"Some nights remember us better than we remember ourselves."
Darkness.
The kind of darkness that breathes: alive, heavy as regret, thick as secrets unburied. It presses in, not like a blanket, but like the memory of every voice that once called this place home. No stars tonight; just the hollow sky and the ceaseless whisper of wind dragging alien sand over ancient bones.
Adam and Ariana stumble, broken shapes against the void, into the sagging remains of their shelter. Canvas patched with hope and fear. Their boots leave trails that the wind tries to erase. Every step aches, gear battered and useless at their feet, stained with blood, grit, and the black dust that clings like an accusation.
The fire is a meagre thing, barely a promise, blue at the edges, orange at the core, burning on scraps of twisted wood scavenged from the ruins. It doesn't warm so much as defy the cold, pushing it back one trembling inch at a time. Adam hunches over, shoulders knotted, staring down at his hands, split knuckle crusted in old blood, nails lined with mud and something that glimmers in the firelight, something that isn't water, something that might never be washed away.
Ariana moves around the circle like a sentinel, her silhouette slicing the gloom, every muscle wound tight, every glance sharp. There's a wound on her cheek, yellowed and cruel, the kind of mark that says: I survived, but the world meant otherwise.
She finally sinks beside him. Doesn't speak. Not yet. The silence between them is thick and ringing, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant moan of wind slipping through glass trees. The world outside their patchwork cocoon whispers in a tongue neither of them ever learned, and tonight, neither tries.
It's Ariana who breaks the spell, her voice rough, edges frayed by exhaustion and something older—hope's ghost. "You ever get tired of pretending we're just lucky?" Her laugh is a wound torn open, low and sharp, defiant as it is afraid, as if daring the universe to argue.
Adam shrugs, the flicker of a smile breaking through the ash. "Luck? That's just a disaster that missed us by a heartbeat." He risks a look at her, the fire draws gold along her jaw, limns the bruise under her eye, and for an instant, she looks invincible and unbearably fragile, all at once.
She stretches her legs toward the flames, boots steaming with the night's chill. "Stopped believing in luck two colonies ago." She nudges his knee with hers, a touch casual, practiced, and devastating. "But I believe in you. That's still real."
He tries to answer, something glib, something to keep the ache in his chest from spilling out. Instead, the truth escapes: "I thought we were done for. When the tunnel went. Thought..." His voice fails, words choking him.
Ariana studies him, her gaze softening, seeing straight through him, as she always does. She pulls his hand into her lap, fingers gentle but sure as she wraps the battered knuckles in a scrap of cloth torn from her own shirt. "You don't have to say it, Adam."
She's close now—closer than breath, close enough he can taste the fire on her skin, the adrenaline fading from her scent, the sweetness underneath.
But he does have to say it. If not now, then never. "I was afraid I'd die without telling you."
He swallows, and the firelight shudders across his face. The fear behind his ribs burns colder than the wind outside.
"I love you, Ariana."
The silence that follows isn't empty. It's vast, a pause between lightning and thunder, full of everything they've risked and everything they might lose. Ariana leans in, not tentative, but urgent. She kisses him, not softly, not like a story, but like a survivor, like someone desperate to remember what it means to live. Her hands cradle his jaw, her lips find his, and Adam realises his hands are trembling, that he's been waiting for this with every pulse since the world ended.
When they part, their foreheads rest together, breath mingling, hearts stuttering in tandem. Ariana laughs, a real laugh, wild and relieved, eyes wet and shining. "You idiot. I was waiting for you to say that since we landed on this damned planet." Her fingers thread through his, tight, unbreakable. "I love you too, Adam. More than I can ever survive."
Outside, the world howls, glass trees crack, distant ice groans, the night full of teeth. But in the huddle of flame and cloth and bruised hearts, they are infinite. They are more alive than they have ever dared.
Later, as the fire gutters and shadows reclaim their edges, Adam lies tangled in her, listening to the rhythm of her breath, memorising the shape of her laughter, the taste of her name in the space between heartbeats. If the universe ends tonight, he thinks, it will have been enough. If it lets them live, nothing will ever be enough again.
