Soren woke without opening his eyes.
The awareness came first—thin and gradual—followed by the sensation of weight pressing down through his shoulders and spine. The bunk beneath him was warm now, warmer than it had been earlier, the heat settling into his muscles in a way that felt less like comfort and more like saturation.
He lay still, breathing slowly, waiting for his body to tell him what it intended to do next.
The ache behind his eyes was unchanged. Not sharper, not duller. Just there. His throat felt dry, his mouth faintly metallic. When he swallowed, the sensation lingered unpleasantly before fading.
He did not feel rested.
That, too, was unchanged.
The Aurelius hummed around him, steady and even. The sound had become something like a constant backdrop to his thoughts—so familiar that he only noticed it when he actively listened for it. He did so now, focusing on the vibration beneath the bunk, the subtle rise and fall of the ship's internal rhythms.
Everything sounded normal.
That mattered more than it probably should have.
He opened his eyes.
The light panels overhead had shifted slightly, brightening just enough to suggest the passage of time without announcing it outright. The room looked exactly as he'd left it. His outer layer lay folded on the chair near the desk. The desk itself was bare, conspicuously so, the absence of the ledger registering as a small, persistent hollowness in the room's arrangement.
He pushed himself upright slowly.
The warmth clung to him as he moved, lingering at the back of his neck and along his ribs. When he swung his legs over the side of the bunk, a sharp chill followed immediately, racing up his calves and settling into his knees.
He exhaled through his nose and waited.
After a few seconds, the sensation dulled enough to be tolerable. Not gone—never quite gone—but muted, as though his body had learned to blunt its own responses rather than resolve them.
He stood.
The room tilted slightly, then corrected itself. He steadied his hand against the wall, not out of necessity, but caution. When the dizziness failed to deepen, he straightened and moved toward the environmental panel, adjusting the temperature down by a fraction.
The change registered almost immediately, the warmth receding just enough to let him breathe more comfortably. He made a note of it mentally—not to record, just to remember.
He dressed slowly, pausing between layers to gauge how his body reacted. Each movement felt fractionally delayed, as though there was a thin buffer between intention and execution. Not enough to be concerning. Enough to be noticeable.
When he stepped into the corridor, the ship greeted him with its usual quiet efficiency.
Crew moved past at an unhurried pace, their voices low, their expressions neutral. Someone nodded to him in passing. Another offered a brief greeting. No one stopped. No one lingered.
It was, in every respect, an ordinary moment.
He walked.
The corridor's temperature felt cooler than his quarters, the chill catching along his forearms and the back of his hands. He resisted the urge to tuck his hands into his sleeves, letting the sensation ground him instead. The floor plates vibrated faintly beneath his boots, the ship's forward momentum translating into a steady, reassuring hum.
At the first junction, he paused to let a group of crew pass. As he waited, the warmth returned, blooming uncomfortably beneath his skin. He shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders, then adjusted the collar of his shirt.
It took longer than it should have for the sensation to fade.
He noted that, too.
Further along, the corridor opened into a broader thoroughfare, light spilling in from overhead panels set into the curved ceiling. The space felt more open here, the air circulating more freely. Soren adjusted his pace instinctively, slowing just enough to keep the warmth from building again.
He passed the mess without entering.
The smell of food drifted out as someone exited, warm and faintly spiced. His stomach reacted with a dull, uninterested twist—not hunger, not nausea. Just awareness.
Later, he thought. Or maybe not at all.
He continued on, letting the ship guide him rather than choosing a destination. His movement felt aimless in a way that was oddly restful, each step requiring just enough attention to keep him present without demanding anything further.
At the overlook above the lower deck, he stopped again.
Everett was there, leaning against the railing with the ledger open in front of him. He wasn't speaking this time, just reading, his expression focused but untroubled. A crew member approached, asked a question, received an answer, and moved on.
The exchange took seconds.
Soren watched from a distance, hands resting lightly on the railing, his posture relaxed in a way that felt unfamiliar. Normally, he would have been closer. Engaged. Ready to interject if clarification was needed.
Now, he simply observed.
There was no urge to correct, no flicker of concern at the pace of the work. Everett handled the ledger with practiced ease, flipping pages, making annotations, closing it again.
It was being taken care of.
