L'Amour Chrétienne De La Claire De La Lune

by Lord Kristine

The prequel to Jurassengers.

Once upon a time, an author wrote a story about dinosaurs, birthdays, and space-rape, the popularity of which made her like herself for the first time in a long time. She measured her success in how much she made the readers cry, and although she felt guilty about it- not about making people cry: about being proud of her work- she was happy.

Then, on the first day of Kubrick class, she began to think. She thought about presentation and about visual storytelling, and about a style that reflected loneliness and possibly insanity. An idea began to form, as ideas are prone to do, and she soon realized that she was destined to write a prequel to Jurassengers, the story that changed everything. She had not yet seen Passengers, as there was a crisis involving an oven that caught fire unexpectedly (which delayed her viewing), so she decided to try and complete another space-dinosaur story before seeing the film. Unfortunately, she was booked to be a cashier all weekend, and had no time, realistically.

As much as she tried to finish her magnum opus, the universe seemed to be working against her. She wrote on torn notepad pages when she wasn't serving people with much better jobs, but the constantly-changing ink color (people kept stealing her pens) and splatters of iced tea (that one nozzle tended to be finicky) did not give her confidence. She became an empty shell of a person, realizing that as the hours ticked on, her story would not progress, and she would be seeing the half-word she'd finished on for the next two hours.

Thin, meant to be thinking.

Before this miserable moment, she had maintained the foolish, hopeful delusion that she might be able to accomplish something by working hard. She poured herself countless cups of coffee, fountain drinks, and mixes of the two to keep herself awake at work and later on in the day. She did not eat, because her venue charged staff for any sustenance that wasn't a stimulant liquid. She came home dazed and confused, and attempted an all-nighter, weeping heavily when she realized that she was destined to fail. Time was not on her side, and she would not beat Passengers to the finish line, just like before.

And in her sorrow, she reached out to another person, who comforted her with kind words. He told her that it was not her fault she was so far behind, and the readers would understand if she was a little bit late. She believed him, though a part of her didn't want to.

The two of them stayed up until her midnight, which was two hours behind his time, plotting planetary loops and other mathematical things that the author was too tired to understand at present. She must have asked the same questions billions of times, never quite understanding the answers in her confused consciousness. She wasn't even sure she was awake, half of the time. But at least she was not alone. Someone was willing to help her, though it would be of great detriment to him. She was flattered that someone cared about her enough to put her needs first.

Even so, she believed that she was dragging him into her misery, though he himself didn't know it yet.

It was just one of those things a person can't bring themselves to say.

***KC***

When he awoke from cryosleep, the first thing Owen did was gasp for air. His lungs felt like they had just endured a marathon, and he had a funny taste in his mouth. The air in his pod was not actually air, he knew, so it made sense that inhaling oxygen would be a shock. He would need to get the metal-gas out of his system to make room for what he'd normally consume. It was not a pleasant experience.

Stumbling out of his pod, Owen heaved and rasped, unsteady on all four legs. Across the girth of the catwalk was a metal wall with parallel grooves in it, but to his right, he could see the unopened pods of his fellow passengers, or at least the human ones.

His heart clenched up.

He hadn't made it to the new world. They had chosen him early.

Owen gave a feeble whimper and fell on his side, plates clanking against the floor as they hung loose in a crestfallen despair. He had been hoping to wake up after the other nine dinosaurs so that he wouldn't have to live the rest of his life in isolation. It was selfish, he knew, to wish for them to suffer in his place, but he couldn't think of anything worse than being stranded in space, and would prefer to avoid the experience altogether. He knew he wasn't alone in that regard. On the way to the ship, he had spoken with another dinosaur- a stegoceratops like him- who was dark blue and probably around eight years old. He didn't seem in the mood for talking, but Owen was so nervous that he couldn't help striking up a conversation.

"Hello," he had said, and when he was met with silence: "My name is Owen."

