...
BRRUMM…
The notification sound tore through the silence.
When he opened his eyes… he felt the fuzzy carpet.
A little critter's grunt.
Living room.
"Shit… again?" Nunes frowned, eyes landing on the glow of the phone screen.
"…Voicemail? What the… How the hell do you even play this thing?"
"Squeeek!"
Nunes blinked, confused.
His hamster, Fred, was in the cage, awake and making a low noise.
"Fred...?" Nunes frowned, smiling nervously. "Is that you, buddy?"
"You've already died before."
…
The voice was dead. Thick. Wet.
"Since when do you talk?" Nunes laughed awkwardly.
The darkness fell silent.
"Great…" He rolled his eyes, lips pulling into a forced smile. "Fucking meds making me see skinwalkers in my own house now… why the hell did I take that crap before work?"
BOOM!
A brutal thud echoed from the next room, like a heavy hatch slamming shut.
"Am I dreaming...?!" He stopped, his breath catching. "I..."
"Pinch your skin. It always works."
Nunes cleared his throat, his fingers going to his skin to pinch it... but the skin didn't spring back—he felt no pain—only emptiness.
"Since I'm dreaming and I can't get hurt here... let me listen to the voicemail first before I wake up."
… And then the voice came through.
"Hello… over?" Loud, like the mic was pressed right against the mouth. Familiar. Too familiar. Like Nunes was hearing himself.
Another, softer voice cut in over the same channel:
"What the hell kind of 'hello over' is that?! You're on a spaceship! You're supposed to speak formally! Ever since you betrayed the crew and I tortured you, your brain's been melting!"
That voice… if it were pressed into an endless vinyl, it would still be pure poetry until the end of the universe.
"Oh, Ketlen, give me a break…"
The line dropped, sliced by a peculiar tone. But it left behind everything he needed to hear:
"KETLEN"
It wasn't like hearing just another name. It was the sensation of something much bigger than him screaming inside his very core. "I'm still here."
"Ketlen…" Nunes blinked… his mind beginning to stir. "I… I've heard of her before, right?"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
A scream. A single female scream, tearing through the world beyond the door like a nail through the flesh of God.
Nunes blinked—he was lying on the bedroom floor, vision blurred. Gunfire echoed from the other side of the hatch.
"SHIT!" Nunes' eyes shot wide open, scanning the room for context. But then it clicked: Rui.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He reached for his waist, searching for the radio. It wasn't there. Neither was the vest he'd put on.
The gunfire grew harsher. The screams louder.
His gaze swept across the room one last time: a blister pack of Xanax lay beside him, empty as if someone had taken the pills in a hurry and passed out immediately after.
"The insurgents!" Nunes thought. "I need to get out of here!"
Overcome by panic, Nunes did the only thing that made sense: he ran. He wrenched open the hatch in hysteria, throwing himself into the chaos.
It was already happening. Nunes saw masked figures in the distance gunning down his crew, one by one.
"I need to reach the control room!"—Nunes sprinted, breathless. "Fuck them, I wanna live, damn it!"
A cruel contrast to his duty: he had been hired to guard, supervise, and promise safety to the crew. Not to run.
When he reached the corridor toward the control room, a voice cried out, agonizing: Franco.
"STOP! WAAAIT! PLEASE, BRO! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
Nunes froze for a heartbeat, fear flooding his veins—then slammed the door shut. The rattle of machine guns drowned Franco's begging outside. Nunes let out a grin.
Inside, he found a programmer curled up in sheer terror.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" Nunes frowned, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.
"N-NUNES! OH GOD!" The boy looked up, face melted in grief. "HELP ME, PLEASE!"
"Sure, I'll help," Nunes' eyes darted around, his mind working coldly.
He was going to decouple the control room from the rest of the ship. It had a kitchen… a suite, a lounge… food, water…
I have a chance to survive. Even better if I dump this deadweight.
"Man, relax!" Nunes' voice cracked. "See that corridor over there?"
The boy's eyes followed toward the narrow hall connecting to the south section.
"Hurry! The whole security team is waiting for you at the south hall. I'll coordinate from here, okay?"
"B-but…" His eyes widened further, voice dripping fear. "I'm scared!"
"And I'm here to break that fear, right?" Nunes smiled, pointing at the door. "Go."
"O-okay… alright…" The boy staggered to his feet, legs trembling under the tension. "You're coming too, right?"
"Mm-hm." Nunes nodded, smiling. "I promise."
The boy smiled back, reassured. And ran.
Nunes knew what he had to do. A cruel chance, but real. He needed to detach the ship. Remembering survival lessons, he rushed to the command console, searching for the decoupling module that would split the control deck from the rest, condemning everyone outside to the void—both the crew and the invading insurgents. A cruel smile slipped. The programmer? "Fuck him," he muttered, ignoring the boy's absence.
