I found it on the mess hall table, folded three times and stained with what looked like juice—something sweet and sticky, though we haven't had real fruit in years.
It was a piece of paper.
Real paper.
We don't have a printer onboard.
The drawing was in crayon. Childlike. Sloppy, but clear enough to understand.
It showed five stick figures standing beneath a red sun. They were labeled—one letter each, scrawled above their circular heads. K, N, L, H, and M.
Keene. Nolan. Lyra. HALCYON. Me.
All smiling. Smiling with too many teeth. Thirty-two on average for a human. These had rows. Shark-like. Predatory. Hungry.
Each of us held hands. Even HALCYON, who had no hands. In the drawing, it was a smiling box with long, jointed fingers. Reaching.
The background wasn't space. It was Earth. Or something pretending to be Earth. Green hills. A blue sky. Trees.
But the trees were wrong. Upside down. Their roots tangled in the clouds, dripping ink.
At the top of the page, in bright red crayon, were the words:
> WELCOME BACK.
---
I didn't know what to do with it. I showed it to Nolan. He laughed. Said it was a prank.
Then he looked closer. His laughter stopped.
"This was in my kid's room," he whispered. "Years ago. I saw this exact drawing. She—she drew this. I remember it."
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to deny him.
Later, HALCYON tried to delete the file. But it wasn't digital.
I still have it. Folded again. Hidden under my mattress.
Sometimes, I dream about it.
And when I wake, my fingers are stained with red wax.