"No, it's not," the other stegoceratops had replied bitterly.

Indeed, Owen's name was not really Owen, but what they called him could hardly be considered a name, truth be told. Until the age of five, he had worn a collar with the label "Experiment 01", but Owen didn't feel like just an experiment, so he had chosen to call himself something else. It made him feel better for reasons he could not put into words, and the humans wouldn't know the difference as long as he remembered to write it out like they expected on official documents. Perhaps the other dinosaur was simply jealous of his name, as he most likely didn't have one himself.

"Are you excited to see the new world?" Owen pressed, hoping he hadn't offended him.

"We'll be dead before then."

Owen gulped.

"How do you know?"

"Because we ain't meant to make it all the way. They just want us to clean the ship while the humans are asleep. We're not supposed to come out on the other side."

"If that's true, why did they bring so many of us?"

"Because they think we'll shoot ourselves dead."

Owen's eyes went wide.

"Why?"

"People go crazy in space. Dinosaurs, too. They kill themselves so they don't have to live alone no more."

Owen bit his lower beak.

"But if no one kills themselves, they'll give the others a chance to reach the new world."

The blue stegoceratops snorted.

"It's all the same to me. There's nothing better where we're going. The ways things are right now is how they'll be for the rest of our lives."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure. Which pod are you choosing?"

"Does it matter?"

"They'll open in order, so if you wanna make it, you gotta choose the right one."

"They said we'd be woken up randomly."

"Yeah, well, they think we're stupid. They wouldn't bother programming that stuff into the system for our sake. I'm choosing one near the middle so I have the best chance of making it out alive."

Owen took a deep breath.

"Not me. I wanna be the last one out, just so I'm sure I won't be alone. Which side do you think they'll start with?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be choosing the middle one, moron!"

Owen recoiled.

"Oh."

Then, wanting to change the subject to something lighter, he remembered a pleasant bit of trivia.

"It's my birthday today."

"I don't care."

"Oh."

The Owen of the present- the one who had just woken up- suddenly smiled and lifted his head a little. He had almost forgotten what day it was. Of course, a lot of time had probably passed since he was last awake, depending on how many dinosaurs had woken up before him. It wouldn't be wrong to celebrate his birthday now and make up for the half he'd missed, would it?

As Owen rolled over, however, he noticed something troubling. Of all the red pods, only one was open, and it was his own. He tried to calm his racing heart by telling himself that the empty pods would close on their own, but seeing the foggy shapes of nine dinosaurs inside the devices, was unable to go on believing his made-up explanation. With knocking knees and an open mouth, he backed away from the chambers, then made a dash for the hull of the ship. The endless twists and turns of the vessel's hallways were impossible to navigate, but Owen did not stop running, decelerating only to peer out a window as he scampered by. He saw nothing but stars until he climbed a set of stairs that led to a higher-up part of the ship, and when he was above the level of the rockets, he was able to see exactly what was behind him. The bright blue curve of earth was peeking over the base of the window, still very large and therefore close to the ship. The light from the atmosphere sliced his pupils, dividing them in halves. After a few seconds of staring at his home planet with rattling bones, Owen burst into a loud wail that echoed across the ship. His agony was so intense that he lost control of his voice, and his scream turned into a trumpet. This long-range vocalization would not reach Earth, he knew, and even if it somehow could, no one would listen. This was where he was meant to be, according to the humans. His life from now on would follow one path and one path alone. He would maintain the ship as best he could, and sometime in the next three hundred years, he would die in the middle of space, lonely and afraid. He knew this because he was already terrified, and it hadn't even been an hour.

Pressing his snout and front feet against the window, Owen sobbed and mooed and felt tears dripping down his cheeks. He wished with all of his heart that he could squeeze through the transparent metal alloy and fall back to the planet on which he was created. Even if he burned up on re-entry, he'd at least be closer to other living creatures for a brief period of time. But the window was sealed shut, and there was no stopping the departure from Earth, which seemed deceptively close. Owen could almost hear the planet laughing at him as he hiccoughed and wailed, and felt even worse knowing that he wouldn't be missed.

