Hope; There is no human more desperate than one on the edge of losing you.
You were impaled upon a star. I do not know if what finds you will be akin to humanity.
Y/N's flowy fabric was stiff, petrified with a thick crust of blue blood, underneath the mantle, you could see his eyes. So very dark - the humanity had eroded like a beach - swallowed to never return.
He held, in one hand, a knife. Sharply edged and curved, chipped and damaged, but sparkling like that of a jewel.
Swiftly, he stabbed it into the wall. A horrible noise of screeching metal pierced his ears. Y/N pushed all the blood off his face - down his chin - and on the floor.
It dripped, but the blood had dug into every pore and crevice, he was stained just as his hands were.
The monotone line that was his lips curled into a frown. Y/N gazed down the dark hall, pulling the sword into his slick fingers.
He hummed. Walking down the wall. The ship was silent, bereft of those occasional guttural roars of mechanical labor.
Yet to take a shower. He stunk, the filth piling up - putrid sweat that fused his skin to his collar - it pooled in his hollowed collarbones; He smelt of bad things; His eyes were those of a lunatic. Reddened and raving like neon lights after dusk, they looked for bad things, and they hid bad things.
He heard a noise. His head snapped like a slingshot. Eyeing what had been hidden in a silent hall, it was a faint whimper.
Sword in hand, lights began to bubble around him. A tiny wisp of light floated around his head like a firefly.
It was the last abomination that had run onto this ship. It was the 49th. The predator gaped at him, long strings of saliva dripping out of its misshapen jaw. Sizzling as they touched the floor.
Y/N eyed it for a moment.
"Perish." He commanded.
Then as if an invisible knife cleft through its body, uneven ridges of flesh began to peel off it - blue blood flooding the floor - then muscle - and a second later, bone.
He walked over to the flayed creature. The only chunk that hadn't been sliced into accordion layers was its head.
Y/N broke its girthy tusk off with his boot.
"One day. I will sail again. I will sail. When I do, I will strike so severely I will never fear your kind again." Y/N brought his sword through its neck, severing it cleanly.
"As a good man, I must." He grabbed the head, a spear of twisted iron slowly forming in his hand.
Y/N threw the head up with one hand, and with the other, he impaled it to the wall. His eyes slicked over with salty spray as he walked to the bridge of the star-faring ship.
It hurt him to kill those he knew. It hurt him to see that he had been both the orchestrator and the executioner of the genocide that had taken place.
It filled Y/N's stomach with a sickening feeling like something was crawling up the walls of his gut, beating against it like his heart, it made his body feel heavier than ever.
On the captain's deck, blood both blue and red had been spilled, like an artist dropping a bucket of paint onto a canvas, it melded into purples and peeled into magentas.
It was a wide hall; Ceilings taller than necessary, two wide staircases leading up to the platform where the captain's seat was held.
He'd never ascended the steps to the pseudo-throne that was the captain's seat. It was a lavish item, resembling a diadem, it had various metals and jewels embedded into it. Fit for the one commanding "Pride"; Golden and resplendent, he closed his eyes as he walked up the steps.
The buzzing lights poured down blood-colored light, ruining Y/N's bedrock mood to the point it was wallowing in limbo.
He sat on the throne. An uncomfortable button of the velvet pushed into Y/N's spine forcing him into perfect posture.
Finally, Y/N peeled his eyes open; Staring at the stars far beyond him.
WHERE IS THE DESTINATION SET TO?
Y/N walked over to the complex assembly of machinery reading off various numbers he didn't care for.
However, he saw there was no destination.
Just, "GO!"
The control panel had been torn about like childish fingers through string cheese. He couldn't change the destination.
The discomfort in his stomach felt weightless, like butterflies. He closed his eyes - his jaw clenched - he pressed his fist into the knobs of the panel.
Y/N's skin began to dent, then bleed as his skin tore apart, he pressed, and pressed, blood crawling down the machine and onto his boots.
He raised his fist - A tightness in his throat stealing any breath for a war cry - and brought it down.
Metal screeched as blood and flesh flew onto his face. His own flesh morbidly turned into a facemask as he pounded the machine into a crumpled block.
