Summary: IT HAS ARRIVED! Finally after so long, chapter 5 is here! After waking up with a horrible headache, Stella must come to terms with the fact that even though she thinks that she failed, she can always try again. Stella needs hug
Warnings: A small part about death of oneself.
Stella shot awake with a blistering headache. Her remaining eye felt sore and the empty right eye socket burned even while bandaged and medicated. Her arms and legs ached as she looked down, realizing she didn't have her jacket on. She was only left with her shirt that had the logo of her nation's flag on it. It was simple 3 navy dots, lined up from small, medium, and then large. She let out a huff as she looked beside her to see her jacket laying flat on the huge bed.
Stella sat up even though her arms furiously protested against it while they caused sharp pains to course through her body.
Once she was fully up, she finally looked around. It was a medbay that she was in. There were two beds, including the one that she was just on. They were both properly made and ready for use just in case of anything that would happen from what she supposed was the use of it.
The robotic arm must've transferred over here by itself since she saw a system on the ceiling where it could move around if needed to a certain location.
"Morning, kiddo." spoke a voice beside her. She knew it was the being from earlier who deemed himself as Grace.
She turned her head over to him, now not as deeply afraid of him as she was beforehand.
"I got you some breakfast. It's not much, but I just wanted to check if you can eat solid food for now just in case I need to move you to something else to eat that isn't so tough." he said as she tilted her head over to see what he was grabbing.
It seemed to be bread. Back on Xalo, her parents would make it from the grains they grew. They'd sell half of it and then keep the rest to make their own bread. Of all the bread she's tasted, theirs were the best.
Grace reached over, holding the chunk out in front of her to grab. The distance wasn't far enough where she needed to strain her arms too much.
Stella hesitantly decided to take the chance, bringing her arms over and slowly taking the bread from him.
She brought it up to her nose, sniffing it. It wasn't exactly the fresh smell of the bread her parents made, but this would do for now. She took a bite and then another.
She nibbled her way through as Grace began to talk again. "While you were asleep I decided to check out your spaceship a little. I did some digging and found some sort of storage room. The good news is is that surprisingly everything is still intact. From the labels on the boxes I shuffled through, I think I found yours." he told her.
Grace picked up a gray box, popping it open with his thumb and setting the lid aside.
He placed the box in front of her on the bed. Stella crawled up and peered over inside her box.
Inside were clothing, toys, pictures and drawings. Basically it was everything that could remind of her life on Xalo before it was taken away by the Decay.
Then something caught her eye. A bracelet. It had orange and brown beads on it, circling around in some sort of gradient that looped forever.
She picked it up. She wondered who gave this to her.
That's when the memory sparked.
Back on Xalo, Stella had a friend. They met after the first couple days of her training courses. Her name was.. she knew it started with the letter g.
Gloria.. no.. it was something else.. something almost heroic..
She was almost like an older sister to Stella. Somehow, Stella could kind of remember her even after everything that's happened.
Glory was her first ever friend after all.
Stella had ran up into the hills, looking down at the large field that usually had dark green grass, now turned white. It was due to the disinfectant that was sprayed onto the grass, causing the chemicals to slowly get into the soil and cause the grass to gain a weird pigmentation. Over time, the mold adapted to the disinfectant, causing black dots that create holes into the leaves.
The leaders of their planet used it as some type of tracker of the mold when it was in contact with nature. Every solution to this situation was almost immediately brought down due to how fast the mold adapted to such disinfectants.
Soon, the mold began to infect their people.
That's when Mission Zenith came into play. While it was illegal to try and fly into space while on lockdown, the Mousupians had no other choice. So in secret, they created the program as a last resort.
They would send up 50 Mousupians to find an antidote and a cure to the disease the mold was causing. All chosen at random, but all were children.
Older Mousupians didn't have as much energy and flexibility as a younger Mousupian.
It was a tough decision, but the leaders thought it was a risk worth taking.
Stella was one of the unlucky ones to be placed onto Zenith.
School had been out for months, leaving her to more space training, learning how to use machines, and staying constantly active.
Her parents were numb to her absence from home, almost devoid of genuine concern as they went about their day as if nothing was happening.
Night after night, she wished she would catch whatever disease this mold was causing so her parents would care for her. But from what she's seen, they'd probably even leave the house for good if she got sick.
All she could do was come up to this hill and feel sorry for herself and the other children on this flight to their inevitable deaths.
Then a rustle was heard. Stella slowly turned her head around to see a girl.
She was taller than her, that's for sure. She had brown fluffy hair that went over her eyes and tan skin. She had shorter ears and whiskers.
She tilted her head, "Uh.. what ya doing up here?" she asked.
Stella sighed before turning back. Right.. her parents didn't teach her how to speak. It was in their culture to wait until your child turns 12 to learn how to speak fully, as well as gaining their own name.
