"Worse," Orrin corrects. "You'll forget you ever wanted to live."
Rael strips to his undersuit. He ties a rope around his waist. "Mira, if I start screaming, pull me up. No matter what."
They surface inside the remains of the cockpit. Outside: an endless, mirror-flat ocean under a bruised purple sky. No wind. No waves. No birds. The water is perfectly still, unnaturally clear, and utterly black beneath the surface. skeleton crew: viaje a lo desconocido t1e3
For a terrible moment, Rael stops. He floats. His eye closes.
Rael makes a decision. They can't stay on the raft forever. The water is slowly lapping higher, and the singing is growing louder. It's trying to lure them in. "Worse," Orrin corrects
Mira touches the water by accident while reaching for a supply crate. She convulses. For ten seconds, she lives someone else's life—a pilot named Sero, who crashed here fifty years ago. She feels his last moments: floating alone, forgetting his own name, then forgetting he was ever human.
Orrin shakes his head slowly. "Or something else will hear it first." "Mira, if I start screaming, pull me up
Behind them, a column of light rises to the stars. The singing fades. The water grows still again, but now it looks... smaller. Diminished.