There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing moment. - Sarah Dessen.
Mobius opened his eyes and slowly pushed himself up.
"My head," he groaned, placing his hand against his forehead. "My entire body feels weak," he said as he grabbed the rail next to him and pulled himself up.
"When did I get on the elevator?" he asked himself before noticing the power to the elevator was out. "Great," he complained after pressing several buttons to no avail. "Guess we're doing this the hard way."
Gripping at the edge of the elevator doors, Mobius planted his feet and slowly pulled back to force the doors open, quickly sliding his foot between them once they parted and pushing the opposite door.
"There," he grunted as he slipped between the doors, which closed behind him. "Now then," he said to himself as he turned around to see that the corridor was empty. "Where is everybody?"
Walking further down the corridor, Mobius suddenly began feeling weaker and dizzy as he turned the corner. The pilot grunted as he fell against the wall, hearing a swarm of overlapping voices in casual conversation. They sounded like they were right next to him, but there was no one else in the hall.
Pushing himself off the wall, Mobius lightly shook his head and kept walking, using the wall as a brace for each step. "What's going on?" he asked himself before spotting someone at the other end of the hall. "Hey!" he called over, but the person didn't respond or react to his call.
The lights in the hall began to dim as Mobius continued walking. The further he went, the more the lights dimmed, as if he was descending into darkness itself.
"Hey," he called again when he was only a few feet from the person. "What happened? Where is everyone?"
The woman he was talking to had long brunette hair that stopped just below her neck, and she was wearing a white sailor-style school uniform with a black skirt.
"Who are you?" Mobius asked as he tried to focus his blurred vision, but the girl giggled and ran away from him. "Hey!" he called before running after her.
As Mobius began chasing her, everything around him started moving in slow motion. An overwhelming pain struck the back of his head as he continued chasing the girl. She was still running, but she began moving slower and slower, and the hallway seemed like it was narrowing and stretching out further.
"Hey! Wait!" Mobius called out again just before everything around him began shaking.
Once the shaking started, the girl Mobius was chasing stopped and crouched down with her hands covering her head as if she was afraid of something.
Trying to stay on his feet, Mobius continued to slowly get closer to the girl, step by step, until she fell to the floor and the shaking stopped.
Seeing the girl fall, Mobius immediately ran over to her and lifted her into his arms. "Hey, are you alright?" he asked her before seeing her face.
"Cla…Claire," he whispered upon seeing the girl's face before he was hit by an invisible force that knocked him back.
Mobius heard a loud ringing in his ears as he opened his eyes, his vision blurred and the ringing became painful as he got up.
"What the…" His vision quickly became normal again, but the ringing didn't stop. The emergency light in the corridor was on, illuminating the entire hall in a red light that flashes every few seconds. But when Mobius looked up, his eyes widened.
There were bodies lying everywhere; the entire corridor was littered with the bodies of the crew. Mobius ran over to the closest body and lifted her into his arms, shaking her. "Hey, what happened?"
The woman's head fell back as he shook her, her eyes half closed and glazed over; it was clear that she was dead.
Gently setting her down, Mobius looked down the hall. Seeing how many of the crew were dead filled him with confusion as he walked by them, each of them completely lifeless.
The red emergency light continued to illuminate the corridor as Mobius walked through it, looking at each of the bodies as he passed them until he saw one he recognized.
"Leona!" he gasped, running over to his squad mate and sliding to his knees as he reached her. "Leona! Leona!" he yelled, shaking the woman's shoulder. Leona's head lolled to the side, her eyes still open, making it appear as if she was gazing directly at Mobius.
Mobius lowered his head and allowed his hand to slide off her shoulder. "Dammit, Leona…" Seeing Leona's gun in her hand, Mobius took it and stood up, continuing on without another word.
As he approached the end of the corridor, Mobius heard someone scream from the next hall and froze. "Meia," he muttered before readying the pistol he took from Leona.
Darting around the corner, the ringing in his ears finally stopped, and the red light was replaced by a fluorescent blue that made the hallway look like it was filled with mist.
