4. Ryklin

I wasn't awake.There was a strange haze to the dream world, a gauzy filter that made everything feel just a little unreal.

The soulless didn't dream. At least, we weren't supposed to.

But the world around me was evidence otherwise.

I was on the station, walking down a narrow hallway, the walls somehow leaning inward and pointing me forward. It was so dark I could barely see, but there was just enough light for me to keep stepping forward. One foot. Then another. Then another.

"Ryklin, help!" Noelle's terrified scream cut through the oppressive silence of the walkway behind me, and I ran, sprinting towards her voice. But the hallway remained the same around me, each panel of walls identical to the last.

There were no doors. No hallways.

No way out.

Noelle screamed again, and I tried to call after her, to offer her whatever solace I could. But my mouth wouldn't open, as if my jaws had been clamped shut by some outside force.

Her cries swelled in anguish, high pitched and loud enough to hurt my ears.

And then there was silence.

My feet halted, and I couldn't pick them up. I strained to hear Noelle, but there was nothing, not even the ever-present hum of the space station.

Wake up.

This wasn't real. I was in control. My neurons were firing, looking for patterns that weren't there to give my brain something to do while my body rested. It was nonsense, nothing I should be concerned with.

I still struggled against the invisible force holding me down.

Wake up.

I wouldn't let these strange thoughts torture me.

But if waking from bad dreams was a skill, I was sorely out of practice, and I felt as caught there as an animal in a hunter's trap. My heart beat wildly, a response I couldn't control. My skin buzzed with something I couldn't define, and there was sweat on my palms.

Was this … panic?

Even in my dream I was soulless. I could never escape the choice I'd made. So why did my body say otherwise?

A blow jolted my shoulder, and I stumbled forward for a moment before the dream dissolved around me, and my eyes snapped open in the waking world.

My roommate, Thalor, leaned over me, his hand still on my shoulder. He removed it as soon as I opened my eyes.

"Your sleep was agitated," he said. He backed up until he was sitting on his own bunk. Our bunks were twins of each other, each affixed to one wall and able to be stored flush against it when not in use to give us more space.

I wasn't sure what I should say to that. We were on high alert after what had happened with Drex two months ago. Drex may have found his denya, but it had looked very much like fixation at the time.

And I'd dreamed of Noelle.

"Thank you for waking me," I replied. "I did not realize." A lie. The soulless weren't supposed to lie. We had a strict set of rules to set our life by, and a prohibition on lying was near the top. Unless ordered otherwise, of course.

Thalor nodded and lay back down on his bed, satisfied with my answer.

I lay in the darkness for a long while before I fell back asleep. I didn't dream a second time.

When I woke, Thalor was gone. He must have had an early shift. I still had hours yet before I needed to report for duty. But though I hadn't dreamed again, my thoughts had coalesced into a certainty that washed over me as I woke.

I needed to leave Nebula Outpost today.

Whatever compulsion I had towards Noelle Kim was growing. It would only get worse until I could not control it any longer and hurt people on the station, possibly even her.

Everything in me rebelled at the thought. But that was only more evidence that the seeds of fixation were already rooted deeply within me.

I didn't know if leaving would fix it. My trainers had made it clear that fixation could not be stopped and that any fixated soulless needed to be put down. But my trainers had also said that no soulless could manage his own life, that we couldn't live without orders from a Detyen who retained his soul.

I'd been living independently for nearly five years. I suspected that there were many things my trainers didn't know. Couldn't know.

I pulled a rucksack from the closet and carefully packed it with my sturdiest clothes. I had a sufficient supply of credits in my account to take me across the galaxy. I had little to spend them on since the quarters were provided as part of my pay. They wouldn't last me forever, but I would have time to find a place.

Once my bag was packed, I pulled out my comm and sent a message to my supervisor, resigning effective immediately. Then I wrote a message for the others and set it on the middle of the small table where we ate our meals.

Thalor would see it when he came back. He would tell Jorin, Kaelor, and Zyrus. Someone would probably tell Drex eventually.

I stepped out of my quarters for the final time and headed towards the transport depot without a backward glance.

Would Noelle wonder where I went?

The thought nagged at the back of my mind, and I found my feet turning towards Sector J in a strange imitation of my dream. This was that hint of fixation again, something I should be resisting.

But one last look wouldn't hurt.

It was early. She probably wasn't even assigned to Sector J today. And if she was, her shift likely hadn't started.

But I would let myself walk there, just to try and catch one last look. And if she wasn't there, I'd walk away for good.