Context: This is before containment break, before the events that take place during Prey canon. Anna gets downtime every once in a while between bouts of testing, and this would be an example of time off. Restful and relaxing.... not ;-; This is the early days of Anna’s memory loss, and Elsa’s burgeoning guilt
Similar characters to last time, but three new ones (also in Prey canon): Dr. Igwe, chief neuroscientist assigned to Psychotronics, Head Nurse Goldcrest, and Dr. DeVries, Chief Surgeon, who both work in the Trauma Center
Slight content warning for blood and injury, specifically regarding the eye. No graphic description, but it’s in there
———————
There is something here with her.
Anna presses her bare fingers against tempered glass. The translucent substance ripples under her touch, vibrating slightly in purples and reds and yellows before accommodating, and slipping back to it’s sleek, clear form. This glass, this… barrier, has been tested against wrench swings and shotgun blasts and bunker busters - engineered to self-heal and withstand the vacuum of space for decades if necessary. It’s all over Talos I, beautiful and secure. It keeps everyone safe and sound.
But the shape in the dark is already inside.
Or it… wants to be.
Anna strains her eyes, trying to see beyond the billions of stars that pinprick the black, endless cosmos. She ducks her head and puts a hand over her brow, trying to block out the outline of her reflection. She tries not to blink, lest she miss something, some wisp or shift in that massive vastness. There’s a presence. It lurks and hums in her mind, roiling like ink dark waves.
It’s hungry. It’s so hungry.
The effort of looking too hard for too long catches up to Anna. Her eyes hurt. She’s only human.
She blinks.
She blinks and all the stars are teeth and all the teeth are stars and they bare down on her with the weight of the universe.
—
Anna gasps as she bolts upright in bed. It’s dark here too, but warm instead of cold. Not stars but stained wood paneling and soft carpet. Not endless space but walls, a dimmed desk light, and a tangible sense of scale. Anna swallows, breathing harshly in the night, half under the covers of the bed in her sister’s personal quarters. Sweat covers her skin and gooseflesh shivers across her body from head to toe in waves. Anna’s body shakes, trembles, her arms on the verge of collapsing her backwards.
Back to the dark. To the dream.
There is… movement, beside her.
Adrenaline crashes into Anna’s system again as the bed dips. Something moves closer.
It’s… Elsa. Rolling over in her sleep.
Her sister’s arm falls across the space Anna should be. Her fingers splay out, and in the dim light, Anna sees Elsa’s brow furrow slightly, even asleep. She murmurs, and after a moment her eyes open, hazy with fatigue.
“Anna?” She asks into the room, quiet and small. Anna takes a breath and puts a hand out towards Elsa, letting herself be found. Her sister takes it immediately, grip tightening when Anna can’t stop the shaking. “Was it that nightmare again?”
“...Again?”
Elsa tilts her head, slow in her stupor. Anna hears her shift and her free hand comes into view. Her thumb brushes the pads of her fingers and a blue glow emerges, floating gently between them. Elsa’s snow glitters in it’s own aura, illuminating their faces like an incandescent bulb under water. In this wavering light, Elsa searches Anna’s face. “The one about the stars.”
Anna bites her lip. The dream still wraps it’s tendrils around her, brushing against the back of her brain. Surely she would remember a nightmare like that, yet she can’t recall having it before, much less telling Elsa. When Anna was little it was the endless hallways that narrowed and choked her young mind until she burst into tears and ran to their parents’ room - but as she’d gotten older, and moved away, those nightmares had faded into more mundane things, if she dreamed at all.
But the terror of that open night sky in her mind. The one that looks back at her.
No. That is horrifyingly new.
Maybe her mind is playing tricks on her, still mired in the black. She would remember telling Elsa about this later, when she was calm. For now, she simply nods.
Elsa hugs Anna’s arm to her, pulling her down, back into bed. “You never used to have nightmares,” she says softly. “You used to sleep so soundly, here with me.” She combs sweat soaked bangs back, her hands warm against Anna’s chilled skin. “And you used to love the stars.”
Anna exhales, grounding herself with Elsa’s touch. “They’re unsettling.”
“You always thought they watched over us.”
“Now they just watch us.”
Elsa’s hand stops. “They’re just balls of gas, Anna,” she states, though her tone is patient. “Burning millions or billions of miles away. As fascinating as they are, there’s nothing more intelligent about them.”
Anna remembers the universe of teeth and doesn't answer.
“These tests are taking their toll on you,” Elsa says finally. “Maybe you should stop.”
“I can’t.” Elsa knows this. Anna can’t give up. Won’t. The technology they're bringing into the world, the discoveries made - all of this is for something greater. These neuromods are going to change people’s lives, they just need some fine tuning.
And if more people could do the extraordinary things Elsa could, what more might humanity be capable of?
Anna --powerless, human-- has to try.