"Oh.. you haven't had your ceremony.. That's okay! Uh.. My name's Glory." she said as she made her way to sit down beside Stella.
"I heard you're one of the mousuplings going on Zenith.." she spoke. Stella glanced over at Glory's sad expression.
"My.. little brother's on the trip too.. I came up here to get away from it all, ya know." Glory sighed.
Stella placed her hand on Glory's shoulder before nodding.
"And.. you both are gonna.. why.. It's not fair!" yelled out Glory as her ears pinned down to her head, brows furrowing. "You don't deserve this! Nobody does besides those stupid leaders! I-.. We can't lose more people for some stupid mission that's probably not gonna work. And who knows if there's an antidote out there.."
Stella pulled back. She hadn't exactly thought of it that way.. it felt like bad luck at first, but now..?
"Sorry.. I'm just.." Glory hunched over, burrying her head into her hands.
Stella reached over, giving her a hug.
Glory froze, turning to Stella and reciprocated the warm hug back before beginning to cry.
"T-Thank you.. I really needed this.." she sniffled as she wrapped her arms more around Stella.
Stella smiled solemnly. They looked over to the white patch of grass slowly growing larger then back at each other.
Was there really anything they could do to stop this?
Days had passed and their bond grew stronger. After trainings, Stella would go over to the field which became their official hangout spot.
Glory would tell her stories about her family and the adventures they went on as space explorers, though Stella thought it was a little over exaggerated. While it wasn't exactly allowed, Glory even taught her some words in their language.
Then on the last day before the launch, they sat on top of the same hill near now the larger patch of white grass.
Dead leaf bits flew into the air as they looked down. "I.. I wanted to give you something before you go." Glory spoke up as she reached into her pocket.
Stella looked over, tilting her head. Then when she took her hand out of her pocket after shuffling it around for a while, her eyes shot open.
A blue bracelet along with an orange one.
Stella pointed to herself and Glory nodded as she handed the orange one to her.
"Since you're technically the first friend I've ever had, I made something so we don't forget each other even after when you leave.." Glory said as she gave Stella the orange braclet.
Stella placed the bracelet on and Glory suddenly wrapped her arms around her. She let out a small squeak before hugging her back.
"I'm gonna miss you so much.." Glory whimpered. Stella felt tears well up and soon sobbed as well.
The two sat there crying and holding each other in their arms before growing tired.
They laid back and stared at the night sky. "You know, if I could give you a name.. I would name you Hope." she smiled, gently holding Stella's hand and giving it a small squeeze.
"Because.. you've given me hope that maybe this trip won't go so badly as I thought it would. " Glory chuckled.
Stella smiled as she leaned closer into Glory before falling asleep.
Stella didn't realize that she was crying until it was too late.
"S-Stella? Are you alright?" Grace asked, his tone dropping to a concerned one. She didn't respond, only hunching over as she burried her head into her hands as she bawled her eyes out. The bracelet slipped out of her hand, landing on the bed.
By now, Glory must be dead. She didn't want to think of it this way, but she needed to be realistic. Hiding in her delusion thinking that everyone was okay back on her home planet isn't going to work forever.
She sniffled as she grabbed at her hair, her breathing starting to escalate.
She failed everyone. Glory. Her little brother. Her parents. The entire planet.
She didn't deserve to heal from the crash. It would've been better if she had just exploded along with that stupid ship.
She didn't even notice it until a few moments later that she was being picked up. She didn't bother to try and squirm out of his grip.
So, so very tired of failing everyone. Of being useless. She knew feeling bad for herself wouldn't help with anything, but what does it matter. It was too late to try and do anything anyways.
Then she felt like she was being pushed up against something. She paused.
She felt herself going up and down as she heard a faint, yet strong heartbeat.
She looked around the best she could with how blurry her vision was from crying.
She was in a curled up position as she was pressed closer gently to wherever she was. She guessed it was his chest.
Was he hugging her? Or at least kind of hugging her?
She didn't deserve comfort. If he had knew what she was going up against, he would've thrown her out by now.
But she was starting to doubt that. He saved her. Even after her original skepticism of him, he had still been kind. He even offered to provide her with fuel and repairs to her ship without any catch whatsoever.
She took a deep breath. He was probably doing this out of pity. But.. it didn't feel like he was.
Her mind was so jumbled she couldn't even think as she closed her eyes.
Grace looked down as she rested against him. He knew she had went through a lot and she probably hadn't experienced close contact in a long, long time.
She needed to give herself a break, that was for sure. While there were millions of questions he had for her, he knew he had to wait.
He reached his index finger over, massaging the top of her head to calm her down a bit more. He used his thumb to rub her back, being mindful of her tail.
Grace smiled softly as he watched the tension slowly flow away from her body.
It would take a while for him to fully gain her trust, but he didn't mind the wait.
