"Can I tell you a secret?"
My hair obscured parts of my vision as I hung my head down over the side of the bed, looking towards the floor. The top bunk was always mine β Anz had wanted it for all of five seconds until it became a conflict, and then she just backed down. About two meters from the ground, my glasses threatened to slide off, but I replaced them with just a moment to spare. Idly kicking my legs against the mattress behind me, I waited for my sister's face to pop out from the bottom bunk, her longer hair pooling on the carpeted floor, as she looked back up at me with a concerned expression.
"I won't...have to keep it from mother and father again, will I?"
I knew what that face meant. 'Please don't get into any more trouble. Please.' That's how she was β she hated it whenever things got strained or difficult. She wanted everyone to just get along. And she was willing to let anyone and everyone walk over her like a doormat to make it happen.
But that wasn't any way to live. Maybe I was trying to show her that? Trying to inspire her to grow a backbone? Or, maybe, I was just using that as an excuse to indulge in random acts of rebellion. Chaos for it's own sake, but if anyone asked, I'd have a good story, right?
It was a long time ago. We were both small. I feel like I'll never really know what my own motivations were, back then.
"I'm gonna dye my hair."
Her face twisted in agonized concern. She even sat up in her bed, as though trying to get a closer look at me through the rims of her own glasses, much larger than mine, and with innocent-looking, rounded lenses. Just with that statement alone, she was already beating back tears.
"I dunno what color yet, something crazy wild. I'm thinking...pink. Yeah, hot pink! Well, if they don't have that color, maybe like a really bright orangeβ"
"Anna, you know father won't allow that..."
Her hands placed the book she had been reading aside. I wonder if it was that one she always said was her favorite, about the milkman and his daughters, or something like that. Or maybe that was more than one book?
"You know what he'll do."
"Yeah, I know."
Even as her lips set themselves in a stern expression, her eyes betraying that deep-running concern that always flowed in her, I couldn't help but grin. I was twelve years old, about to commit a crime, and I couldn't be happier.
"Why are you smiling!?" With a frustrated exertion, her fist pounded on the mattress at her side. I rarely saw her angry. Only when I was in trouble, really β or when I was getting myself in trouble. That really set her off, about as much as someone like her could be set off.
"The last time you did something like that, your lip was swollen for a week!! Have you forgotten having to tell your teachers that you 'fell and hit a table'!?" Lost in herself, she shouted so loudly that perhaps our parents had heard. "Why can't you just do as father says!?" Her voice pleaded, as she pushed herself off of the bottom bunk, standing on the floor proper and looking up at me. She wasn't tall enough to make eye contact with me, and her frilly nightgown really sabotaged her attempt to appear bigger than she was, as I continued to look down at her with an unconcerned gaze. "Why do you keep doing things like this? Don't you love our family!?"
"I do. That's why I'm doing it." I was a little confused, honestly. All these years together, and she still hadn't figured it out? What did she see when she looked at us together? "I mean, it's 'cause he cares, you know? I thought you knew that."
Anzhela's comprehension was in utter disarray. She stared at me in complete confusion, almost shaking her head a bit as she turned her head just slightly away, trying to hide her impending tears as she choked up. I didn't blame her. This was a lot more emotion than she was used to showing, even I could tell that much.
"He loves us more than anything. Heck, I figured you would know that better than me, since you're always sucking up to him." I flashed a toothy smile, crooked and yellow from having never brushed them like I should β like dad told me to. "He wouldn't care if some random stranger came up to him and told him they were gonna dye their hair, right? Do you think he's got, like, some kinda hair dye vendetta?"
"NβNo, but..." Anz blinked, drawn in closer by something she didn't understand. Strange. She had always been really inquisitive, a fast learner. It was those traits that would get her in so much trouble down the line. She was the type of person who always stayed quiet, but in her mind, she was always questioning things. If only I had been able to give her a voice of her own.
"But when it's me, he reacts. Sure, it's not hugs and kisses. But it's a reaction, and that means he cares." I told her in a simple, factual voice. "It's just that...there are some kinds of love that he can show, and there are other kinds of love that he can't show. He's just giving us the only love he has..."
