better than those who would either need more or less sleep than the others. Sherry, for example, had locked herself up in her room, trying to focus on her duty to keep the ship maintained. Ezrael visited her occasionally to bring her coffee or just to spend time with her, but he said he had never experienced her in a mood like this. According to him, she was angry and frustrated.
Ezrael himself seemed to take it much better. Like most of us, the increasingly dark rings under his eyes made clear that he was suffering from insomnia as much as everyone else, but he seemed to counter it with... certain activities. It is weird to think about it this way, but his biggest talent has a positive effect on whichever crew member he was spending time with.
When we noticed that, Sombra made sure her and I would schedule some extra time for that, too. It was hilarious, in a way.
But it couldn't go on like this. In general, I mean, with the nightmares. At some point, we used the Rovers to take a closer look at the volcanic moon in the system and apparently, there is an artificial structure on it. This was horrible news, as we had hoped we would have been alone out here. Maybe we still were, considering there was just that one structure. Entering the thin atmosphere, one of the Rovers took pictures of it and it seemed to be like something the Dyson Sphere builders left behind.
Good - it was no human structure. Bad - it was an alien structure.
Considering we didn't know about anything causing memetic effects like nightmares, we assumed that this structure was causing the issue. I remembered the conversation Ezrael and Leon had one night in the canteen as they talked about the options. I was there to refill our Sombra's and my water bottles at the counter as they sat at one of the tables.
"The Rovers don't have the firepower to deal with the material, but the Apahanta can. That atmosphere is thin, we should be able to blow it up with an orbital bombardement," Ezrael proposed to Leon, who held his head with both hands, visibly struggling with staying awake, expecting his head to hit the table any second.
"So, you want me to modify the shields again so we can withstand gravity?" Leon asked in a sleepy voice.
"Yes."
"That would expose us to the radiation and discharges in this system." The blond boy shook his head.
"What if we put everyone in secure areas for the time being?"
"I'm more worried about the ship than the crew in this instance, Ez," Leon explained, rising his head for the moment to face the Captain. "Right now, the shields are modulated in a way that prevents harm from these constant ionic discharges. Once the shields drop, those particles around us would get attracted to the hull, not only corroding away the outer hull - admittedly slowly - but also turning the ship into a giant lightning rod. That would fry us, to put it in a non-scientific way."
The Curacaoan with the long black hair returned a lopsided look. "That's no option, then?"
Leon chortled. "No, Ez, that's no option. We could try an orbital bombardement from a higher orbit, but that would weaken the shots. And then there is the question whether that thing is actually causing the memetic effect, and not inhibiting it."
"Wait, what do you mean?" Ezrael asked, raising an eyebrow while grabbing his cup of tea, ready to listen to a lengthy explanation.
"Well, we know nothing about it, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions yet. After all, we don't know if the particles around us are the cause, and the thing down on that planet is actually preventing the effect from being worse. Imagine we blow it up and then everything gets worse. And, you know, what if attacking it causes a direct reaction? Planetary defense? Just because we didn't see anything yet, doesn't mean there isn't anything down there to protect the installation. Or maybe it sends out a distress call and alarms both Daam K'vosh and the Nomads. Maybe-"
Ezrael lifted the index finger of his left hand, signaling his friend to stop. "I get it, Leon, yes. But we can't sit here and do nothing. If things stay like this, people will go insane, either from the nightmares or from insomnia." Weirdly enough, I felt like both of them hadn't noticed me refilling my water bottles, so it was definitely affecting them.
"Maybe you should consider using the jump drive, then. We still have the coordinates for Sirius."
There was an awkward silence after that, as Ezrael had a strong aversion against the thought of returning to Sirius. We all knew that he would do it, if there was no other option, but we also knew he would exhaust all other options first before considering it. Because if there was one thing he was more afraid of than his nightmares about Maren, it was Maren.
Ez however agreed that they needed to find out more about the structure, so he took the Apahanta closer to the volcanic world, and things got horribly worse. People started to hallucinate and daydream, and all of it was horrible. Basically, the nightmares didn't wait for us to fall asleep. We were exposed to them throughout being awake. Ezrael saw Maren on the bridge, and according to him, she was angry for him leaving Sirius. Sombra saw my corpse next to her and started to cry, and I myself heard Aphrodite inside my head. These fucked up moments lasted seconds, then minutes, until Ezrael has a moment of clarity and ordered the ship to move away from the volcanic moon. After that, the hallucinations ceased. Nobody understood what was going on, but Ezrael plotted a course for the edge of the system, sending us deep into the endless nebulae outside the bubble around the sun.
A few people got hurt because of the hallucinations, either by self-harm, simply not being able to handle the mental trauma, or by having interacted with tools or having mistaken other crew members for monsters. It was an absolute bummer and the morale was at an all time low. People held grudges against each other, which was new. However, with each day passing, the effect got weaker, and when we entered the nebula, there were nights without nightmares.
Realizing that the nebula was protecting the ship, Ezrael made us hide in it for now. It was time to get some rest and heal the wounds. So, we did that.
