Our Souls to Keep

Posted on 03 Jun 2023 @ 9:29pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:04pm

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Guest Quarters, USS Pathfinder
Timeline: ~ 0800
785 words - 1.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Long after the ship had stopped pitching, Ibis and the kids were still huddled together on the sofa. Ikemba had fallen asleep clinging to her like a little monkey, his little arms and legs wrapped around her, his hands gripping her washed but uncombed hair and Olivia, who had put on the underwear but not the clothing, was clutched to her side, with Ibis’ arm protectively around her.

It was so quiet in the guest cabin. Ibis couldn’t remember a silence this strong. She’d grown so accustomed to the never ending roar of the ocean and the howl of the wind, the rustling of the dune grasses, and the singing of the bugs… It was so surreal to hear nothing but the absence of everything, the missing sounds ringing in her mind like a hollow bell.

She had been still. Waiting for this ship’s Captain to order an evacuation. Waiting for the inevitable killing blow to swallow them all up in a ball of flame for cold space to snuff out. Waiting for the end. But the stillness remained somehow undisturbed. The red lights had gone off and so far did not come back on. Was it possible they were clear of the danger? Was it possible they had actually escaped? She could almost believe it. But her heart still felt like it was in a vice of uncertainty.

“I saw Wallace.”

Olivia’s head came up as she thought she heard Ibis murmur that she had seen Wallace. Just when she wondered if she had misheard or imagined Ibis’ words, they came again. Olivia could see Ibis’ lips part in the low light of the cabin.

“I saw Wallace,” she repeated, staring away through the walls.

“How?” Olivia asked, unsure what Ibis meant. Was she trying to say something about the last time she had seen him? Was this going to be a story of his memory? So many stories of memories had been told around the cook fire. Until there weren’t very many people left to tell them. Until Just Wallace and Ibis were left, and mostly only Ibis told stories, although more often than not she was just staring away at the ocean, not unlike she was now, only without the ocean.

“Other Marines,” Ibis paused again, struggling to remember if Olivia had understood what a Marine was, or that Wallace was one. “Men and women trained to fight, like Wallace, they brought him back with them.”

“Back?” Back to the island? With them to their homeworld in the stars? Back to heaven? To the heart of the prophets? She wasn’t sure what myth or unexplained place they were talking about after death this time. Wallace himself never talked about where anyone else went to. He would just look off and listen to other people talk about it after they buried the charred remains, himself leaning on the shovel and letting them finish. Sometimes stroking his beard. Sometimes Olivia stole a glance at him and caught sight of a tear on his cheek when someone ‘shared some last words’. When they buried her mother, Wallace had held her hand while she had cried. “Where did Wallace go?”

“To this ship. To the Pathfinder.”

Olivia sat up straight, ready to spring. “Where!”

“He’s with the ship’s doctors. He…”

The girl held her breath, waiting to know the rest of what Ibis seemed slow to form into words. The woman’s voice was thinner than she was. Almost as quiet as the room.

“They… He’s not…”

“The Z’ala’s god! It hurt him!” Olivia finished for her. It was the obvious thing.

Ibis nodded, sealing her eyes shut and counting in her mind all of the wounds she had witnessed. His cold fingers were still icy on her cheek. She knew he'd lost too much blood. “Yeah,” she said. “The doctors are… they’re trying. He’s in surgery.”

Olivia imagined the part of her home where her mother drew a curtain when she was operating. She imagined the painful cries when there was a bone to set or a cut to disinfect or something to be sewn together with gut strings. She shivered with sympathy. Not everyone who went into a surgery came out alive. It depended how bad it was. And the Z’ala god was only known for killing people. She had never ever heard of anyone who had been confronted by it and lived.

“Wallace is a fighter.” Ibis said to try to help Olivia. It made her cry to say it.

Olivia hugged tightly into Ibis, hiding her face. And after the longest day, they cried themselves to sleep.