That knowledge settled into Soren without resistance.
He stayed there for several minutes, watching the flow of the deck below. The warmth crept back gradually, spreading from his chest outward. When it reached his neck, he stepped back from the railing and resumed walking, adjusting his route to avoid the denser traffic near the central hub.
The ship accommodated without comment.
He found himself in a quieter corridor, one that curved gently along the ship's outer edge. The lighting here was softer, the panels spaced farther apart, casting longer shadows along the floor. The air felt cooler, and he welcomed it, letting the chill sink in.
His footsteps echoed faintly, then were absorbed by the hum.
Halfway down the corridor, he slowed, the familiar heaviness settling into his limbs again. Not exhaustion—never quite that—but a sense of being… held. As though his body were resisting momentum rather than generating it.
He leaned briefly against the wall, pressing his palm flat against the cool surface. The contrast was sharp, almost pleasant. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing slowly until the warmth receded.
When he opened them, the corridor looked unchanged.
He pushed off the wall and continued.
At a junction near the upper deck access, he encountered Rysen again, this time alone. The medic glanced up, his expression shifting as he took in Soren's face.
"You're still moving," Rysen said.
"Within limits," Soren replied.
Rysen hummed softly. "How do you feel?"
Soren considered. "The same."
Rysen grimaced. "That's… consistent."
"Is that good?"
"It's neutral," Rysen said. "Which, at this stage, I'll take."
They walked together for a short stretch, their pace matched without conscious effort. Rysen spoke briefly about minor adjustments he'd made to Soren's regimen—hydration, rest intervals, nothing dramatic.
Soren listened, nodded, filed the information away.
When they parted, it was without ceremony.
He continued on alone.
By the time he reached the bend that led back toward his quarters, the warmth had returned once more, settling stubbornly beneath his skin. He adjusted his pace again, slowing, then slowing further, until the sensation plateaued.
He did not hurry.
There was no reason to.
The ship continued around him, systems redistributed, routines maintained. His absence from active duty did not ripple outward in any noticeable way.
That, he thought absently, was how it should be.
As he turned the corner, moving steadily but without urgency, Soren remained very much awake, very much present—still sick, still held in that quiet, unresolved space between recovery and decline—while the Aurelius carried on, untroubled, into the vast, indifferent sky beyond its hull.
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Soren did not turn back toward his quarters immediately.
Instead, he let his steps carry him past the junction, following the gentle curve of the corridor as it traced the outer frame of the Aurelius. The ship's hull lay just beyond the wall to his right, layers of metal and insulation separating him from the open sky. He could feel the vibration there more clearly, a faint, steady tremor that traveled up through the soles of his boots and into his legs.
The sensation grounded him.
The warmth beneath his skin had receded again, replaced by a mild chill that clung to his forearms and the back of his neck. It wasn't unpleasant—if anything, it sharpened his awareness, kept him from sinking too deeply into the heavy, slow fog that had settled over his thoughts.
He adjusted his pace slightly, lengthening his stride just enough to keep the chill from becoming sharp.
The corridor here was sparsely populated, the kind of passage designed more for transit than congregation. A few crew passed him at intervals, offering nods or brief greetings, nothing that demanded response. The normalcy of it pressed in around him, quiet and unremarkable.
He reached a small observation window set into the curve of the wall and paused.
Beyond the reinforced glass, the sky stretched wide and pale, a layered expanse of cloud that shifted subtly as the Aurelius cut through it. There was no turbulence, no visible storm—just the vast, slow movement of air at altitude, indifferent to the ship passing through it.
Soren rested his hand against the cool surface of the glass.
The contrast sent a faint shiver through him, the chill seeping into his palm and traveling up his arm. He stayed there for a moment, watching the clouds slide past, until the warmth began to creep back into his chest.
"Don't stand there too long."
The voice came from behind him, light but familiar.
Soren turned.
Elion stood a few paces back, one shoulder resting against the opposite wall, her posture relaxed in a way that suggested she'd been there for a while. She held a mug in one hand, steam curling faintly from its surface.
"You'll freeze, then overheat," she added. "Neither seems like a great plan."
"I'm regulating," Soren said.
Elion snorted softly. "That's what everyone says right before they don't."
He stepped back from the window, letting his hand fall to his side. "I wasn't aware you were monitoring my temperature."
