Author's note: Sorry for the late update! Kind of busy this week, so I never had a chance to be on a working computer. Well, here's the second story. Hope you like it!
Darkness. Ten. These two things always went together in Aris's mind. Ten o'clock sharp was when the lights went out on his space station. Ten children went missing on the station when he was ten years old.
Bad things came in tens. Ten sleepless nights in a row. Ten years adrift in the neutral zone. Ten days in the station's brig for stealing ten cookies. Aris knew it wasn't rational, just fact.
So when Aris's station monitor assigned him to do his first mission on October 10, 3010, he had a shadowy feeling about it.
Nothing to stress about, he told himself, sitting on his gray bedroll. Ten's just a number. There's nothing special about it.
But just thinking about the number ten made Aris shiver. And not because the thermostat in the room Aris shared with Kelvin was broken.
Stretching, Aris got out of bed, careful not to disturb his roommate Kelvin, who was sitting at his com-screen and walked into the curved hall.
As Aris walked to the mess hall for late breakfast, Kelvin quickly squeezed in beside him in the narrow hallway.
"Hey man," Kelvin greeted. The twenty-two-year-old electrical engineering major was chill about everything – unless you happened to steal his socks.
"Kelvin. It's the day," Aris said, hoping to dampen his convivial friend's mood.
"The day? No, the day's ten days away…" Kelvin trailed off. "No way, man!" That's awesome!"
"Ten," Aris said, shivering again. "That's not awesome."
"I know it's your thing, but don’t ya think it's a bit childish to be afraid of a number?" Kelvin teased.
"But Larça–"
"Your sister died when you were ten, right?" Kelvin said, remembering. "But that ain't an excuse–"
"And your uncle," Aris hesitantly pointed out.
Kelvin stopped, contemplating. "You were eight."
"And you were ten," Aris said. "You see?"
Kelvin sighed. "Suck it up," he said. "You're twenty years old now. Too old for a phobia."
Aris shrugged. "Whatever you say."
Breakfast started normally enough, but since Aris and Kelvin were arriving a bit late, there were more people exiting than entering. They grabbed a bowl-full of the usual and sat down at a recently vacated table.
"Mug ug nuh bruh," Kelvin said, his mouth full of the mystery pink slop Urgians had for breakfast.
"What?" Aris asked, looking up from his green Prepense breakfast.
"Nophin'" Kelvin dismissed, clearing his throat. "But what was your mission, again? Don't think ya ever told me."
"Just a routine checkup on Terra," Aris said.
"Routine?" Kelvin asked. "That charred wasteland? It's been a hundred years. We know there ain't no survivors on that planet."
"It would be such a shame for Terrans to disappear as a race," Aris said. "Four hundred Terrans is hardly to sustain a species."
"You're soft," Kelvin teased. "My first mission was to scout the neutral zone right after the Paytion Treaty."
The breakfast hall went from about twenty people to thirteen. Aris stiffened. Too few people.
"I hate war," Aris said. A table of three Erpyhrrians got up and left the mess hall. "I…" Aris trailed off nervously.
"What's wrong?" Kelvin asked, noticing Aris's sudden spike in anxiety.
Aris counted every person in the hall. Ten people. He counted again. Solid ten warm bodies in the mess hall, one of which was a Terran. But the individuals' species didn't matter.
The only thing that mattered to Aris was ten. There were ten people, and suddenly, a whirring sound came from the back of the hall.
Ten people. Ten days from October 10, 3010. It wasn't a coincidence. It never was.
Some members of the Prepense species could see select parts of the future. Each of these individuals could only sense dangers that matched their number of doom. And Aris's number was ten.
Aris leaped over the table and pushed Kelvin to the floor. Together, they rolled under the heavy vibranium table just as a quantum torpedo exploded against the back wall in a sphere of blinding white.
Darkness. Ten. Those two usually went together in Aris's mind, but not today. Ten days before October 10, 3010, when there were ten people in the mess hall, eight people died in a flash of light. Not ten.
And though ten still gives Aris the chills, things aren’t set in ten stones. Sometimes, there are only eight.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