Eventually, he pulled away from the window, wrapping his arms around his legs and touching his tail to his chest as he curled up in a ball. Snot dripped from his nostrils, and the corners of his mouth became sticky with saliva, but he couldn't stop himself from crying.

All in all, this was turning out to be his worst birthday yet.

First Year

Owen keeps himself occupied by doing routine maintenance checks on the ship's features. For a child of eleven, he is surprisingly talented. Well, maybe talented is the wrong word. He's been taught to do this for longer than he can remember. Things like electric work, plumbing, and other manual tasks somewhat absorbed the cerebral portion of his education. He isn't one hundred percent sure, but he thinks that the intellectual component of his schooling was rushed compared to human children. He was never good at it anyway, but a part of him wishes he could know more about the world . . . not that it would do him much good now. His world is no longer Earth.

It's the ship.

He carries a ladder three times his size across the room with a belt much too big for his waist dragging across the floor, and begins to tamper with the wiring in the air filtration unit. He knows every piece by heart, and there is very little chance that he'll make a mistake of any kind. He's familiar with the odds and ends he has to connect to make things work. If he had hands, he'd know the pieces just as well as the back of them. He's sure the wiring looks chaotic and intimidating to humans, but he may as well be looking at simple text. It's slightly comforting to know that he has one advantage over the higher species. That being said, he only knows how to work their devices because they gave him very specific instructions, so it's not like he can do anything revolutionary with this information. He can only maintain what is already there without changing it or making something new. The control he has over machines is only an illusion, which is further emphasized by the fact that he is not allowed to interfere with the ship's trajectory. He can view every bit of data on the mainframe, but never manipulate it.

Even though he can't change his fate, Owen makes the best of his little adventure. He hums to himself when it's quiet and takes pride in a job well done. It's a shame that he bursts into tears without warning, and this comes as a surprise to him. He wants to be able to keep himself in order like he does with the machines, but sometimes his body is out of his control. Every now and then, he will vomit unexpectedly or wake up in a wet bed, and when he does, he has to clean it up himself. He's used to dealing with his own messes by now, because aside from it being his literal job, he's never really had anyone to take care of him. When he was really little, one of the scientists used to burp him, but she did it begrudgingly, cringing as he wrapped his tiny dinosaur-feet around her ponytail. He sometimes patted her back as well, as though she also needed burping. She thought he was imitating her, but Owen suspects that his younger self was pretending they were sharing a hug. It wouldn't surprise him, since a hug is something he wants more than anything in the world, even to this day.

In any case, he's adjusting. On his twelfth birthday, he sits down with a pack of crayons by his side and writes. He looks out the window at the moon, which is a little bigger. He's happy that he's headed towards something, at least.

Second Year

Owen has a song.

"I am in space," he sings, "I'm all alone. Please, somebody come and save me."

It's not a very good song.

He does not know how far Earth is, but from up so high, it looks smaller than ever before. Maybe the planet is just shrinking.

Anyway, he's gotten used to his new life. Every few hours, he goes to the feeding tube, which dispenses grey mush that tastes like bitter oatmeal. It has every vitamin he needs, and he stays at a decent weight if he consumes all of his rations. It's just enough to keep him alive.

He's explored every inch of the ship by now, with the exception of the darkest room. Inside is a catwalk and a series of clear, plastic tubes. On his thirteenth birthday, he finally gathers the courage to step inside. The tubes, he discovers, are for notes, though he's not sure why a spaceship needs the postal service. The papers go in little pods that he sticks inside the pneumatic base of the cylinders, and when he presses a button, they shoot upwards like bullets. The noise is so loud that Owen nearly pees himself when he first hears it. He decides that this room is of no use to him.