They made their confession in firelight, a shelter patched together from torn tarps and torn hope, danger pressing in from every side. He held her that night as if the heat of their bodies could hold back extinction itself, her heartbeat pressed against his, both of them daring the dawn to find them. No vows, no plans, just two souls burning, knowing the world could end before morning and not caring, so long as they could blaze together for a single night.
He remembered how her hair fanned across his chest as she drifted to sleep. The sound of her laugh, wild, defiant, chased darkness from the corners of the room. Her lips brushed his battered knuckles, the taste of blood and ash and forgiveness. The memory of her name lingered in the hollow between heartbeats, a secret only he could keep.
He remembered the promise he never needed to make, because it was written in touch and ache and the way she looked at him: Survive. Return. Love me, even in ruin.
And he remembered the ache, sharp as sunrise, when morning claimed her. Because he didn't save her. He didn't save anyone. By the time they landed, the colony was already dying—a sickness, silent and swift, rewrote futures in fever and blood. He survived by a miracle they called immunity. He called it betrayal. She died in his arms, and the universe kept spinning.
He carried Ariana's memory like a wound that refused to close. Even here, in this impossible place, her name was a scar that bled beneath the surface of every thought.
* * *
He woke, gasping in Asiris, cold sweat chilling his skin. The walls were alive with Mist, swirling, morphing, never still, scenes flickering at the edges of sight like dreams refusing to become memory.
He was alone. No voice. No heartbeat but his own. Only the ache, only the ghost of her heart, only the truth that the Mist, for all its mysteries, could never give her back.
Ariana.
He pressed his palm to the Mist wall. It rippled, cool and indifferent. He did not cry, no tears left, just the hollow grief had carved, and time refused to fill. But somewhere in the memory of her arms, he found the strength to move. Because love isn't salvation. It's the reason to crawl through hell, again and again and again.
He gathered himself, breath, memory, shame, the echo of Ariana's touch, let the ache hollow him, then filled the emptiness with resolve. Athrion hadn't sent him here to drown in loss. There was always a reason, however buried in myth and mist.
He moved along the edge, watching the Mist where it thickened, shapes folding in and out, at first only colours, then glyphs, like memories in a language lost to time.
Then, a flicker at the edge of vision.
He turned. The Mist unfurled a vision, silent as regret: The Severing—not a cataclysm, but a slow dying. No fire, no thunder, just forgetting. Two hands, reluctant, parting. Days folding into years. Hands become cities, become nations, become worlds. The Mist retreated quietly, wounded not by violence, but by neglect, a word unsaid, a hurt unhealed, a rumour that grew into suspicion, until bridges, first literal, then spiritual, were abandoned, and absence became enmity.
He felt it in his marrow: the Severing was not one wound, but a thousand silences. Not an act, but a choice, renewed every day, until memory itself surrendered.
He pressed his palm to the Mist again. Felt it tremble, burdened by loss so vast even the stars wept. They had forgotten not just unity, but themselves.
This was no cosmic accident, Adam realised. This was abandonment, a thousand tiny betrayals, until forgetting became law and law became legend.
He staggered back, the ache of Ariana's absence joined by another, older ache, the loss of a world, born from one soul forgetting another.
He whispered, voice hoarse, "What am I meant to learn from this?"
The Mist only shimmered, waiting, as if hoping he would see himself reflected in its endless, patient silence.
* * *
He emerged from the portal, not like the man who'd gone in, pulled forward now by something beyond gravity, beyond will, beyond anything he could name. Adam staggered out, hollow-eyed, steps dragging through the alien dirt as if every grain carried a memory he'd failed to keep. His face was a map of exhaustion and something worse—a grief so raw it carved lines deeper than any wound.
His shoulders slumped as if the gravity had doubled. His hands shook, not with adrenaline but with the quiet, unstoppable tremor of someone holding back the tide.
DeadMouth skittered into view, his usual bravado ready on a silver tongue, some wisecrack locked and loaded. But the punchline caught in his speaker. He paused, optical sensors adjusting, and for once, his lights dimmed to a softer hue.