A loud CLACK resounded. A section of the ship tore free. Invaders and crew, exposed to space, met their end. But there was a problem: without most of the ship, and with the extra thrust from separation, the control deck was being pulled relentlessly toward an oceanic moon. The acceleration grew worse. Nunes, with his rough piloting skills, clung to the chair, trying to steer.
But then… a hostile, feminine voice ripped through the room: "I'M GONNA KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!!!"
Sweet, yet jagged with rage. A familiar voice.
Nunes turned, stunned. Couldn't be real. An insurgent? How had she survived? How did she get in?
"Shit…" He laughed bitterly. "He left, and she slipped in."
"NO, PLEASE, WAIT!" he yelled, hands trembling in surrender. "YOU CAN'T! Look, I gotta pull us out of orbit—just wait! PLEASE!"
The insurgent snarled: "FUCK YOU!" and opened fire. But fate—or luck—jolted the ship violently as it broke into the moon's orbit. The bullets missed.
"PLEASE! I DON'T WANNA DIE!" Nunes screamed, voice cracking with genuine terror. "STRAP IN! WE'RE CRASHING!"
She hesitated. Then, confused, she obeyed, buckling herself in.
Nunes gripped the controls, desperate to force a crash landing.
Ten thousand meters. Eight thousand.
Through the side window, the sight was breathtaking: a black hole, rippling in deep blue, above it a flat rocky planet with a dazzling ring. Below, the moon's ocean, broken only by two rocky mountains—the only land in sight.
Five thousand. Two thousand.
God forgive me. I can't hit the mountains… He shut his eyes, bracing for impact.
Five hundred. Two hundred. One hundred.
Everything went dark.
CHAPTER 2: PRIVATE TORTURER
-----------------☆☆☆☆-----------------
Day 1 – Elias IIIa – Oceanic Shores
Nunes opened his eyes slowly. His vision, blurry as if dipped in cold oil, gradually gained focus. The metallic ceiling of the ship reflected faint lights in shades of sidereal petroleum blue, like frozen splatters of the sky outside. A faint glare danced on the ceiling, distorted by the slow movements of the water outside.
A chilling shock ran through his body: the ship was intact. But... his hands?
"What the fuck is this?" he whispered, his voice slurred and hoarse, feeling his pulse vibrate in his wrists. The tight metal of the handcuffs held each hand to the ship's wall as he sat. The iron was freezing—but it wasn't just any cold. It was the kind of cold that seemed to have come from space and permeated the steel.
Through the oval window, the darkness seemed alive. The lunar water, now almost black, moved slowly and powerfully. On the surface, small ripples carried spectral white foam, which gained grayish-blue reflections as it touched the internal illumination. The faint light of the distant black hole didn't illuminate—it reflected: with a dead, dark cobalt-blue, lunar navy-blue glow, streaks that shimmered softly on the ship's ceiling, as if they were under a deep, mystical ocean.
Then, a shadow materialized in front of him. A feminine silhouette, firm and small. The insurgent.
"Hmm... what we got here?" Her voice, husky and laden with a strange sensuality, like sweet poison, filled the dense silence of the cabin.
"Hey... w-what's happening?" He stared at her, his face marked by defeat and confusion.
She was short, perhaps no more than 5′1". Her simple insurgent clothes, which should have concealed her, instead accentuated the curves of a voluptuous body: ample breasts and wide hips that seemed to defy the seriousness of the situation. Her face, hidden by a dark balaclava, prevented any reading of her expressions, revealing only her brown eyes. They shone in a familiar way, with a beautiful and disturbing intensity, clashing with the surrounding darkness. Her voice, too sweet for a villain, filled the air, creating a bizarre dissonance. Nunes knew she was white, as her worn leather gloves left her fingers exposed, revealing faded black painted nails. Small details, almost insignificant, but the only clues about the almost entirely covered woman.
"Fuck... who the fuck are you?" He snarled, squinting to try to decipher the figure.
The silence stretched, dense and torturous.
"ANSWER ME! YOU ASSHOLE! SAY SOMETHING! GET ME OUT OF HERE!" he yelled, saliva flying with the force of his voice, despair bubbling.
The woman let out a sadistic chuckle, a dry sound that tore the air. Then, she opened her mouth, and her voice, still provocative, floated:
"You're valuable. I'm going to use you..." She turned, her shoulders swaying slightly as she laughed, moving away.
"Filho da puta..." The woman murmured, too low for him to hear, the word dissolving in her throat.
But he heard.
Nunes's mind froze. "Son of a bitch? Did she just swear at me in Portuguese?" The surprise hit him like lightning, overriding the fear. That voice, even with the curse, had a timbre... familiar? Something that sparked a curious pang amidst the fury.
"Hold on..." he called out, his eyes narrowed in new analysis.
The woman stopped abruptly, turning to him. Through the balaclava, Nunes felt the focus of her eyes, slightly widened.
"You... speak Portuguese?!" he asked, incredulity tinging his voice.
A soft laugh escaped her.