Thrum

by Meg Smitherman

The crew of the Pioneer has been dead for a long time. I’m the only one left. We made it to our destination, and I’m the only one left.

But the fact is that the biological makeup of a human brain is too simple, its neurons too few, to understand the true enormity of our universe. It is incalculably and emphatically beyond us.

Our knowledge is so minute, a tiny droplet in a vast sea that never ends, and we had the audacity to think we knew what we were getting into.

Proximity alert, says Pioneer. I lift my head. I must have heard wrong. “What?” Proximity alert.

I would just kms

“Yes,” says Dorian. “Apologies, if it felt strange. My language can be… detrimental, to some. It is not the same as yours.”

“I read your welcome packet,” says Dorian. “It’s not an insult.”

“My ship is emitting a frequency that intercepts your brain’s visual pathways. What your brain tells you you’re seeing is not what is actually in front of you.”

He holds my gaze like a fly in a web. “I promise, this form will be far less distressing than my true one.”

I would need to see

“Ami,” he says, my name supplicant on his lips. “I would never hurt you.”

He’s watching me with an almost overwhelming intensity, his unblinking black eyes framed by unnaturally long lashes, head tilted down slightly, as if he’s starving and I’m a meal. But he blinks, his muscles relax, and he’s human again.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian murmurs, halting, his voice muffled. He’s buried his face in my hair. His breath is hot on my ear. “There was nothing I could do.”

?

“The last of my kind.”

His voice is little more than a whisper. “I’m whatever you want me to be, Ami.”

GIVE HER A REAL ANSWER

It’s Vasilissa’s comb.

????

“Ami,” he groans. “I’ve waited so long for you.” I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care. Maybe I’ve waited for him too. I came all this way, light-years and light-years, and I found him. Why shouldn’t I surrender to this?

Am I even holding a comb and a pencil, or are my hands empty? Nausea rises in my belly at the thought.

“Don’t you feel it?” she whispers. “You’re different here. The way you look at him… and the way he looks at you. Something’s happening to you, MiMi.”

No matter how many times you try to go, you always come back.

remember now. I refused to leave him. So my crew drugged me and carried me back to Pioneer. I woke up here. Dorian was gone. We left him far behind us, and I was alone. I’m still alone, even with Lily’s arms around me. Because I no longer hear the thrum.

“Have we been here before?” Clarification required. “Have we docked on this ship before?” Affirmative. My gut turns to stone. “How many times?” Three times.