"...And, of course, it's the same with me. Maybe I'm a broken person, too. Maybe there's something wrong with me. I really don't know. But just like him, there are only certain types of love that I can show." I recounted, my voice growing a bit more somber as the explanation went on. "If it was just some random dude on the train that told me they didn't want me to dye my hair, I wouldn't care...but because it's him, that disapproval just makes me want to do it even more. So that means that I care too, right?"
With a smirk and a sly grin, I leaned in. "So, if he cares about me, and I care about him, why wouldn't it be love?" She seemed to want to reject those words. More than that, she wanted to reject my entire mindset. I was always questioning things, and I was the kind of person who would speak out whenever I could, however I could. She was probably thinking to herself, 'if only I had found a way to temper that voice'.
"I mean, heβ" "Anna, listen to me."This isn't the color my bedsheets were, back then. The table in the corner is missing.
Where's my laptop? I built it myself. I had to bully Anz out of her allowance to do it, but I made it myself, it's mine, so where is itβ
The clock on the wall. It said something around 10:30 before, didn't it? The digital display read out '88:88' in an unnaturally bright display. That didn't even make sense. That's not a real time. That isn't how clocks work.I turned back to my sister, eyes widened in fear and confusion. Her face was...like stone. Utterly unexpressive. Her arms were limp at her side, and her entire body was as still as a doll's. Only her lips moved. Until they took up the entirety of my vision, they moved when nothing else did, when the entire room was utterly still.
"It is coming after you. The plant with thorns. Please, you musΜΜ₯ΝΜ€Μ©Μ²Μ»ΜΜ€ A screwdriver clattered to the ground, as the girl jolted awake. She had dozed off, just for a moment. That's how it had been for a while. The dark circles under her eyes, and her drooping and languid face, made it clear just how tired she was. But every time she drifted off, even for a moment, she'd see something in her mind, something horrifying, that would jaunt her back to the world of the conscious after no more than a few minutes.
That's how it had been. She hadn't slept for more than a few minutes at a time β not since Anya had died, right in front of her.
The girl had lost track of time, in her fugue. It could have been a few minutes ago, or it could have been days. She didn't really know. All she knew was that she needed sleep, and she couldn't get it. She didn't
want to get it.
She didn't want to have dreams.
Picking the screwdriver up from the ship floor lazily, she tried to turn her attention back to the drone that hound had tore a hole in. She had almost finished inserting the new board. Its weaponry was scattered about around her, leaving gaping holes in the drone's design that made it look half-done. All that was left was to weld the aluminium shell back into place, and they'd have a fully reprogrammed, harmless machine.
That wasn't...the usual dream, though. She couldn't help but think about it. There was still a residual sense of terror, from when she had looked into her sister's eyes and seen something utterly unemotional, like a deactivated robot. Anz was never like that. She cried enough for the both of them. Always empathetic, always tugged around by her heart, in every direction she ever went. Not once had SIGINT ever seen her so...so...
numb.It was just a dream, anyway. It had probably gotten weird towards the end because she was close to waking up. I mean, that warning didn't even make sense. A 'plant with thorns'? Coming after her? Plants don't even move! Except for, like, sunflowers, and venus fly traps, but that was pretty much it, as far as she knew.
"...Now what?" The girl asked, still in her wrecked bodysuit from when they were planetside. She hadn't even changed clothes.
"I...forged some certs for the ship that should get us through a nonatmospheric gate check, but...planetary landing approval, I'm not as sure about." SIGINT told the rest of them languidly, not looking up from her work.
"I don't think we can land on a core world right now. Going after the coords from Anya's flash drive would just get us shot down by UFP non-atmo, in the worst case."As much as she wanted to, even she had to admit how bad of an idea it was, right now. They were on-board a ship that had been stolen from smugglers, and crash-landed onto a planet by someone who clearly wanted to abandon it. Throwing away something as expensive as a
frigate-class space ship took some extraordinary circumstances. SIGINT didn't know where it had been or what it had been used for, but one thing was for certain.
If it was safe to be on it, they wouldn't have gotten it in the first place."I've...kinda lived on Frixy my whole life. I've heard of the other two planets, but I don't even...really know what's out there." She should have been excited to be flying. Excited to finally be on-board a spaceship, excited to be so utterly
free, for the first time in her life. But the events of the last few whatevers had taken such a toll on her that she could hardly muster anything, except for more work to do. More things to keep her distracted. More questions to ask.
"Where do we go from here?" 
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