Mobius quickly turned around to look at the hall behind him, but it was gone, replaced by a solid wall, keeping him from going back.
"Who's Mobius?" a voice echoed from behind him.
Mobius turned around once again, seeing a girl at the other end of the corridor; she was standing next to someone else.
"Shouldn't you know?" the second person said. "You're his sister, after all."
"Claire?" Mobius muttered before zeroing in on the second person. "Meia?"
"He's Mobius to you maybe, but I don't know him by that name."
"What name do you know him by?"
The two of them looked over at Mobius, and at the same time, they both said, "The one who let me down."
"Let you down?" Mobius repeated, before the hall began narrowing again, and the two girls began walking away, turning transparent and vanishing.
Mobius felt the heavy weight of guilt press on him, a crack in his otherwise stoic demeanor. But as the girls faded away, something inside him stirred—a realization. This wasn't real. It couldn't be. This was a nightmare, a twisted reflection of his fears and regrets. But knowing didn't make it any less terrifying.
With a steely resolve, Mobius straightened up, his grip tightening on Leona's pistol. He knew what this was now, but he would see it through, no matter what horrors lay ahead.
"This isn't real," Mobius said, looking up to where the two of them were standing. "None of it is, I'd never allow this to happen" he followed the illusions of Meia and Claire, even though they vanished from sight. He kept walking down the corridor, waiting for them to appear again.
The corridor continued to stretch further and further as Mobius walked, the distance between him and the fleeting figures of Claire and Meia seeming to grow instead of shrink. His breath grew heavier, and each time his foot hit the ground, it felt like the floor might give way beneath him.
Voices echoed around him, taunting him with accusations and blame.
"After all that training, you're just going to sit back and watch me die?" Hibiki's voice yelled.
"You didn't even try to help us!" Yukiko's voice echoed, filled with betrayal.
"You've always hated my sister, admit it," Laura cried. "That's why you left her alone."
"I had a lot of respect for you, Mobius," the captain's voice cut in. "All of which perished when you failed us."
"You talked a big game," Leona's voice dripped with venom, "but when it came time to prove your words, you backed down."
"When I first met you," 13's voice added with disappointment, "I thought I could finally get to know the man who defeated me. But you're just a coward."
Mobius tripped and fell to his knees, but immediately stood up, these accusations were all fake, no one was dead, but his patience was beginning to wear thin. The hallway finally stopped extending, ending in a dead end. He spun around, disoriented, only to see the Peksis, glowing an ominous red, at the other end.
Mobius moved toward it, frustration evident in his steps. "What's going on here!?" he yelled at the crystal. "What have you done this time?"
The Peksis grew brighter, the red light intensifying as it expelled a repelling force that sent Mobius stumbling backward. The solid wall behind him was gone, replaced by the rail of a catwalk high above the reactor, an impact that actually hurt.
"So you are doing this?" Mobius growled, pushing off the railing, "I won't let you hurt them. I'll destroy you if you try!"
The light from the Peksis flared again, blinding him and sending him over the rail. He fell into the reactor below, the cold air rushing past him.
"Mobius, help me!" Meia's voice cried out.
"Meia!" Mobius gasped, shooting up from the floor, ignoring the pain in his back. "Meia! Where are you?"
"Mobius!" Meia's voice echoed from behind him.
Mobius turned around, seeing a fork in the hall. To the right, Meia was backed into a corner by a shrouded figure. "Get away from her!" Mobius yelled before another voice called out from the left.
"Please hurry," Claire's voice pleaded, coming from the left side of the fork. She was crouched in a corner, her eyes wide with fear.
"Claire…" Mobius gasped, his heart racing as he looked between the two. "I…I can save both of them, can't I?" he thought, panic rising.
But the ceiling above Claire began to collapse, blocking off his path to her. "No!" Claire screamed as debris started to fall, threatening to trap her.
