I carefully accepted the glass of water Inim handed me, as soon as I took a sip I had to stifle an embarrassing moan, I had never drank anything like this before. It was so cold but that only made it more pleasant, as it passed down my throat, I could feel it emanating coolness into my chest.

  Inim must’ve noticed my reaction, as she smiled softly at me. “Drank nothing but recycled water for some time then?””I swallowed another mouthful, but too hard, it hurt my throat and caused me to gasp, “This isn’t recycled?”

  Inim smiled again, I saw a hint of sadness behind it, I wasn’t sure why. “Technically I guess it is, but not in the way you are used to. It’s my own private reserve of rainwater, one of the few things the U.R.O can’t control on this planet.”

  “Rain…” I muttered, feeling a familiarity, like I should’ve known what it was.

  “Oh, you poor thing… come on!” Inim stood up suddenly, holding out a hand to me, beckoning me from the corner I had been curled up in for who knows how long.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, worried, “I thought you said we shouldn’t be seen outside?”

  “We are just stepping out front door, nobody is out at this time.” She whispered playfully.

  I accepted her hand, my shoulders tensed and my breath shortening.

  She led me back through the maintenance bay, a room I hadn’t seen before but remembered strangely distinctly, stopping us in front of another door. I could feel a cold draft coming from it, as well as an unfamiliar hissing noise, like the sound of a burst pipe spraying fluid across a metal hall. Inim reached for the door, then looked at me.

  “One moment,” She stated, then jogged back into the room we had come from.

  She came back shortly, holding a hooded nylon jacket, “Put this on. It is bit big for you, sorry.” She chuckled.

  It was, the bottom of it reached just above my knees, this was a jacket for Inim’s build and not mine. It even smelt like her, more oil and engine grease and another unfamiliar smell, like the water she had given me. She seemed to find the outfit pretty funny, it made me smile too.

  Finally, she opened the door, to outside.

  When I saw the outside, I gasped in fear; there was water falling everywhere, like something catastrophic had failed in the piping systems. It was relentless, slamming into the tarmac like an orbital battery. The sound was all encompassing; a rumble of some kind echoed in the distance, a harbinger of an even more catastrophic failure. The ground did not react; it remained unharmed from the unending assault despite the speed and ferocity it was being subjected to. Pools of water collected in the dips of the ground, their surface tension never resting as more of the daggers fell.

  It was wrong, all wrong, pools of water like that could only mean that something had gone wrong, where were the engineers? If a blockage or pressure discrepancy had gotten this bad, it could burst and compromise the hull! Where-

  Hull? What hull? I swallowed the lump that had risen in my throat, and took a deep breath. There was no hull, there never had been a hull here, no vacuum of space threatening to invade at the slightest fault. I hadn’t realised just how deep the programming for my old life had sunk its teeth. I was panicking over an issue that could not possibly exist here. I wondered if I was the only person on this planet who had thought the way I did, and if they would even find a burst pipe in a ship threatening, if they switched places with me.

  Where was all of that water coming from?

  “Go!” Inim encouraged me from behind, inviting me to brave the atmosphere.

  “I-“ I stammered, hearing my voice revealed both to me and Inim just how scared I actually was. I knew I was intimidated but I sounded so weak.

  “It is safe! Do not worry.” I could hear the smile on her face.

  I exhaled. Closed my eyes. And took a step forward.

  The first thing I noticed was the sound. Aside from the sound of it hitting the ground, something I had quickly force myself to grow familiar with, I could hear the sound of it hitting the jacket. I had worn hoods in areas of the Ship where condensation fell and impacted me, but nothing could compare to the onslaught of white noise that this caused. I should’ve found it terrifying, it was blinding to the senses, and I could barely hear myself think.

  But then again, I could barely hear myself think.

  A laugh caught itself in my chest. Then I took a deep breath through my nose, savouring the unfamiliar and relaxing scent of the air.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “What do you think?” Inim nudged my shoulder with her arm beside me.

  I turned to her, seeing she hadn’t donned a jacket of her own, still in her tank top and being soaked to the skin through it.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted, worried.

  She just laughed again. “You have my only jacket on! Besides, I like how it feels.” She looked up letting the rain clash onto her face and absorb into her skin.

  I looked up too, keeping my hood raised. “Where is it coming from?”

  “Clouds. Which get it from the oceans, which get it from the clouds.”

  I nodded, not understanding how it worked at all, “Is this how water recyclers work on planets?”

  “Hah! No, this is all natural! No human hands in this, not here at least.” She found my response funny, I felt embarrassed, this was probably common knowledge here, but I couldn’t help it.“So why does it happen?”

  “It just… does.”

  We stood in silence for a few moments, letting the air pass through us and around us, the rain splashing against our clothes and skin. I glanced again at Inim, who was still facing the sky with her bare face.

