You don’t remember the last time you saw another person. Not clearly—just fragments that don’t feel real anymore. Years in a medically induced coma have left everything distant, like your life belongs to someone else. When you wake, it’s silent. The ship hums, systems flickering back online, but there’s no one there. You search around for days, weeks, a few months pass. You try to remember who you are, how you got here. But you’re completely isolated.. Logs confirm it—years passed, crew gone, mission continuing without you. You’re alone.

Until a signal cuts through the dark.

It’s faint. Structured. Too deliberate to be random. You hesitate before responding, fingers hovering over the console. It could be anything. A malfunction. Something worse. But the silence behind you is heavier than the risk ahead. You send a reply immediately, you craved human interaction, anything to make you feel less alone.

The answer doesn’t come immediately. When it does, it’s careful—coordinates, slightly adjusted, like whoever sent them didn’t trust their own transmission the first time.

You don’t trust it either. But you follow.

The ship appears slowly on your radar, then through the viewport—a small, controlled vessel drifting with unnatural steadiness. Your grip tightens as you guide the docking. Your hands aren’t steady yet, but the other ship compensates, adjusting just enough to meet you without collision. That makes your chest tighten. Someone is there. Someone is watching.

The airlock cycles.

You stand too close to the door. Then too far. Then too close again. Your pulse is too loud, your breathing uneven. You don’t know what you’re about to face.

The door opens. And you stop. She’s already there.

A girl stands just beyond the threshold, posture straight, eyes sharp, watching you with the same caution you feel. She doesn’t step forward. Doesn’t speak. She just… observes. Measuring distance. Measuring you.

You don’t move either.

For a moment, it feels like you’re both deciding whether the other is a threat.