30. Skotádi

Fengári and Ophionhad teamed up on him, and Lupo couldn't hold them back any longer. His frontline began to collapse for the third time this playthrough, and he cursed at the pair as they took his last planet-side asset.

Ophion hadn't mentioned the fate of his people since the broadcast, and Lupo didn't know if that was because he didn't feel like sharing or because they hadn't engaged him about the whole affair as they should. If there was a playbook for consoling someone as their homeworld was reduced to radioactive ruin, he hadn't stumbled across it.

"I'll trust your strategy for the enemy on Hestia is more effective than this," Ophion hissed.

Fengári broke out into a fit of laughter. The pair had become unlikely companions rather quickly. Ophion had even spent the past afternoon tinkering with the medbay pod, enhancing its performance and allowing Fengári to remove a fair amount of his bandaging.

"Who needs a strategy with friends like these," Lupo chuckled, shutting down the holo-game.

His eyes were tired from their multi-round effort, and he wanted to check on Auren, who had slunk away at some point and hadn't returned.

Ophion turned the game back on and was already setting up a new match between himself and Fengári as Lupo passed out into the hall and looked around for Auren. To his dismay, he was nowhere in sight, and Lupo decided to check the stateroom.

As the door slid open, he was confronted with the curious sight of a fully nude Auren. He was facing away from him, standing still and rigid, staring out into the void. Lupo had the distinct and uncanny feeling that something out there was looking back at him.

"Auren?" he said softly, approaching him from behind.

"They're coming," Auren said.

"Who?" Lupo asked. A cold sweat had broken out across his brow.

"The Others."

And then Auren collapsed.

* * *

"So you're saying he's haunted? Am I getting that right?" Fengári asked for the third time.

"I don't know. I don't understand it myself, but yes. Something like that," Lupo repeated.

Ophion had listened in as well. He'd grown still and quiet as Lupo recounted Auren's brief tale about the whispers and the shadows, his expression inscrutable.

Auren lay inert on the bed. But to Lupo's great relief, he was breathing, albeit restlessly. His eyes roved frantically behind his eyelids as he sweated through the latest pair of sheets Lupo had covered him in. He'd tried to access his command prompts to do a diagnostic, but none of his access codes appeared to work anymore, and the script running on Auren's processor was many times more complicated than his own for some reason. He was helpless. Again. He fell to his knees and held Auren's hand.

"Skotádi," Ophion said.

"What was that?" Fengári asked.

"Skotádi," Ophion repeated. "The Others."

"What's he talking about?" Fengári asked, looking pleadingly at Lupo as though he might have an explanation. He didn't.

"I thought it was a legend. But it makes sense now. All of it makes sense now…" Ophion murmured. He hissed, peering into Auren's face and flicking his tongue at him in some form of alien examination.

"Ophion, explain yourself," Lupo said, his nerves overcoming his restraint.

But Ophion wasn't listening, and he barged past him and out into the hall without another word.

"What the fuck was that about?" Fengári muttered. "I don't need any more spooky shit, just bring my brother back. Again. Please," he urged.

But nothing Lupo did seemed to make any difference. He watched, powerless, as Auren's code spiraled endlessly out into a fractaled mess of what it had been, his processor barely able to keep up with the confabulations extrapolating within him.

They remained at his side for hours as he tossed and turned, occasionally muttering fevered whispers in languages Lupo had never heard. After a long while, Fengári grew groggy and then nodded off. Lupo gently lifted him from the ground and placed him on the bed beside his brother. Then he resumed his vigil, backlit by the eerie blue light of the aquarium as he watched Auren battle invisible demons.