[hr][center][color=f49ac2][h1]Owen Childs[/h1][/color][/center][hr]

[color=f49ac2]“Replaced. Right,”[/color] said Owen, hanging his head as if he had just taken a profound interest in the slice of cake that had seemingly been snuck in below him.

Andrew hadn’t mentioned anything about being replaced—he had yelled something like ‘See you in the future!’ the last time the two had chatted. It was always a possibility that he never mentioned to avoid some uncomfortable conversation, or maybe something dire came up before they all took the pill. It was possible, but it didn’t seem very likely to Owen. He glanced around the room with narrowed eyes; the old geezer was nowhere to be found. Wisely, he had made himself a ghost a few years before nature went ahead and did it for him. Owen was about to raise his suspicions—was nobody else concerned that an unknown had been added to their little future force—when Benji pulled back the veil with the punch of a button and a nervous, stammered statement. 

[color=f49ac2]“Holy crap.”[/color]

Owen stared out at the abyss of space. It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been such a shock. A sudden wave of exhaustion rushed over him and he lowered himself into the chair that he had been ignoring, propping his forehead up with a hand as he continued to glare, mouth agape, out the window.  They had been in space for over a hundred years? Owen took what little trivia he knew about space travel and started crunching numbers. He came to the conclusion that they were all really, very, extremely far from home—the results of watching too much sci-fi and not enough documentaries. He rubbed his temple, frustrated that the brains behind Cryonautics would hide something like this from them. Owen knew for sure that he never would had let himself be talked into this deathtrap otherwise. 

[i]Probably why they decided to omit that fact,[/i] he thought, nodding in consent as Yaz probed Benji for more answers. Owen, deep down, was glad that Benji had awaken them. He’d rather know his fate and have some say in it than defrost one morning to find themselves on an alien planet with the skeleton of their doctor. He just wished that Doc had done it sooner. Two years was a long time to be alone. Too long, really. He reexamined Benji through sprawled fingers, noticed his twitches, his darting eyes. Sure, he was always a little weird, a little shifty, like a mouse that had been give caffeine pills, but this was different. Owen cursed himself for not noticing how fragile the man appeared earlier. Yet, there was a hint of accusation in Owen’s stare. Benji was smart; he should’ve known not to isolate himself for so long. [i]What’s the deal?[/i]

[color=#4dff4d]"So, we still have a decision to make. We could always set course back to Earth or stay on the path already set for us, for the mystery planet. But as I can see, it probably be best if we wait to make any sort of decision, to have everyone here. Let's do that after everyone gets settled in. I understand if any of you are still shaken up by that type of awakening."[/color]

[color=f49ac2]“Not the worst morning I’ve ever had, but it’s definitely in my bottom three,”[/color] said Owen, sticking a fork into the cake and taking a bite out of it. It wasn’t so bad as long as he avoided the icing, which tasted like sugary tar and diabetes.[color=f49ac2]“But yeah, seems like we got a pretty big decision to make once everybody’s cleared their thoughts. A few of them, actually.”[/color]

He stood up to dump the sweet shell of his cake in the compactor, taking a moment to brush any crumbs on his plate, when Echo’s words of them only having three years of food left rang through his head. Owen, grumbling like a child forced to finish their peas, quickly wolfed down the rest of his breakfast and cleaned the dish. Washing his hands, Owen’s mind turned to the missing old man; something about him was awfully familiar—emphasis on the awful. He wished he had given him a more discerning look earlier, but could he really be blamed for not wanting to be caught eyeing a nearly naked bag of bones? Still, he had questions for the old man the next time he showed his face. Owen just prayed this wouldn’t turn into his own (decrepit) white whale that’d alienate him from the group as being “that guy” who took to pushing around the elderly. 

Yet before anything else, he needed someone to hear his concerns. He [i]needed [/i]to talk with Tahlia. Yaz and Echo would have certainly be more pleasant people to chat with, and Owen felt that they could help in their own, likely more upbeat way, but in his eyes Tahlia was the most grounded of the crew. Truth be told, she was probably even more observant than him. She’d either confirm his suspicions or tell him to shove off, which he would assume to mean that he was just overreacting and should reevaluate his worries. Either way, he was certain she’d set him straight, or at the very least he wanted to be certain. There was a part of him felt that it could just lead to an argument, although there was always some fun in that. Regardless, with one last look out into space he turned and left the kitchen with hopes of catching Tahlia alone. 

Of course, he didn’t even consider talking with Benji. The Doc was one of the highest things on Owen's growing list of concerns.