He chirped, awkward, then tried again, voice tinny, but softer than Adam had ever heard."Hey, you alright, buddy? You look like you've seen... I don't know. Living people?"
Adam didn't answer, not at first. His eyes shimmered with the reflection of a thousand scenes only he could see. He looked at DeadMouth, not really seeing him, not really seeing anything except the memory of what he'd just lost, the ache of love and the echo of voices that would never answer again.
He let out a ragged breath. It was almost a laugh, almost a sob, but stopped halfway, caught between worlds.
DeadMouth, awkward in the silence, rolled a little closer. "Look, I'm not great with, uh, organic feelings. My best friend's a toaster oven, and even he doesn't do this much brooding. But, uh... I can play sad Enya if that helps?"
Still, Adam said nothing, the silence heavy between them, full of everything that had just died and everything that might still live.
DeadMouth finally stopped, his shell flashing a tentative orange, his voice barely above a whisper. "Just... don't shut down, alright? I, uh... I'd be lost without you, mate."
The night pressed close, stars wheeling overhead like silent witnesses. Adam stood on the black sand, loss weighing him down, and for the first time, DeadMouth, comic, reckless, unbreakable, sat quietly by his side, letting the silence speak.
Sael'Ri had seen it before: this hollow look, the weight that made every step an act of rebellion against despair. Maybe it was the shape of grief, or maybe loss was its own universal language, understood by every heart with the courage to beat.
She didn't speak. Words are brittle things when pain is this deep.
She crossed the sand with quiet certainty, brushing past DeadMouth's gentle whir of protest. Without asking, she slipped beneath Adam's arm, guiding his weight onto her shoulder, a gesture both strong and unashamed. Together, they moved to the shelter of a nearby tree, the ancient trunk rising like a sentinel in the night. There, she helped him sink to the ground, her movements careful, unhurried.
Kneeling beside him, Sael'Ri placed a hand flat to his chest, steady, grounding. Adam wanted to flinch, to resist, but found no strength for either. The warmth that bled through her palm was not simply physical; it was a living pulse, ancient and profound. He felt it—an echo, a rhythm beneath his ribs.
Her eyes, bright with empathy, watched him, not demanding answers, not pressing for explanations. She simply was, her presence a sanctuary.
Then he felt it, a deep, harmonic thrum, almost musical. Sael'Ri's hearts, two, maybe three, beat beneath her skin, each with its own cadence, a dance of drums. At first, Adam's own heartbeat was wild, jagged as a wounded animal. But as Sael'Ri's touch lingered, her rhythms began to bleed into his, slow and steady, like a tide overtaking panic.
Beneath her hand, Adam's chest rose and fell, the raw ache of loss still smouldering, but a new sensation blooming, a fragile relief, a breath of peace he hadn't known he needed. The pain wasn't erased, but its edges dulled, wrapped in something warmer, deeper. As if, for a moment, Sael'Ri was bearing the weight with him, sharing the burden across the gulf of bodies and worlds.
His eyes flicked to hers. He tried to speak, tried to offer gratitude, or a warning, or even just a confession of how empty he felt. But all that came out was a shuddering sigh.
Sael'Ri leaned closer, her voice low, more felt than heard, vibrating through the places in him that words couldn't reach. "Loss is not a wound you must hide. Let it breathe, Adam. Let it become part of you, but do not let it consume you. You are not alone, not while your heart remembers how to answer mine."
He nodded, and the tears didn't come; there were none left, but something in him loosened, untangled by her gentle insistence, her alien grace. He let his head fall to her shoulder, the world blurring around the edges.
DeadMouth hovered nearby, silent for once, his single blue light dimmed out of respect, watching as an ancient sorrow was met with an ancient kindness.
For a long time, they sat that way, Sael'Ri's hearts drumming like low thunder, Adam's breath gradually finding their rhythm. Night pressed close, the tree's shadow swallowing them both, and the universe, for one brief heartbeat, felt less alone.
And in that hush, with only the wind and the world watching, they waited—one man, one machine, and one other soul who found a way to heal his heart, if only for a moment. Together in the aftermath of sorrow, not knowing if they could fix what had broken, but too stubborn to let go.