And just like last time, I give my thanks to my good friend S.M. Rameez for the awesome cover-art. And thanks to my sister who helped with the editing this time around. Sorry it took so long to finally get this done!
Jacobi Myles watched the water splash against the bottom of his glass as he lowered the cup from his lips.
Fen Mao had settled on the foot of his bed, sitting in a cross-legged fashion. Her bright yellow eyes gleamed with intrigue and a hint of concern as she stared at him.
Jacobi looked back to the corner of the room where Captain Hughes was holding his grave conference. The Captain’s back was turned to Jacobi, but of the five faces that were visible to him, not a single one was without a grimace.
This made Jacobi’s stomach sink. He had no way of telling what they were talking about, but the fact that this intermission had been called by Jolt, the ship’s physician, led him to believe that something was wrong in the operating room.
“What’s with the sour face?” Mao called out, breaking his attention away from the Captain’s meeting. “Need more juice?” She motioned toward the controller that hung to his left.
“No!” He called out a bit more urgently than he would have liked. Devon, Vaughn, the girl with the curly brown hair and the tall dark-skinned man all looked over at him from their conversation. “No, I’m okay.”
“Do you want to rest? We can come back later to hear the rest of your story if you’d like.” Geannina offered in a small voice.
“I’m fine, really.” He set the glass down on the small table next to Gean’s chair and conjured up a comforting smile. “Plus, we’re just about finished.” He laughed. “I guess you could say I’m about to get to the exciting part.”
Mao’s tail swirled through the air and her ears were perked up. She leaned forward. “So what happens next? What’s the exciting part?”
“Kitty, cool your jets.” Tiger called from behind Geannina.
Jacobi followed Mao’s scowl but something caught his eye before his vision could make it to the man. He blinked in disbelief and a chill ran down his spine when the thing that he thought he had seen didn’t disappear.
Standing just between Geannina and Devon was a person. Or rather, it would have been a person if it hadn’t been a phantasmal outline of one. This transparent being’s body was a patch of shimmering air, as if this creature was bending the very fabric of reality to stand there and stare at Jacobi with its blank stare.
The figure drew it’s transparent finger up to it’s transparent lips and even though it made no noise, Jacobi heard the “Shhh.” That the creature’s gesture implied.
Then, just as mysteriously as it had appeared, the figure was gone.
Jacobi felt his hands shaking. He balled his fists and rubbed his eyes.
When he opened them again the creature was still gone, which came as a bit of a relief to Jacobi. Perhaps whatever that was was the result of Mao giving him too much pain medication.
He looked at Geannina. She stared back with a face pinched in worry.
“Are you really alright, Captain Myles?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah,”
He wasn’t quite sure that his answer was the complete truth, but coupled with a wan smile he was able to convince Geannina - and himself - that he wasn’t lying.