Author's Note: This story is a side project of my Earthling trilogy, set in ZAC 2065. If you're not at least passingly familiar with the second story of the trilogy, "Remain in the Light of the Stars," and the original characters featured in it, you probably won't get much out of this one.
This story will contain scenes some readers may find confronting or triggering, and therefore reader discretion is advised.
Enjoy, and as always, reviews are greatly appreciated.

DEDICATION
For jdoug4118, for the creative spark that changed my life
For my former best friend, whose many requests for a particular scene inspired the entire tale that now houses it
And for Neil, Zachary, and that friend (again), to whom eternal thanks are owed for the fact that this story was written beyond its initial paragraphs, because I was still alive to write them. Thank you always for holding me up when I wasn't able to do so on my own.

PROLOGUE
Phoenix

"A vacation?"

"Yes, a vacation." Phoenix scrubbed a towel over his head, drying his fiery red locks after the refreshing outdoor shower he'd just taken. "Is that...a bad thing? I mean, normally people tend to sound, I don't know, excited about getting away from it all."

"What's to get away from?" Heinrich, seated cross-legged on an old chair, which was one of many elderly and mismatched but comfortable items of furniture in the small converted barn that they called home, gestured expansively out the double doors and to the sunlit rows of trees beyond. "I like it here."

Something in his younger brother's tone caught Phoenix's attention. "Do you?" he asked, carefully.

Heinrich set down the book he'd been reading, one finger keeping his place. "Yeah. We've been so many different places, but this is my favorite one so far." His bright green eyes, just a little bit lesser in color saturation than Phoenix's, got a faraway look just then. "Besides Schönberg, anyway."

This was the most Heinrich had volunteered about himself in some time. Their much-delayed reunion had occurred a couple of years ago, now, but in many ways, the two brothers were still navigating their relationship and learning about the man that the other had become in their long years apart.

None of it had been easy. Phoenix felt an obligation to be not just a brother, but a father figure to Heinrich, and believed he was failing at both. But what broke his heart the most was the yawning chasm between the earnest, imaginative, and gregarious six-year-old he remembered Heinrich had been before the cataclysm, before the orphanage, and the melancholy, withdrawn 15-year-old seated before him now. This enormous task for which he felt responsible, to do whatever he could to help his brother heal from the horrors he'd been through, seemed, simultaneously, both impossible and endless. But in every moment, every day, there was an opportunity to make progress, and so Phoenix padded across the room and dropped the soggy towel on his bed, pretending to straighten the messy sheets so their conversation would feel less intense than sitting face to face. "What do you like about living here?" he asked casually, keeping sight of Heinrich out of the corner of his eye.

Heinrich, he knew, was quite used to this gentle prodding by now. Sometimes it worked, and Heinrich opened up just a tiny bit more than he had been before, and sometimes it didn't. Today, unfortunately, was of the latter variety: Heinrich shrugged, watching the dust motes whirling erratically through the sunbeams coming through the barn doors. Phoenix had developed enough nuance in his approach by this point to know when it was time to let things lie and try again at another time, and so he went now over to the dresser, selecting an undershirt that he was reasonably certain was clean from the bunched-up, chaotic morass of fabric within. So long as he remained a consistent and steadying presence for his brother, he reasoned, and created an environment where Heinrich would feel comfortable saying whatever he needed to say, then that was about all that could be done. There was no need to rush; after seven years apart, this sense of the broad horizons before them, of time together stretching perhaps into infinity, was indescribable liberation. Heinrich would emerge on his own schedule.

"If you like living here that much," Phoenix said as he pulled the shirt on - nope, this one was not clean, after all - "then I'll make sure to bring us back when the trip is over. I understand these strange 'vacation' phenomena are rather temporary; in fact, one might even say that they are over with very quickly." He offered Heinrich a grin. "In seriousness, though, I've heard great things about this place. There's pretty limited availability, but I managed to sign us up for a guided group tour, where you learn about the island's history."

"An island?"

"Yup. A haunted island. Or so they say."

Heinrich finally met his eyes. "Haunted?"

"If the legends are true, anyway." He gave an exaggerated shrug. "Figured we may as well see for ourselves, right?"

Heinrich was most definitely intrigued, Phoenix could see, though he frowned. "But how can we afford a vacation? We...live in a barn and depend on an elderly farmer for a roof over our heads."

"Hey, you never know." Phoenix shrugged again. "Our situation isn't as precarious as it might seem. Lea likes us. She may feel inclined to help us out someday, should we need it."

"But what about Fuzz?"

"What about her?"

"Is this place far away? I mean, she's kind of not set up for two people. I don't like how cramped it feels when I'm stuffed in there."

Phoenix grinned. "Remember when she was in the shop for a few days with Sean a couple months ago?" Heinrich nodded. "I was having her cockpit modded. It's all good." Sean, a taciturn man who did Zoid repairs and customizations of excellent quality, had simply raised his eyebrows at Phoenix when presented with a stock military-issue Imperial Helcat, a rarity in the Republic, but said nothing. He was just the kind of person Phoenix liked working with best.

"I guess..."

"Look, leave all the worrying about finances and logistics to me, alright? We're not destitute, and I think you're going to really like this trip." Phoenix looked out to the tidy orchards beyond the doorway. "I think it'll be good for both of us, actually," he murmured, mostly to himself, then turned back to Heinrich. "So, what do you say? Want to check this place out?" He waggled his eyebrows. "Scare up some ghosts, perhaps?"

There was the tiniest of lopsided smiles lurking about Heinrich's lips. "Sure," was all he said.