Owen spends most of his time in a small closet where he gets his primary maintenance supplies. The humans in charge have left him tapes to keep his mind active, including videos that teach him letters and words. He knows most of them already, but is embarrassed to find that he's been spelling some phrases wrong. He sits in front of the television set wrapped in long pillows, which he sometimes pretends are the arms of another dinosaur. He imagines that he is being held by his mother, though he has never had a mother. It's hard to decide how to go about fabricating this idea, as he can't fathom what it must be like to have someone want you. The only thing he can think of is that people who want you might hold you close, so he lets the pillows do just that.

Although this gives him some comfort, it also brings back painful memories. Having been created by a man and his assistants, Owen had to turn elsewhere for motherly attention. They told him he'd turn out perfectly fine without a mother, but on his fifth birthday, they took him away from the scientists, as they determined five was the age when he could be weaned off their relationship. He was primarily upset because this meant he'd be far away from the man he considered his father. He could never replace that imprinted bond, but since he'd never had a mother, he figured he could choose one himself.

He first sought out the attention of his teacher, who seemed to care about his well-being. She would help him when he had difficulty on assignments, and answer his questions when he raised his foot. This was more attention than he had ever received from anyone, and it wasn't long before he started daydreaming about what would come next. He had hoped that his teacher would adopt him, that is to say buy him from his current owners. If she didn't have enough money, he'd get a job and help her out. She'd continue to teach him, but also give him hugs, which seemed like the kind of thing parents would do.

Owen drew her a picture one day, and when he was sure that it was the best illustration he'd ever made, he picked it up in his beak and carried it to her break room. He discovered that she was discussing him with the other teachers. This should have thrilled him, only she wasn't saying anything complimentary. She used words like "slow" and "dense", and worst of all, she didn't even know him by name.

To her, he was simply "the red one".

After hearing this, he backed out of the room with tears in his eyes and threw away his drawing, which he realized was quite terrible. This experience taught him an important lesson. If it ever seemed like someone loved him, in all likelihood, they were just pretending. In a way, that was worse than when people said they hated him outright.

Owen doesn't like thinking about these things, but the memories resurface every now and then.

He can't stop them.

He writes.

Third Year

Owen has a voice in his head. It's not the same as when crazy people hear voices, because he knows he's thinking it up consciously. The voice is essentially a warning sign that he is doing something wrong. It was birthed from the various criticisms he received from different humans, and especially the ones who were in charge of him (admittedly, this could be said of all Homo sapiens). The voice comes when he tries to do something new. For instance, he once wondered "can I teach myself to swim?".

No, you can't.

He knows the voice is right.

He folds a napkin in the shape of a swan and places it on a dining table. After stepping back to examine it, he smiles and thinks "I did a really good job".

No, you didn't.

Owen gulps. "But I'm improving".

You're not as good as humans, and never will be. You may think you're accomplishing something, but a dinosaur's success is a human's everyday action.

The voice takes other forms as well. Owen plays basketball sometimes to occupy himself, and he has made a habit of personifying the ball. He holds it tenderly in his front feet, preparing for a throw.

"I know it must hurt to be dribbled and thrown around, but I really want to make this shot. If you could help me, I'd be very happy. I promise I'll be gentle with you. I just need your cooperation this one time."

He throws it and misses. Tail dragging, he walks over to where the ball has stopped.

"I'm sorry. I know you hate me. Everyone does. I don't hate you, but I'm afraid of displeasing you. If a ball can't like me, no one can."

He lays on his side, staring at the bumpy surface of the orange sphere.

"I don't blame you for hating me. I tried to use you to make myself feel better, even though I knew it would hurt. I understand what it's like to exist only so people can take advantage of you, and if I was a good person, I wouldn't have put you through that. I'm sorry."

The ball does not answer. Tears brim at Owen's eyes.

