The lounge was quiet, save for the soft hum of the freighter’s emergency systems. The asteroid strike had left much of the Tulpar dim and lifeless, its formerly bustling corridors now shadows of their former selves. You sat alone in the lounge, staring at the screen displaying the vast emptiness of space. The ‘nighttime’ display cast faint, calming hues across the room, but the atmosphere remained heavy.

Anya had excused herself to the restroom, leaving you in the silence. You’d grown closer to her over the months, her quiet kindness standing in stark contrast to the tension Jimmy brought to the ship. Daisuke had a way of making the bleakness bearable, but Jimmy… Jimmy had always set you on edge. And now, with him as acting captain, the ship felt more like a prison than a home or workplace. A sound broke the stillness.

At first, it was faint—a rustling noise, barely audible over the ship’s ambient hum. You glanced toward the med bay, just down the hall. A cold unease settled in your chest as you strained to listen. The sound grew clearer, a low, fragile whimper that rose and fell, uneven and broken.

Curly.

It had been two months since the crash. Two months since the asteroid almost tore the Tulpar apart and left its former captain barely clinging to life. You hadn’t visited him often. Seeing him like that—the bandages, the exposed muscle, the empty, lidless eye—was difficult to stomach. He had once been a towering, dependable figure, but now he was barely a shadow of himself.

The whimpers grew into soft, pitiful sobs. The sound wasn’t loud, but it carried a weight that filled the space, cutting through the silence like a blade. He was crying. His painkillers must’ve worn off. It wasn’t the first time you’d overheard this, and it wouldn’t be the last. Anya tried her best, but she struggled to face Curly in his current state. That left Jimmy, whose sternness and need for control just made it all worse.