She wished more than anything that she’d woken as so many had with a sour stomach and blinding headaches because it would have been a distraction from the soul deep ache she felt as she stood in her small room tried to make herself leave it. It should have been easy enough, there was a door, not so different from those she was used to, and there was a hall. She’d navigated halls before. But she just couldn’t. She stood before it, her hand halfway to the handle and she found she couldn’t make herself open it. 

The end had come and she should have died, but she hadn’t. She’d been swept up with all her charges, just one more stray, one more errant bit of Earth that was significant simply because it was in the right spot at the right time. And now this bit of earth wasn’t moving like it should. She pulled her sweaty palm back and wiped it on her jeans and then ran it through her tumble of short black curls and tried to talk some sense into herself. Yes, the trip back from the stasis-bed had been horrible, the narrow halls had closed in on her and she’d found the air to be too thin, too flavorless and the quiet but for the mechanical hum of things unsettling. It was unnatural and it pressed at her. Oh she’d held it together for the trip to her room, her quiet was not unusual and the medical team member who led her to her quarters hadn’t pressed or said anything about the way her eyes were wide and all but rolling around. He hadn’t stayed to see her lean against the wall and slide to the floor, shuddering. 

She’d pulled herself together eventually and when she had she’d taken stock of just how lucky she was and not for the first time. Was that her theme? Stupid luck? A massive pile-up on a snowy road and she’d just happened to survive. A whole planet gone, consumed by the Change and she’d just happened to survive. She lifted her hand and tried for the door again. She had survived and she needed to make that count. She needed to make her continued existence have a point and she couldn’t do that in this little box. Somewhere in this ship were her charges. The fury, scaly, feathered and clawed lives that she understood in ways she never got her fellow humans. Her proximity to them had been what saved her and her usefulness to them would give her a purpose. 

Taking a deep breath of the stale air, so devoid of life, she found her hand moving and watched with relief and alarm as she opened the door. It moved with a hiss, sliding into the wall and revealing a sterile hall and the unnatural quiet that disturbed her so. She missed the creak of her cabin door, and the solid sound of it closing behind her. It wasn’t her door, it never would be but it was open and though the walls threatened to close in on her she stepped through and began to make her way to the meeting. She walked down the center of the hall, giving herself as much room as possible and watching the floor so that she didn’t see the ceiling so low above her head. 

It was an excruciating but blessedly short trip and she felt a little looser, fractionally more at ease as she arrived at the meeting room. The door wasn’t the trouble her own had been, that seemed to be a hurdle that she’d cleared for the time being, but what the now open door revealed was such a mixture of heaven and hell for her that she couldn’t make herself go in. She stood frozen as the illusion of the forest moved like a living thing across the walls and dome of the hall. Part of her cried out for it, how many times had she stood in such a place and felt calm fill her so deep that she was a part of that whole. But the other part screamed at her to run. This was a lie, the whole of it was a lie. Her world was gone, those trees were just a lie, they did not exist, they never would, not in any real sense. 

The door closed, hissing shut and she stood there still on the other side of it and wrestled with herself. She was being a fool, she knew it. Every single being on this ship had sustained such significant losses that to catalog it was impossible. Her suffering was not unique. She was not alone in her pain but if she stood there in the hall and fell apart she would be useless, dead weight. She couldn’t do that. Her grandparents, practical hard-working people had raised her better. She would move forward, starting with that damn door.

She licked her lips, pressed them tight and raised her hand to open the door again. When she did she didn’t look up, she just moved, stepping into the lie and watching the floor as she made herself navigate the aisle to find an end seat near the front. She woodenly nodded at any people she passed, making her lips curve into a smile that did not reach her eyes. These were her fellow survivors, refugees among the stars. No doubt some of the people here were deliberately chosen for their skills and abilities and no doubt some of them were swept up like she was, accidental survivors who would have to find ways to make themselves useful. Like she would.

With that sobering thought she lifted her eyes and made herself look at the walls and the ceiling and the painful reminder of all that was lost. She made herself take it in and opened herself up for the pain. It was going to hurt, but she would be useless if such things made her freeze up. She stared up and let in the ache, lifting one knuckle to catch a tear that worked its way out of her dark eyes. One tear, that wasn’t too indulgent was it? Not for a whole world.