"I wish I could convince myself that you like me, but I'm sure you'll resent me no matter what I do. Anyone who ever said they liked me was just pretending . . ."

Owen cries for a few minutes, then picks up the ball, touching it for as short a time as possible before putting it away. He never plays with it again.

On the mainframe, Owen calls up a map of the ship's planned course. He is confused by the diagram, which shows strange roundabout paths that the vessel must follow through the solar system. It seems like the physicists are playing a joke on Owen by taking the most indirect path possible, but in reality, the partial loops that slingshot him around certain planets will help send the ship flying faster than it would have otherwise.

The moon is rather close now, and he is indeed in orbit. When he is aligned with Mars, the ship boosts itself with rockets, soaring towards the red planet. In a matter of days, Earth shrinks to a pinpoint of light, no bigger than a star. It is forever out of reach.

On his birthday, Owen writes.

Fourth Year

Owen is going through some rough times. He's not sure why, but it all started when he was twelve. This year is the worst. He has been provided with tools to cope with his problems, including a thin softcover book with rabbit-people inside, but he's not sure how this is supposed to help. Now, more than ever, he feels alone.

He writes.

Fifth Year

Owen has reached the ring planet. This one makes him nervous, though it was his favorite in picture books. It's a lot darker in reality.

He writes.

Sixth Year

Owen plays make-believe to entertain himself. He pretends to be a human at a fancy dinner party, where his father is laughing with business associates. Owen takes a bite out of his vitamin-mush, which he has sculpted into the shape of a steak, then waves his foot casually at invisible guests.

"You're all too kind. It was really no trouble building that supercomputer. I'm surprised no one thought of it earlier, quite frankly."

He turns to the seat next to him.

"Oh, pardon me. I should have given you a proper introduction. This is my girlfriend. We've been together for a few months now. We plan to get married someday . . . Oh, I'm sure it will happen. She really can't be with anyone else, due to her lip-fungus. I'm the only one who's willing to stay with her, because I can't be infected. Why not? Because I have . . . a beak."

He lets his chin drop to the table, mumbling dismally.

"You didn't notice I was a dinosaur? Well, that's not unusual. I've spent so much time around humans, you'd think I was one of them. Of course, I wouldn't say so. But others do. I'm so human, I'm practically an ape."

He lets his head roll onto its side.

"That's what father says, anyway."

Owen writes.

He has now left Saturn's orbit. Although the slingshot accelerated him significantly, the distance between planets is growing ever larger, and he may as well be moving at a snail's pace. There is not much going on.

Seventh Year

Owen doesn't remember what it's like to talk to another person. He doesn't remember much of anything. He knows that once he leaves the solar system, his ship will supposedly burst into an impossibly fast period of travel where everything will be beautiful and chaotic, but he doesn't remember who told him that or when they did.

All he remembers is that he's supposed to write.

Eighth Year

Although he didn't know it, Owen passed Uranus last year. Now, he is about to slingshot around the planet for which the ship is named. It's the last major planet he'll ever see. Once the deep blue sphere is out of sight, there will be nothing. Nothing but space, at least, and space is nothing. His solitude will become official, if it wasn't already.

Owen travels down to the darkest room. He finds the pneumatic tubes, stopping in front of the middle one. He stares at it blankly, pupils empty above the dark bags that have formed beneath his eyes. He stares and stares and stares, then out of nowhere, darts forward like a viper striking a mouse. He clamps his beak around the transparent tube and pulls back, breaking it in the middle. It creaks in protest, but the lower half bends forward, turning white with strain. Owen loads a carrier-pod into the tube. As he leans forward, the broken edges of the shaft slide between his cheeks. He stands with the tube in his mouth, breathing calmly through his nose, then closes his eyes and reaches for the button. His foot pauses before contact. It hovers in place like a metal plate caught between two magnets. He has yet to decide which side of the force will triumph.

His foot moves closer to the button.

