Nightingale

EIGHT

The ship slumbered, speeding through the darkness towards the Celestrian blue light that the Empire offered them. The ship, though in slumber, autopilot towards their destination engaged, still groaned and creaked, hissing and rumbling on its journey, as if snoring. It breathed and contracted, and though most things slept, Yuki wandered through the ship, on edge. She jumped at every little noise that Nightingale made in its mechanical movements, a slight paranoia about her person.

          She had never been the most secure of people, and after her drunken uncle came home that one time, she was constantly on a slight edge. It was surprising to her that she had taken to Duma so much. He wasn't the most masculine of people, he wasn't the most athletic. He wasn't even the most vocal, Holden definitely took that trophy home with prizes left to trade for money to polish said trophy with. It was Duma's quiet, attentive and determined work-ethic. He never stopped researching, learning, discovering. He was always in the mindset that he was on the edge of something incredible.

          Her uncle on the other hand, had not been like him. He was gruff, well built and had a habit of collecting empty bottles in the worst kind of way. Back in their apartment in Region 29, overlooking the street to the school that she would stroll down in the deep-blue mornings, she was inside, trying to get to sleep after a particularly arduous day at her classes. She had been picked out in front of Nill Servis, the good-looking boy in the class, as having his name in a love-heart in her Valen-Core, a smaller Halo-Core. The class had turned on her like Hienyas, pointing, laughing and jeering. She had flushed the deepest red she thought she could ever turn, like the blood in her cheeks had bled through her skin and was flooding over the surface of her face. She had fled the room, clutching her belongings, and locked herself in one of the cubicles in the bathroom. She hadn't exited until the day ended, despite constant pleading from her friends, and eventually teachers, and she left with her head low, avoiding all eye contact. She hadn't done much that evening, ate very little, and tried to sleep as much as she could, although that had been a task easier said than performed.

          The door had been opened, crashing against the wall, and the looming shape of her drunken uncle had staggered inside the home. He had bellowed, bellowed with all his might, as a wild animal might, to ward off the threat of predators. Little Yuki, only eleven years old, had crept out of her room, peering into the living room. Her mother and the beast were engaged in an argument, or rather he was shouting at her and Yuki's mother was trying to defend herself, hysterical now. Yuki had seen the man she no longer recognised as of her own family reach over and grab the woman's wrist. He had waited a second, shouting at him in drunken, hazy fury, and flung her against the wall with all his might. She cried out as she hit the wall, and this enraged him even more. Blow after blow came down, raining down like lightning strikes, and Yuki clamped her hands over her mouth to try and stifle the cries and gasps. When she had glimpsed blood start to pour from her mother, her hands betrayed her.

Both females were admitted to the Region 29 General Hospital half an hour later. The uncle, a member in the Celestrian parliament, was never charged. He left the household before Yuki and her mother returned, and although he was never seen again, that primal fear of the man with the beer bottle always lingered with the biologist.

She wandered through the metal tunnels that laced the ship, crosshatching like a labyrinth. She checked her Halo-Core; saw that there were still a few hours to kill. She decided to try and use the observation room, instead of walking aimlessly throughout the ship. She could just scan her eyes over the screens every now and then and play some chess on her Halo-Core or something. Chess apparently hadn't had its rules changed in millennia, and the history of it appealed to Yuki. She started to make her way over there, the only sounds she heard being the sound of her footfalls on the grating, and she clearly heard her own breathing, slightly exasperated, as she ascended the ladder from the lower hatches.