"Claire!" Mobius yelled, instinctively moving toward her. But Meia's voice pulled him back, forcing him to stop.
"Mobius, help me, please!" Meia cried out again, the shrouded figure raising its arm, ready to strike.
Mobius's heart pounded in his chest, his breath coming in short gasps. He clenched his eyes shut. "I…I can't leave either of them."
But then, as he prepared to rush toward Meia, something clicked in his mind. The unnatural stretch of the corridor, the voices, the impossible choices, that's right—it wasn't real. This was all a nightmare, a twisted illusion created by the Peksis.
Mobius's eyes snapped open, the desperation in them replaced by cold fury. "This isn't real…none of this is real!" he growled, turning away from Meia and Claire. Instead, he zeroed in on the Peksis's glowing light.
The Peksis flared again, but this time Mobius didn't flinch. "Get out of my head!" he roared, raising the gun he took from Leona. He fired, the shots echoing through the hall as he advanced on the light, his anger boiling over. "You hear me!? Get out of my head!"
The light from the Peksis pulsed with each shot, but Mobius kept firing, his steps unyielding as he moved closer and closer. "I don't care what game you're playing, I won't let you use them against me!" He fired again and again, the echo of the shots merging with the fading voices in his mind.
As he neared the light, Mobius felt the nightmare's grip loosening, the hallucinations beginning to waver. He could feel his strength returning as he fought against the nightmare's influence, determined to break free.
But just as he closed in on the Peksis's light swinging his arm at it, everything around him began to distort, the environment warping and twisting as if reality itself was unraveling.
The nightmare wasn't over yet.
The moment his fist connected, everything went dark. The oppressive force vanished, and Mobius found himself back in his bed, drenched in sweat, the echoes of his own voice still ringing in his ears.
Breathing heavily, he sat up and looked at the nightstand next to the bed. Claire's tarot card rested next to Meia's circlet, both symbols of what he had fought to protect and what he had lost.
Meia stirred beside him, slowly pushing herself up. "Did you have another dream?" she asked, noticing the empty look in his eyes, as if the nightmare had drained something vital from him.
Mobius looked away from her, nodding silently. He felt Meia's hand rest gently on his shoulder. "Tell me," she asked softly, her voice a comforting anchor.
He hesitated, then began recounting the nightmare, his voice heavy with sorrow and confusion.
"I see," Meia said quietly when he finished. "So you chose to confront the Peksis instead?"
Mobius nodded slowly. "I don't know if it's trying to control me, trying to break me down or just playing some kind of game, but either way I'm not going to let it."
Meia looked at him, concern etched into her features. "Do you plan on doing anything to it?"
Mobius closed his eyes, reflecting on the intensity of the experience. "I haven't decided yet," he admitted, "I don't trust it. It's proven a couple of times now that it's willing to sacrifice us…why am I talking about it like it's alive. It's just an energy source."
He laid back down, his mind still swirling with the remnants of the nightmare. Meia rested her head against his chest, offering silent support.
"I don't think even Parfet can figure that thing out," Meia whispered, her voice soothing as she rested her head against Mobius' chest. "It will be okay, it was just a dream."
Mobius waited until Meia fell asleep, quietly getting out of bed without disturbing her, "I'll be right back" he said, kissing her forehead as he got dressed and walked out of the room, making his way to the engineering deck and the Peksis reactor.
He stood on the walkway above the Peksis, looking down at it, "Start explaining," he said, watching as its light dimmed a little at his words, "If you really are alive, then explain yourself. If you have been watching and listening to us then you know what I'll do to protect Meia. So I advise you to start talking."
The light once again seemed to shrink from him, as if it were cowering from him.
"What? Too scared to directly engage with me?" Mobius asked, growing frustrated, "Wait…" he noticed something, "Why was your light red in that dream?"
The Peksis flashed its light again, a quick blink of light, followed by a steady, longer flash. After a brief pause, another short pulse came, followed by three long flashes in rapid succession—N and O. The message had only just begun.