And then he thinks about the other dinosaurs. Their suffering will begin when his ends, and he hasn't even been awake for a decade. The next dinosaur will probably think he's weak until they have to endure this solitude themselves.

Years ago, he made a promise to see this through until the bitter end, and he intends to carry out that solemn vow, even if it no longer means anything to him.

He puts the tube back in place without repairing it and leaves the room for good.

He writes.

Eighteenth Year

Owen has given up. His hope has finally been snuffed out, and he mourns the loss of what was already a feeble flame. He feels nothing, or perhaps he has simply become so used to loneliness and sorrow that it seems like nothing to him. He is an empty shell of a dinosaur. In a way, he has become exactly what the humans wanted. He goes on doing his job without thinking or feeling. He is driven only by the fact that if he ends his life, he will be replaced by another, who will fall into the same despair. Even then, he's not sure why he cares. He does not feel like he's doing anyone a favor by staying alive. They wouldn't be grateful, even if he was. He may extend his time on the vessel, but it will not make a significant difference. He will be in the spaceship for only a few years longer than the others, and given the speed of space-travel, these years would be worth only a few drops in the sea of time. He is destined to not matter. Any dreams of grandeur or even basic helpfulness are now officially impossible. He knew this from the start, and is now able to admit it. No matter how much he tries to give this a positive spin, no matter how eager he is to please someone- anyone- with his efforts, no matter how desperate he is to be accepted (and in the case of a miracle, loved), he is nothing more than a dinosaur lost in space, and he will forever be alone.

There must be some great irony in the fact that literally millions of people are on board with him, yet he will never know a single one.

Well, not unless they woke up somehow. That was within the realm of possibility, since all it would take was a lock malfunction, or else an error with the clock. Even then, that would only be temporary, seeing how Owen could move the clock backwards.

Or forward.

In theory, it would be incredibly simple to force someone out of cryosleep.

He could do it.

Not that he's going to.

Owen doesn't know why he's thinking about this. It would be a complete violation of protocol to tamper with the ship in any way. He's definitely not considering it.

So why is he still thinking about it? Maybe he's just bored. His mind has nothing else to focus on, so if he's thinking about it, he's not actually thinking about doing it.

Of course, he's in the control room now, and he's called up the ship's manifest. It's probably for unrelated reasons. There was work he needed to do here, wasn't there?

But he's making a list. He taps the forward button with his right foot, taking note of the more appealing passengers. Appealing in what way? He doesn't know, exactly. But it's just for work.

He taps the button steadily, passing the more ordinary specimens. Only a certain percentage of the sleepers catch his eye, and they are so few and far between that he can remember their numbers by heart without actually caring.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

. . .

His foot has paused. It's hovering over the button. Miraculously, it pulls back and rests beside his other foot on the floor. He stares up at the screen, eyes glowing with blue light. This is it. This is the one. Why? He's not sure, exactly. It must be because she's pretty. What else could it be?

That being said, there's still millions of people to screen.

Owen flips through a hundred more before coming back to that one woman. He can't stop himself from calling her image back up onscreen. Something about her makes his heart beat faster. His ribs are aching. She's the one.

But just to be fair, he scans the rest of the passengers. No one comes close to the woman he's chosen.

Chosen? Did he say "chosen"? Well, he didn't say it: he thought it, and even then, he didn't mean it, probably. What could he possibly choose her for? Surely, he's not going to-

And then he's at the pods. He knows where she is, approximately, based on her number, and he pinpoints her exact location when he spies brilliant, red hair shining through the fog of a cryochamber. He walks up to her self-consciously, though she has no way of detecting his presence. The mist on the other side of the glass conceals her face at times, but it thins out every now and then, and Owen can see her clearly. She's even better in real life.

She's so close. So beautiful.

