The next morning, I take the stopwatch from my selection of knapsack tools and conduct an experiment. Itâs simple, probably pointless, but I need something to do. I canât call for Dorian, not after embarrassing myself last night. I had far too much wine and lost my stupid head. Iâm lonely, but not that lonely.
So instead of asking him to bring me back to the docking bay to have a go at my comms array, I pace the corridor outside my room. I walk in one direction until I come to my roomâs door again. Confirmed: the ship is still looping. I make an exact count of steps, of the time it takes, of the breaths that leave my lungs as I go. If I can figure out how the hallway is looping, I can extrapolate for the rest of the ship. Iâll be able to categorize this place. Iâll make it real. Iâll wrap my brain around it.
A dozen steps bring me from one door to the next, a complete loop. Opening it, I peer inside â it is my room, just as I left it. The pothos waits greenly in the corner, my knapsack sits hunched on the bed. My dirty clothes lie piled in the far corner.
Something slips past, behind me in the corridor.
I spin, heart in my throat. It was nothing but a hint of flickering shadow in my periphery, but my pulse beats a frantic staccato as I search wildly for what I thought I saw. But itâs gone.
Thereâs nothing watching me, nothing hovering there waiting to strike. There are no undulating shadows, no glinting eyes. The corridor is empty.
Then why is my heart thudding, my gut in knots? Why does everything seem brighter, sharper, worse?
âYouâre fine,â I mutter. But Iâm bursting with adrenaline, and my fingers shake.
Stubbornly, I force myself to conduct three more experiments. I walk in a different direction, then both ways, backwards.
When I walk backwards, I can still see my original door when the new one appears beside me. I open it, and Iâm in my room again. Does this mean there are multiple versions of my room, an endless array, lined up like a room buffet? Or am I somehow, without actually feeling it, wandering in circles? Itâs like Iâm hooked up to a permanent virtual reality rig.
If my brain canât process the ship itself, there must be other things it isnât processing, not just Dorian. I know that as soon as an image hits the brain, it can be altered by gray matter, flipped and molded and enhanced as the mind sees fit. I am wandering in circles, circles, and circles, Theseus caught in a hamsterâs wheel.
Dorian.
The thought of him creeps up on me unwanted, his smile, lips stained with red wine. His delicately long fingers in my hair. His laugh. His breath against myâ
âFuck off,â I hiss, shaking my head, rejecting the thought.
I continue pacing. Iâm glad to be distracting myself, though I acknowledge the experiment is achieving nothing. And I still canât shake the feeling that something is watching me, a slither of presence always there but never seen.
And always that humming in the distance.
A prickle runs up the back of my neck, and all of a sudden I donât want to be out here. The corridor is too vast and yet too small, Iâm claustrophobic in this endless loop, and I want out. Stumbling in my haste, I dart into my room and slam the door behind me, wishing for a lock. Sweat pricks my upper lip, my palms.
âYou. Are. Fine.â The words shake but Iâm adamant. Iâm fine.
Like an overstimulated child, I lower myself to the floor and lie on my back, eyes closed, breathing hard and fast. The floor is cool, and I pretend Iâm in the garden of my childhood best friendâs house, where stepping stones wound through overgrown ferns and foxgloves, and bees hummed all summer long. I would go there sometimes, when my mother was feeling unusually generous, and Iâd spend the night. There, I was safe. Just for a little bit, my mother couldnât touch me. The hush of imaginary wind brushes my cheek. I imagine late afternoon sunbeams alighting on my eyelids. I am seeing gold, thick like honey. I am safe.
My breathing begins to slow.
I open my eyes at last. The plain ceiling greets me, the orange glow of ambient lighting. I roll sideways, about to push myself up to my knees when I see it.
Something is wedged between the bedframe and the wall, only visible from down here. A piece of pink plastic. Probably something of mine, fallen down and forgotten, stuck here while I slept.
It takes me a moment to wiggle the thing free, and then with a grunt, it comes loose.
My heart stops.
Itâs a hair comb. The cheap kind you get at a drugstore, some brandless thing that will break within months of use. But itâs not my comb. I donât even use combs â all I have to do is run my fingers through my fine black hair a few times, and itâs done. But I know this comb.
Itâs Vasilissaâs comb.
âWhat the fuck,â I say like itâs a prayer, turning the comb over and over in my hands.
I consider the possibilities: It is Vasilissaâs comb, but in my grief-fueled shock I put it in my knapsack by mistake. It is my comb, and I forgot about it during stasis. It is not a comb at all, but some unidentified object that Dorianâs ship has decided should look like Vasilissaâs comb. Or it doesnât exist at all, and Iâm hallucinating.
Thing is, I donât remember packing it. I donât remember removing it from my knapsack, let alone laying it out where it might fall and get stuck in the bed frame.
Am I going insane? I wonder, not for the first time, thumbing the plastic, pressing the pointed prongs into each of my fingers, one at a time. Or, worse, is Vasilissaâs ghost haunting me? The prospect of ghosts, of revenge brought down upon me by my crewmates, turns my lungs to ice.
No, ghosts arenât real. This is a comb. I am in a spaceship that alters the way I perceive reality. Ghosts arenât real. And this is a comb.
A knock sounds at the door, a low and metallic thud. A scream catches in my throat, and I force it back down, embarrassed by this reaction. But my body is on the verge of panic, and my gullet pulls tight, my knees shake as I get to my feet. I shove the comb deep into my pocket. I open the door.
Dorian looms in the doorway, dark and tall and all-consuming. He regards me with a strange expression. âAre you all right?â
âYes,â I say, lying. Always lying. My teeth are on the verge of chattering, like some vintage Earth cartoon. In a minute Iâll start stuttering, and my heart will beat out of my chest in a perfect shape, stretching the skin as it expands and contracts.
The shadows seem to watch me, every unseen terror, rigid and sitting up, like hares about to swarm or bolt. Dorian, too, watches me with intensity, and I avoid his eyes. I donât want him to see my fear there, or the comb.
âI was conducting some studies,â I add. âTesting the corridors. Your ship wonât let me go twelve paces beyond my room.â
His brow furrows. âYouâre not a prisoner, if thatâs your worry. I thought you knew that.â
I search for an adequate response and find none. I realize Iâm picking at the skin around my thumbnail, picking and picking.
âI finally found the materials you need to fix your comms array,â he says, tossing me a lifeline. âTheyâre in the cargo bay. Would you like toââ
âYes,â I nearly shout, eager to get out of this room, this cyclical nightmare. Working on something, using my hands and my muscles, focusing on a project â that will calm me down. Iâm sure of it. It has to.
He holds out a hand, an invitation, a welcome. None of which I should want. I want it so much. âCome.â
I canât say no. I donât want to say no. So I follow him, hands in my pockets, the pink plastic comb held firmly in one fist until the prongs press into my skin, stinging. I cannot shake the feeling that Iâm being watched, the ghosts of my crew or of this ship, shadowing me.