"I'm not," she replied. "I'm monitoring my corridor. You're just in it."
He almost smiled.
She gestured with her mug toward the stretch of wall opposite the window. "Sit?"
"There isn't anything to sit on."
She took a step and slid down the wall until she was seated on the floor, back resting comfortably against the metal. "That's never stopped me."
Soren hesitated, then followed suit more carefully, lowering himself until he was seated beside her, legs stretched out in front of him. The floor was cool through the fabric of his trousers, a welcome relief from the warmth that had been building again.
They sat in companionable silence for a moment, the hum of the Aurelius filling the space between them.
"You look better," Elion said at last.
"Define better."
"Less like you might fall over if someone sneezes near you," she replied. "More like you're just… uncomfortable."
"That's accurate."
She took a sip from her mug. "Rysen's not thrilled."
"Rysen is rarely thrilled."
"True," Elion said. "But this is a special kind of not-thrilled. The kind where he keeps using words like 'plateau' and 'monitoring.'"
Soren leaned his head back against the wall, careful not to let it tip too far. "I heard."
She glanced at him sideways. "How does it feel?"
He considered the question, staring up at the softly lit ceiling. "Slow."
"Your thoughts?"
"Everything," he said. "Like there's a fraction of a second between deciding to move and actually moving."
Elion nodded thoughtfully. "That sounds frustrating."
"It's manageable."
"That's not what I asked."
He exhaled slowly. "Yes. It's frustrating."
She smiled faintly. "There it is."
They lapsed into silence again, the kind that didn't press for resolution. Elion took another sip of her drink, then held it out toward him.
"Want some?"
"What is it?"
"Something warm that isn't terrible."
He accepted the mug cautiously, wrapping his hands around it. The heat seeped into his palms immediately, spreading upward in a way that was almost too much.
He took a careful sip.
"It's… fine," he said.
"High praise," Elion replied.
They sat like that for a while, trading the mug back and forth, neither of them in any hurry to move. Soren became aware of how the warmth from the drink interacted with the persistent heat beneath his skin, how it amplified it briefly before settling into something more even.
"Ever think about how quiet the ship gets when you're not doing anything?" Elion asked suddenly.
"All the time," Soren replied.
She chuckled. "Figures."
"It's not quiet," he added. "It's just… less directed."
She nodded. "Like when everyone's where they're supposed to be."
"Exactly."
Elion tilted her head, studying him. "Does it bother you?"
"No," he said after a moment. "It's… reassuring."
She smiled at that. "You're the only person I know who finds comfort in being unnecessary."
He glanced at her. "That's not what I said."
"Close enough."
They both smiled then, the moment light and unforced.
After a while, the warmth began to build again, more insistent this time. Soren shifted slightly, adjusting his position against the wall.
Elion noticed immediately. "Time to move."
"I'm fine."
"I know," she said. "Which is why it's time to move."
He didn't argue.
They stood together, Elion rising easily, Soren more carefully. The chill returned as soon as he was upright, racing up his legs before settling into a manageable hum.
They walked side by side for a short distance, their pace unhurried.
"Going back to your quarters?" Elion asked.
"Yes."
"Good."
They reached the junction where their paths diverged. Elion stopped, lifting her mug in a small salute.
"Try not to overthink it," she said.
"I wasn't."
She raised an eyebrow.
"…Much," he amended.
She laughed softly and turned away.
Soren continued on alone.
The corridor grew quieter as he neared his quarters, the warmth ebbing and flowing with each step. By the time he reached his door, the sensation had settled into something tolerable—present, but not overwhelming.
He paused briefly, resting his hand against the cool metal of the door, then keyed it open and stepped inside.
The room sealed behind him, cutting off the corridor's ambient noise. The air inside felt warm, and he adjusted the environmental panel down by a fraction before crossing to the bunk.
He sat, then lay back carefully, letting his body settle.
He did not feel worse.
He did not feel better.
The plateau held.
Outside, the Aurelius continued on its course, systems balanced, routines maintained. Soren remained suspended in that quiet interval where nothing demanded his attention and nothing resolved itself either.
He closed his eyes—not to sleep, but to rest—and let the ship carry him forward, untroubled, through the vast, indifferent sky.
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