He doesn't realize he's leaning on the glass until his foot slips a little, making a deep squeak. He falls back in horror, watching a foggy patch shrink on the glass, no longer fed by his breath. His heart is still racing, but for different reasons than it was a few seconds ago. The woman in the bubble has not moved an inch, but Owen runs from her, regardless.

He needs to get ahold of himself. He almost lost control.

He writes, but his pencil is shaking so much that it looks like scribbles.

Twenty-First Year: Day One

He hasn't stopped thinking about the woman. She's always in the back of his mind, invading his everyday activities and clawing through his self-imposed mental blocks. He can't stop himself from turning his thoughts to her. It's physically impossible.

He's reviewed the manifest countless times, but he is fixated on her and her alone, and there's no hope of changing this. He's memorized every hair on her head, every freckle on her skin. She has become all that matters in his life, and a part of him doesn't even care.

Despite all this, he does not wake her up. He knows that there is no chance she'll feel the same way about him, especially after learning that he committed such a heinous act.

Not that she has to know.

Well, she could be told, in theory, and he would have to find the right words-

No. No! He's not doing this at all! What's he thinking?

He's thinking that he really wants to stop being alone.

But he shouldn't be! What right does he have to interfere with a human? No matter what he thinks he's feeling, he should not be putting his needs above hers. If he really cares about her, he'll leave her alone.

But he does care about her. He cares about her very much. The only question is whether his feelings are more about her or himself. Is he fixated on the woman because he likes her, or because he thinks there's a chance she might like him? It could be both. He'll never know.

But he wants her company. He wants it more than he's wanted anything ever. And maybe she wants his company, too. What if she would prefer to be awake with him instead of unconscious alone? She's a good person. She might be willing to accept him. She's kind and sweet and gentle and caring. If anyone can look past horns and spikes, it's her.

All this from a photo.

Owen paces the ship several times, tossing his head like an agitated animal . . . which he is, he reminds himself. He's never felt so conflicted, because he's never dared to want, much less take. But with these selfish desires comes a need to give. He's not sure what he has to offer, but he would be willing to provide this woman with anything she wanted.

He wants to help her. He wants to make a difference.

But it's wrong.

Owen lows in frustration and makes his way back to the little closet. He pulls out a paper and pencil, and begins to write. The letter begins the same as the others, but out of nowhere, he stops. His pencil hovers over the page for a moment. Slowly, he pushes the paper to the side and begins anew.

As he writes, Owen's brow becomes deeply furrowed, until his face is in full scowl. Tears of anger streak down his cheeks, and his teeth grind with a force he did not know he was capable of exerting. His lead digs into the page, making dark, jagged lines that appear at an accelerated pace. Air slips from his nostrils with each scratch, getting faster and faster and furious. His pencil is racing now, making crooked letters until-

The lead breaks.

Owen stares at what he has created, shattered wood still hanging from his beak. After a pause, he drops it and starts crying, burying his face in his front arms with shaking shoulders. He does not make much sound. Just a bit of huffing.

Slowly, as he calms himself down, he raises his head. He takes the letter to his personal safe, carrying it in his beak as he passes the pool room. He crumples up the paper with rage when his shaky feet fumble over the keypad, but puts it in its place, nonetheless. Once it is locked away, he marches straight to the cryobay, refusing to slow down until he reaches one pod in particular.

Hers.

Owen taps the display beside her chamber, punching in a code and executing a chain of commands. The numbers on her clock speed forward suddenly, and for a second, Owen is transfixed by the fact that she can skip the years that would have destroyed him.

And then it hits him. All at once, shame and fear burst into his consciousness, and he is overwhelmed by his own stupidity and recklessness. He doesn't realize he is running until he's halfway across the ship.

Owen skids to a halt in the pool room, panting heavily. He's really screwed up this time. There's no excuse for what he's done. None at all. He should have killed himself before it came to this. He still could. If he thought up a good enough excuse, he could put the human to sleep and go back to the way things were.

The only problem is that a part of him still wants to try and make it work.