Y/N huffed. His hand shook rabidly as he held it behind his back. One arm gripping another to whiteness as he walked back to the throne.
A mix of indescribable anger bloated out of his mind. His skin felt like he was trapped inside a burning car and his head was sitting on molten metal.
Y/N didn't sigh. He was silent and gaunt; Sharp like a treacherous rock worn at by high waves, the bags underneath his eyes seemed deeper, and darker, like they too had been eroded by the loss of hope.
Y/N frowned and closed his eyes. Holding the hand that shook and bled a fountain of blood.
Ad Astra
He took a shower. The fabric slid off his svelte body. Y/N gazed at himself in a mirror for the first time in a month.
Long tendrils of hair filled with filth crawled down his back - eyelashes crammed with soot and blood - eyes that couldn't stay in one place for more than a moment.
Y/N raised his hands to touch his lips. They were sunken, the touch felt foreign; He felt foreign.
The muscle had risen and sunken like an uneven mountain range across his body. Y/N grabbed all his hair with one hand.
Slowly, like a ghost brought scissors to his scalp, it cut off the overgrown spur of hair.
He sat in the shower, sitting his butt against the cold metal. A shower of hot water poured across his body.
Y/N's eyes drifted to his hand. It still shook. In the recesses of his mind, a rabid thought fought against the million other ideas that he'd put between it and his cognition.
The terrible thought that he'd never get home.
He sat in the shower until the water ran cold. Then, it stopped, trickling to nothing as the basin drained itself. Shining droplets of water sprinkled around the edge of the tub.
Y/N held his head low. Between his knees. Atlas would shrug towards the weight on his shoulders - yet to him - he felt as if he was rolling a boulder up a hill so steep it was nearly a wall.
He didn't cry or whine. He let the frigid hands of sadness touch him - slid down his throat - into his lungs. Y/N felt as if he was drowning.
Thoughtless stepping into harsh waves. He felt like he was drowning in a dark sea, the lighthouse had been impaled on the treacherous rocks it had once sat upon.
Y/N was simply sad. For a moment, the anger faded like a tide, so far you could see the rarity that hid beneath.
Anger and sadness oozed out of his pores, in return, something else came. Misery - and it was venomous - like a python had wrapped around his neck.
HOW LONG SHALL I BE SAD FOR… I DON'T KNOW. HOW MISERABLE I AM; WOE IS ME.
Y/N mocked himself.
YOU'RE A GOOD MAN. A GOOD MAN. A GOOD FATHER. GOOD MEN DO NOT LEAVE THEIR FAMILY. GOOD FATHERS FIND A WAY BACK NO MATTER WHAT.
He released a sigh from his gut. His body deflating as he stood - like a sad cardboard cut-out of himself - pulling a towel of himself, he walked half-naked to his quarters.
With newer, cleaner clothes, he sat in a chair. Read a book, and sleep.
Ad nauseum
Statement of Y/N Saint [Chief Scientific Officer within Superbia-001]
Y/N pressed the delete key. His fingers brushed against a cup of stale coffee. The lights were off, waves of blue light peeling his eyes open.
Statement of Y/N Saint [Last survivor of Superbia-001]
He leaned into his seat. Hollowed eyes gaping bleakly at the statement - the camera rolling with a hum - fingers wrapped tightly into each other.
Y/N lurched up. A soft groan left him as he walked through the dark room, over to the wall where a switch sat.
White light like those of a hospital flushed away the darkness; On every corner, beards of moss and lichen grew - swaying to the wafts of air conditioner lilies and roses fumed out their wonderful scents.
It was a garden; Full of whites, reds, oranges, and yellows. He sat down at the desk, his fingers held out before the recorder.
"Look, firefly, your dad's a wizard," Out of his pinched fingers a flower came forth - blooming before the camera's mechanical eyes.
A waft of sweetness rushed into his nose. It was purplish and flourishing wavy petals as it unfurled its beauty.
It was an aster flower.
"I'm on the way. I will be back, I will come home. I promise." Y/N smiled. Giving a mock kiss to the camera, "Auf wiedersehen."