I remember being in bed with Sombs, we pretty much slept for about 16 hours when we didn't have nightmares anymore. Just sleeping and cuddling, nothing else. It was the best. Then, after our strongly belated morning routine, we walked to the canteen to get our breakfast. Nobody else was there, which was a bit weird for the ship's local time. But we didn't mind it. I wanted to do something special, so I used the kitchen myself and cut some of the freshly harvested fruits from the hydroponics for a fruit salad. Some of the apples looked really pretty, with a strong red, so I tried to cut them into pretty shapes and painted them with a layer of citrus extract to prevent the oxidation.
"You know, they talked about returning to Sirius if we can't deal with the thing on the planet," I told her, feeling like I needed to talk about it. We had talked a month ago about it, when things were different.
"And?" she asked, sitting at the counter, watching me cut an apple swan.
"I just didn't expect this to suddenly become an option," I explained. "Imagine it. We go to sleep again and when we wake up, we're back in Omega-49 or Cortez or, I don't know, Omicron Chi."
"Omicron Chi, why would you even want to go there?" Sombra asked with a frown.
"I don't want to go there, duh," I clarified. "I'm just saying it could be one of the systems we end up in. I mean, it was not that bad, right? Just a lot of radiation that prevented the cloak from working."
"I wouldn't mind Cortez. We could all use some quality time on Curacao, just enjoying the beach, stocking up on some food we can't have anymore... maybe do some weird things."
"I feel like you'd need some time to reintegrate into society again."
"Public nudity is legal on Curacao. And there are only few areas where fornicating in public is illegal, too," she reminded me.
"Maybe it's best if we stayed here, then," I teased while using a brush to paint the apple swan with the citrus extract.
"Oh, come on, that would be funny. We'd wait for some tourists to walk past us and then I'd say "Now let's do a funny one!" just loud enough for them to hear it. And then I act like a Kusarian woman and call you "Noel-senpaiii~" and say weird things like "My hips are moving on their own!" and narrate the entire act out loud."
"Maybe it's really the best if we stayed here." Although the idea was funny, but maybe it was enough to have that just between the two of us. "We would need to lay low, you know that, right? If we returned to Sirius, that is."
"You do remember I was a smuggler, right?" she asked, winking at me as I moved over to her with the apple swan sitting on top of a little spiral of apple slices. "That's awesome. Way too pretty to eat it!" She grabbed her PDA and took a picture of it.
"Would you want to work as smuggler again, though?" I asked her before trying an apple slice myself.
"Hell naw. My boi, I think I've put my life at risk more than often enough. Like, think of it like this: We left right after the Gallic War was over, so Curacao is probably back to its former glory again. And both Ezrael and I left a lot of money on our accounts, so I guess we got some nice interest in the meantime? We could make a decent living on Curacao without ever needing to work again, so you and I could get a little house with a garden and a pool, make it comfy to us and fornicate until you die from a heart attack."
I didn't like that last part, but it was realistic. She would definitely be the cause of my death. "Just you and me?" I asked, having expected her to rather like the idea of a big mansion with Ezrael and Leon and maybe other members of the crew.
"Just you and me, unless you want others to join, too." She smirked at me, reaching for my hand with one of hers. "I don't mean to be mean, but after years on this ship, with our room being next to Ezrael's room, I wouldn't mind some distance between him and us, to make things less complicated."
"Is it complicated, though?" I asked her, knowing what she was referring to.
"To a certain degree, it is. If there is one thing I learned from all the nightmares, it is that Ez still means a lot to me, and I don't think it's good."
I exhaled audibly through my nose, staring into her apologetic eyes. It was a topic we had talked about a lot of times. It was something that made the thought of returning to Sirius a little bit more compelling. It was not an issue, to any of us, but it made her feel bad, having feelings for two men at the same time. "Emotions are complicated, that's fine."
"Let me slaughter your bird," she said and grabbed more than a few slices of the apple swan, filling her mouth with them. "Itf awrite wo, aw heff no pwobwems wiff haw ut iff."
Her talking with full mouth made me chuckle. "I'd really love to have a house with you on Curacao. Or even just a small apartment, like the one you had. Just you and me, the cats and two service robots. Plants everywhere, the window blinds weakening the blue sunlight of Cortez, you and me just hanging out on the couch, watching some shows. I find that really appealing."
"I mean, we can do all of that here, too. We can recreate the entire setting, you know? Would take a few days, but we can craft the furniture in the workshop, use some holographic lights for Cortez, put blinds over it and tinker with the life support settings of the room to create a Curacao-like atmosphere. Ezrael did that on the Hoff... Hoffen... his Corvo, too."
"Hoffnungsschimmer. But yeah, that sounds like a cool plan. We could steal some plants from the hydroponics and install some fans to recreate the wind and maybe do some scented candles or something for the air."
"Fuck yeah, let's do it!"
For a while, doing that gave us some peace of mind. No nightmares, no drama. Just Sombra and me doing fun things. I was so incredibly happy with her, despite her chaotic nature. I wanted to have with at my side for the rest of my life. And I wanted to live very long.