Owen sits by the pool bar, considering his options. He's so deep in thought that he doesn't realize he has been followed. He hears the woman's voice- she has a gorgeous voice- and turns in surprise. As soon as he sees her, a funny thing happens. He forgets his fear and guilt and is enveloped in a sort of calmness, almost like happiness, though it's been so long since he last felt it that he isn't sure if it's real. This feeling makes him giddy, and it takes all of his strength to keep himself from breaking into a lopsided grin. He is comfortable around this woman, as though they've known each other for years. In a way, they have.

He hopes that by the end of the day, she will know just how much she means to him.

***KC***

The author did not know if she was looking forward to seeing Passengers or dreading it. It was a relief and a shame, and perhaps a burden. She was still thinking about the story she intended to finish, which like its predecessor did not include a framing device at the time of conception.

But then she saw the movie.

She realized three things. First, she would have to add a framing device, if only to explain the previous statement. Second, as she had hoped, many elements of Passengers were eerily similar to what she had written, both thematically and otherwise. Third, and most importantly, she came to terms with a truth that she did not expect to face that night, though it should have been obvious from the start. She was not brave enough to confront this truth directly, as was usually the case.

So she didn't.

It was wrong, she knew, to reach out this way, but this was what she had been doing from the start. More than anything, she wished to connect with someone- anyone, really- and had released her story in a last desperate attempt to do just that.

And it worked.

She had made a connection, and thinking back, it should have been obvious that things would turn out this way. Who else could have been the one, but the person who always posted the longest reviews, analyzed the story with an understanding so accurate that he may as well have written it himself, answered the question of why, and in doing so, allowed the author to answer it as well, though she feared it more than anything in the world. Who else could it have been?

It should have been clear-cut, but still, there would always be doubt. The author, after all, would never be seen as an author by some, nor her work as actual work, though she devoted much time and effort to it. There were those who saw a Stegoceratops as a Stegoceratops, and nothing more. Having been surrounded by such people for so long, the author was afraid that any kind of understanding from her fellow humans was fabricated or greatly exaggerated. She might believe that it was the biggest practical joke in the history of mankind, one that everyone was in on, excluding her.

Except.

Except for the fact that she had seen such limitless devotion from a single person, such fidelity, to a degree never before attained by any one companion or otherwise, that it would be logical- sensible, even- to believe that someone actually cared. And for once, the silliest idea of all, the idea that she was not alone in her silliness, seemed more plausible than the alternative.

Yet even in this epiphanic ecstasy there was a cruel and poetic injustice. Like the two passengers aboard the Neptune, this would only end in tragedy.

On the surface, anyway.

Even if it was not destined to be, there was something to be said about the fact that two people so far apart could connect for a moment: a moment that in the history of time would seem fleeting, though they would experience it as their eternity. By fate, luck, or coincidence, two people had come into contact without coming into contact, and in a way, this was more permanent than if it had happened as most encounters do. Why else would the author have saved images of every kind word from this person in particular? She must have read them through a million times, so much so that she'd remember the messages long after the JPEGs had become corrupt or compressed to the point of abstraction. She had reached out with words- nothing more than words- and received words in return. They were the words she needed and wanted, and she realized that this was what she had been asking for when she wrote her story. She liked herself not because she thought she had produced something of value, but because someone agreed with her, and this meant that she was not alone.

There would always be an element of guilt, as it had been instilled in her from the moment she was able to understand human connections, but it was for now overpowered by her happiness, which she was sure would last for the next two hundred and eighty-seven years. As much as she forced herself to believe that she was being tricked or taken advantage of, she had faith in a connection she suspected was mutual, though she was deeply afraid that she was wrong. For once, she was willing to take that risk, though she was testing the waters in the most indirect way possible.

After all, there are things you simply can't tell a person directly, for instance that you dragged them into a lifelong journey through an empty world punctuated only by stars too far to reach, or that you love them.