He turned the camera off. Leaning into his chair. Out of his fingertips, another flower sprouted, he smelled it - the scent of lilies made his stomach churn - but he loved them.
Ad nauseum
Statement of Y/N Saint [1994]
Piled underneath his eyes like a bed of sand rippling beneath sharp currents were bags of exhaustion. The cups of coffee had piled to six - the scent of roasted beans still floated in the air as his eyes drifted to it.
In the corner of the room, one could hear the chirping of birds - faintly - their song ephemeral.
Calloused fingers laid themselves flat to the camera. Y/N's wide palm empty and still, he smiled at the camera.
"I have another magic trick firefly," His eyebrows rose operatically - splaying his hands out wide in a dramatic manner - In his hands, bones began to assemble.
In a moment, there was blood and thin colored strings - nerves - wrapped underneath tight layers of muscle, flesh, skin, and feathers.
A sharp beak pecked at his hand. It squawked as it bounced around less like a bird and more like a human.
"Isn't that cool?" Y/N showed the camera the bird. Pushing it further into view, it squawked.
A moment later Its feathers shook - the bird cried - the thin legs that held its plush body folded; within a moment, a bloody crunch echoed.
Y/N stared for a moment. A frown on his face - the bird had died in his fingers, blood trickling down his fingertips.
HOW REPUGNANT.
The body of the bird began to contort. Smashing itself together like hydraulics compressing a million cans into a cube.
Then a step further; the blood leaked past his cupped hand. Onto the floor, the other bird wiggling its feet to a puddle of red.
Indifferent. Y/N wiped his blood-stained hand on his jumpsuit. His hands drifted to his lips, pulling the flaccid skin into a smile.
SMILE FOR HER.
That he did. Restarting the message; A bright smile on his face, and his ever tired eyes brightening just for her.
"I have another magic trick firefly," Y/N restarted the same passage…
Ad nauseum
Statement of Y/N Saint [1994]
He held the camera, tethered by two cords of spun together wire - the main one was large and thick, like an artery - the auxiliary cord was thinner, like a vein.
He floated as the vessel stalled through the ever-wide expanse of stars and constellations.
His golden visor resembled the eye of a cyclops in a hot forge. His body was wrapped in layers of white like a blanket.
Then he let go of the camera; It floated around him. Showing his back, and his side, without ever floating too far, as if a magnet bound the two.
He held his palm open. There was neither a bird nor a flower in it. Immolating heat burst through space; The camera grew fuzzy as it captured what was held in his palm.
It was… a star.
He smiled; mouthing beneath his helmet. "It looks like your eyes. Doesn't it, Max?"
Ad nauseum
Statement of Y/N Saint [1996]
There was a long wooden table. It was varnished a cherry color; Decorating the table were various sprinklers, long ropes of wavy paper colored vermillion, and a handful of rubies.
Balloons floated around, he placed the camera down. One bounced off his nose gently rolling before the camera, the light rose-colored as it ran through the thin film of the balloon.
"Happy birthday, firefly."
Y/N pressed his lips to a party horn. Blowing into it, a nostalgic noise prying into his mind.
"I don't have a gift… except a planet being named after you!" Y/N turned his head putting his hand before his mouth. "Say whattt? A planet? A whole planet just for me?"
Y/N turned back to the screen. "Yeah. My starling deserves the best." The edges of his eyes crinkled as he smiled widely.
"I'll talk to you soon."
He turned the camera off.
"Burn." He commanded, and so, the room did. Flames burst from every ruby, every balloon, every streamer and banner, everything but his desk and the camera and two pictures.
It all burned.
He slouched in his chair. Like a panther lounging on a cliff, staring aimlessly at the buzzing light above.
He sat, for a moment. With himself.
Then, a buzz rang out.
Loud and mechanical.
"Destination reached: Oort Cloud."
He froze, dropping the cube of tungsten onto his boot. The bone snapping beneath it - there was no yelp - or jerk. It was as if he'd been ossified.
"What." He murmured. "What did it say?"
Ad lunam
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