  Tentatively, I pulled my hood back. The first drops hit my cheeks, and I winced expectantly, only to feel no pain. I felt the drops trail down my face like tears, only these ones didn’t sting. As I pulled my hood the rest of the way was overcome by them. I thought I would feel each drop, but they blended together into a light massage of moisture. Unlike the heavy waterfalls from the buckets I had used to bathe on the Ship, or the sprays from burst pipes, it was actively difficult to pinpoint every moment water touched my body here. I felt my hair soak and my scalp was allowed to breathe for the first time in long, long time.

  I couldn’t help but giggle. This was so silly, this just happened on planets, and you could go outside and enjoy it. There wasn’t a schedule it ran on or a deadline it would abide by, it just happened.

  I opened my eyes to see Inim smiling at me. It was another kind smile; I would have to get used to seeing that now. I glanced away embarrassed; in response she put her hand around my shoulder and pulled me close.

  I immediately tensed. But her grasp wasn’t firm, nor commanding, and after a moment, I felt my shoulders sag and my breath return.

  “Let’s get back inside, we don’t want you catching cold!”

  “Thank you,” I told her, not moving just yet.

  “You’re welcome.” She smiled, “I hope things get better for you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her, her clothes soft and sodden with water, more comfortable than anything I had held before.

  “Thank you.”

  Inim was drying my hair with a dirty towel when the door to her garage (that was apparently different from a vehicle repair bay!) rattled with 3 rapid knocks.

  She frowned, “Mark has code for door…”

  She stood up sharply, moving to a screen mounted on the wall and flicking through channels until a blurry black and white image from a security camera appeared. It was the front of her garage, where we had just entered back in from, and at the door were two figures. One was a tall and serious looking women of light complexion, her hair was tightly drawn and her arms were crossed impatiently. The other was a shorter and somehow thinner man, his skin darker, his face clean shaven, biting his nails nervously. Both wore jackets with white lettering imprinted on the arms and backs, reading the letters P.E.A.

  “Shit…” Inim breathed, her eyes darted around the room. “You must hide, they will want to enter.” She ushered me over to what she had referred to as a ‘mono-mag’ earlier.

  Wait had she referred to it as that earlier? The name had been offered up by my mind but I had no recollection of said conversation. I shook my head in an attempt to stop myself from questioning my memories more, it always ended up uncomfortably cyclical.

  Impressively, she pushed it across the floor, with very little strain appearing on her face. I was stunned into silence until I realised that the harsh sounds of scraping metal were absent. Upon closer inspection, I could see that the vehicle was not actually sitting on the floor, instead it was hovering no more than a centimetre above the oil stained stone. Before I could ask her about it, Inim ushered me to a crawl space that had been revealed to be under it.

  “In there! Quick!” She demanded, a harsher knock on the door exaggerating her point.

  It looked dark, and cramped. Nope, nuh uh, not happening. I shook my head quickly, unable to voice my discomfort.

  Inim grunted harshly, “If you don’t hide here, they will find you, and there is no worse hell than being the victim of Planetary Enforcement. Either you go, or I push.”

  Her firmness made me choke up, but I understood. Hiding in dark and cramped spaces had saved my life more than once before, but the idea of returning to one filled me with a palpable dread. Why was this happening again?

  I clambered down, Inim wasted no time pushing the mono-mag back over the opening, why didn’t she say things were going to be alright? They should be, right?

  As the light from the room filtered away from the heavy mass above me, and the outside world was locked away, everything became louder.

  It started small; I could hear my shaky breathing, my pounding heart. Then my blood flowing, my sweat perspiring, then my mind thinking, it was all too loud, far too loud, the biological maintenance of my body was a discomforting, constant, and consistent soundtrack for the dark. I’m being too loud, they will hear my heart, they will hear my breath, they will hear my thoughts, why am I even hiding? They will find me anyway. I felt myself lose grip, the vision from my eyes became distant, the noise of my mind busier, the static in my head covered me like thin blanket, though I was still cold, far too cold. I could feel myself spinning, yet I knew I was still, why was I falling? Was I falling? I pushed against the walls, the ones I knew somehow would still be there, the cold stone stuck to my sweaty palms, yet the disorientation continued. No, it wasn’t me who was falling, the room was, it had been disconnected or something and now was spinning through space, untethered to the Ship that… held it? No, that wasn’t right, this was a planet. This room, like all rooms could not simply float away on a whim. It was grounded, I was grounded.

  How long had it been? A few seconds? A few minutes? Hours? I couldn’t tell anymore. I think I had heard talking, but it was muffled, though not physically, somehow. The voices I heard were distant, unintelligible, blocked by a bulkhead in my mind, struggling against the vacuum that existed beyond it. I tried to curl my fingers into a fist, to put my discomfort into an action, but found I could not. Why not? Where was my hand? Was it no longer mine anymore? I tried to move my head, again to no avail. Why now? I didn’t want to leave Inim, don’t let me leave her.

  Please.