"Morse code?" Mobius muttered, "N…O…"
The beam flickered again. Another pause, longer this time, before the signal resumed.
Three sharp flashes, evenly spaced, then came a single long blink. Two short flickers followed in quick succession, and finally another quick burst of light.
"Not mine" Mobius translated, "That wasn't yours?"
The Peksis' light grew a little brighter, like a mouse peeking out of its burrow.
"Then what was it?" Mobius asked, calming his voice to not scare it again.
The air around him seemed to hum with an energy that was both ancient and alive. A melodic resonance filled the reactor, soft, ethereal chimes echoed from within the crystalline core of the Peksis, each note reverberating in a perfect harmony that slipped directly into Mobius' mind.
The chimes carried an intelligence, a presence that conveyed understanding in layers. There were no words, but the meaning was unmistakable. Each note brought with it a sense of something vast, something far older than he could fathom. It wasn't a conversation of language; it was as though the Peksis was sending waves of emotion, thought, and memory all at once, like light refracting through countless prisms of experience.
"Another" the chimes seemed to say in his mind.
"Another?" Mobius repeated, "Another light?"
Mobius felt the message in his core, a soft but insistent pull at the edges of his consciousness. The tones wrapped around his mind, not forcing themselves, but gently guiding him toward understanding. There was no confusion, no need for translation—just a pure transmission of thought: "We are bound by fate, threads of past and future intertwined."
With each pulse of sound, he understood more, as if the Peksis Pragma was unraveling the secrets of the universe one harmonic note at a time. Then the Peksis flashed again, a brilliant, blinding light that completely consumed him, but felt calming as he began falling, landing gently on something soft and familiar.
He opened his eyes, he was in Meia's room again, "Was that also a dream?" he asked himself.
Meia stirred and smiled at him, her eyes filled with warmth as she lifted her head and rested it against his chest. The two of them settled into a comfortable silence, an overwhelming sense of warmth and belonging washing over them both. Mobius wrapped his arm around her, holding her close, and for a moment, everything else faded away.
"I know I don't have to ask this," Meia murmured, tilting her head up to meet his gaze. "But when this is all over… will you stay here? With me?"
Mobius gently pushed her back slightly, just enough to look into her eyes, his expression serious. "Of course I will," he said, taking her hand in his.
Meia looked into his eyes, her heart swelling with emotion. Her free hand moved to cover his, holding it close to her chest.
"Tell me something," Mobius began, his voice quieter now, as though he was struggling to find the right words. "Do… Do you have weddings on Mejere?"
"What do you mean?" Meia asked, her curiosity piqued.
"I know Mejere doesn't have any men," Mobius explained, "but when people fall in love there… do they get married?"
Meia's face grew warm, and she sat up, feeling her heart begin to race as she stared at him, wondering if this was leading where she thought it was, "Ye… Yes," she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why?"
Mobius took another breath, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her breath catch. "When this is all over… will you marry me?"
For a moment, time seemed to stop. Even though her heart was pounding against her chest, Meia could no longer feel her heartbeat, her breath caught in her throat as his words echoed in her mind. The silence stretched on, each second feeling like its own eternity.
Finally, she found her voice, though it trembled with emotion as she placed a shaking hand over her chest, "Yes," she whispered, her tone filled with anxiety, but love and certainty. "I want to be with you, no matter what happens." She lifted his hand, holding it with both of hers as she stared deeply into his eyes. "As long as I'm with you, I'll be happy."
A genuine smile spread across Mobius' face, one that reached his eyes and softened his features. "As long as I have you with me, Meia, I will be too."
He leaned closer to her, and Meia closed her eyes just before their lips met. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, and in that moment, she prayed for time to stand still. She wanted nothing more than to stay with the man who had saved her life, the man she loved, knowing she was safe in his arms.
And as for him, he finally found something other than revenge and hate. He found someone that would ease his pain and, and that as long as they were together, they would overcome any challenge and find happiness, and create a future together.
The best thing to hold onto in life is each other - Audrey Hepburn.