Elsa sighs before she replies, cupping Anna’s jaw with both hands and looking into her eyes in the darkness of their room. “I’ll ask Bellamy and Dr. Igwe to slow down, then. Just a little,” she adds before Anna can protest. “You’ll burn out, Anna, and then who will you be helping?”
Anna huffs; Elsa has a point. But before she can speak a stinging pain lances through her right eye and she flinches. She rubs the spot as Elsa makes a concerned noise. “And I think I’ll email nurse Goldcrest about that. The redness is getting worse.”
Her eye.
It’s been bothering Anna for a while now. At first they thought she was developing an allergy. “An allergy,” she’d laughed with Elsa over coffee in the Lobby, overlooking the incredible, blue and green sphere that was Earth. Close enough to fill any person with awe, but far enough away to cover with one hand. “An allergy, in space!” It was funny.
Then it got worse.
Itchy, irritated, dry, but above all, sore. Painful. It throbbed during her tests and in her sleep, keeping her awake, sometimes for hours. Sweeping past Anna’s stubbornness, Elsa had scheduled a consultation with none other than Dr. DeVries, the head surgeon, but even he had come back with inconclusive results. “Stress might be a factor,” he’d said, “but we’ll need to monitor her to be sure. For now, we’ll put in a request for medicated eye-drops to help with the more common symptoms.”
Those had worked. For a week.
It was strange though. Sometimes Anna would forget the redness was there at all - in fact, sometimes it wasn’t. She’d look in the mirror and her eye would be perfectly fine, and she’d think maybe it was just a passing illness or bad reaction. But other times the pain would spread from her eye to her temple to the base of her skull and just press, like her head was in a vice. Worse than a migraine or a hangover because it squeezed, and left Anna short of attention and breath.
And then one morning she woke up alone, a note from Elsa on the bedside table, wishing her good morning and good luck on a new slew of tests…
...and on the paper fell a single, red blot.
Bellamy barred Anna at the door to Psychotronics and sent her home. Elsa was back from the labs within the hour.
Anna had spent the rest of the day in a blur of check ups and people talking over her, her head buzzing with heat and white noise, her vision speckled with black dots. Goldcrest had prescribed medicine and recommended two weeks off work. Despite the circumstances, and Anna’s state, Elsa had been relieved by that decision.
Now, a few months later, Elsa draws Anna close, pressing a kiss to her temple. She wraps her arms around Anna’s head, pulling her love to her chest, feeling as well as hearing the deep rhythmic breaths of slumber washing over Anna. She’d fallen back asleep fitfully, though it seemed true rest had stolen over her at last. Her hands clutch loosely to Elsa’s nightgown, and her exhales ghost over her sister’s collarbone.
Elsa’s eyes remain open, gaze on the far wall as the clock hands tick the night away.
This time, it was she who cannot sleep.
Trepidation churns in her stomach. She knows Anna would move the Earth, moon, and stars for her if she asked. That Anna has a heart of gold and hope, and a determination to put all of that to use.
Elsa just worries that someone.... or something… is taking advantage of that goodwill.
Not that Elsa suspects any of her co-workers in particular. While they may work in many different fields, everyone aboard Talos I’s goals are the same: the betterment of humanity through their research. These neuromods, with their ability to teach any skill provided they can find someone to model and copy, could change everything. They could give people abilities that they’d only dreamed of before. Elsa looks up at her glowing snow sphere, twinkling as it spins.
Neuromods could even make more people like her.
The thought puts a crease in her brow and she waves her hand, dispelling the magic and drenching the room in darkness once more.
Because the truth is: Elsa hadn’t asked Anna to do this. Anna had volunteered, knowing TranStar wanted what Elsa had, but that the risk of researching on the only person they knew of to have such a gift was too great. Anna, already a talented and intelligent scientist in her own right, had sacrificed her own job for Elsa’s sake, without hesitation.
And it is hurting her.
Elsa’s heart pangs with remorse. She buries her fingers in Anna’s hair and cradles her close. “It’s for the greater good,” she whispers to herself. “It’s for the greater good.”
When Anna had returned from Psychotronics that fateful day, Elsa had found her curled on her side, clutching her head and sweating bullets. Blood in her hand and blood on the sheets.
After the medical review, Anna had slept.
And slept.
And slept.
For two days Elsa could barely rouse Anna long enough to eat or drink, and when she finally recovered it was as though a pall had been cast over her. Grey and listing, muted as though through a screen.
“It’s for the greater good…” Sorrow wells in Elsa’s throat. Anna breathes deep against her and Elsa wishes that her powers were something else. Something to keep Anna here, safe and sound. To keep her... hers.
Anna’s spark had tempered those two days, and Elsa isn’t sure that it fully returned. She fears that it never will. Her sister is chipper and bright, but like a gas stove with a faltering igniter, Anna’s flame is struggling to catch.
“Greater good,” Elsa’s voice breaks, tears tracking down her face to fall on Anna’s head. “It’s for the greater… good…”
Sleep comes for Elsa too, jagged and broken and troubled. She dreams of a star in her sister’s chest.
