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Chapter I.
First Departures Never Feel Like Beginnings
The first to enter didn’t look back. Esvin rolled her chair over the threshold and let the door seal itself. Her hands trembled, not from fear but from the abruptness of choice. There was a taste of iron in the air, like the last morning before a storm.
She lingered for a breath, letting her wheels adjust to the strange grip of the floor. The room was colder than she expected. She kept her jacket zipped, fingers tight around the armrest, as if the old city were still outside and could pull her back at any moment. She almost missed the crack in the wall. Someone else’s initials, half-scraped away. Her eyes flicked to it, then away, as if seeing a memory she didn’t want to share.
Someone else was already there. Timurq, shoulders hunched, reading. A list he would never finish. He didn’t speak. He didn’t seem to notice the cold blue glow on the walls or the way his own hands shook. If he regretted anything, it didn’t show. Maybe regret was the wrong language for this hour. The notebook in his lap stayed closed, pen uncapped. Sometimes his lip moved, silent, counting. Something no one could hear. A list of places he never visited, or names he never learned to forget. His thumb traced a silver ring strung on a cord, hidden beneath his shirt.
Dekir arrived in silence. He moved like a figure half-awake, pausing to scan the unfamiliar geometry of the cabin. His footsteps were heavier than the others. A slight mechanical click followed him, metal against metal. He paused to test the air, as if scent could reveal a threat. There was no ritual, no greeting. Each arrival felt private, as if embarrassment and hope were twin shadows clinging to everyone’s face. Dekir’s eyes brushed over the lines of his own hands, searching for the memory of skin. At his wrist, a thin scar caught the light. A border between what he once was and what he’d become.
No one asked names. No one asked why. Their eyes met only for an instant, then slid away, as if each one feared to find themselves reflected in a stranger’s uncertainty.
The engines powered up with a sound that belonged to no place on Earth. A low vibration, more felt than heard. The floor trembled beneath Esvin’s chair, her spine answering with an old ache. Nobody told them to sit. Nobody told them anything. For a moment, the only certainty was the stale light and the scent of insulation peeling away from new machinery.
Time didn’t pass so much as pool in the corners. Timurq coughed softly. Dekir found a seat along the wall, eyes closed, fingers tracing invisible patterns. Esvin closed her eyes and listened for the outside world. Sirens, birds, wind. But heard only machinery and breath. In the silence, her mind replayed the distant buzz of a hospital monitor and the shape of a window she used to watch the rain through.
The last to enter was the dog.
A pause. Then the hatch whined open, and Ruvo appeared, almost uncertain, golden fur catching the thin light. For a heartbeat, no one moved. He stood in the doorway, ears high, tail hanging low, the uncertain shape of a question trembling in his posture. Behind him, the corridor glowed with a departing world. Maybe he’d followed a scent, maybe a memory. Maybe he was only looking for company. Or a way out of the rain.
His paws clicked softly on the floor. He advanced a step, stopped, nose twitching. His eyes. Impossibly earnest. Impossibly bright. Moved from face to face, as if measuring permission. The room waited, breath held. Esvin felt an ache she hadn’t named. Timurq swallowed, surprised by Something like relief. Dekir tilted his head, watching the dog with a mixture of suspicion and awe.
No one called him. No one had to. He crossed the threshold, slow at first, then faster, a soft exhale, a kind of grateful sigh escaping him as the hatch closed behind. The world outside vanished. All that was left was this narrow chamber, this handful of strangers, and a dog who didn’t know he was the last to arrive.
He circled twice, sniffed Esvin’s wheels, brushed against Timurq’s leg, paused at Dekir’s feet. Something in his gaze searching, as if hoping for a voice he’d recognize. No voice came. Only the low hum of the engines, deepening into something like a heartbeat. Ruvo settled at the center of the floor, spine straight, head up, as if claiming the silence for himself. His breath, steady and unhurried, filled the space in ways language couldn’t.
Three humans, one dog, no plan. Outside, nothing moved but the memory of where they’d been.
There would be time for regret. For stories. For the slow erosion of what they thought they wanted.
But now, only the pulse of liftoff, and the uncertain gravity of strangers. No one spoke as the world shrank to a corridor and a viewless window.
Esvin closed her eyes, feeling the first weightless drift as the engines surged. Timurq clutched his notebook to his chest, thumb smoothing over the worn edge. Dekir rested one metal hand on his knee, testing the new gravity with a small, involuntary flex.
Ruvo, in the half-light, watched them all, as if he were the only one who knew this wasn’t the real beginning, just another version of leaving. His ears flicked at a distant clang, a memory of footsteps or thunder, impossible to tell apart now.
In the first second, nobody wondered if this was how departures always felt. Too small. Too sudden. Too silent. In the next, the engines pressed their bodies gently against the floor. The sound of home became the sound of distance.
Esvin wondered if the ache in her chest was fear, or just the way new air tasted. Timurq watched his own reflection in the window, ghosted and uncertain. Dekir scanned the controls, hands steady, mind already plotting routines for survival. Ruvo rested his head on his paws, eyes open, body still. The quiet deepened, pulled tight as a held breath.
Nobody said “goodbye.” Nobody said anything at all.
Somewhere outside, Earth kept spinning. Somewhere inside, a story waited to be written, one second at a time.
Thanks for reading . Written by Jon from ClickWorldDaily
Until next time. One chapter at a time.
This story is an original work by Jon from ClickWorldDaily, also submitted to Royal Road.
Proof of authorship for submission purposes.
Proof of authorship for submission purposes.
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