Running
02 Mar 2024Lily Flemmon
I wrote a piece once about how explorers throughout history have always been people who were running from something. At the time, I had no idea that could mean me.For the past year or more, I've holed myself up in Chilton Terminal. It's a big enough place that I didn't feel at all alone, but getting back in this cockpit ended up with me pretty much isolating myself out here in the far galactic northwest. Just me, a carrier of people, and the Commander who owns it stopping by sometimes. I'm pretty sure the bartender runs the whole operation under the table, not that I mind. I'm scouting for a larger expedition, taking in and jotting down the pretty sights so other explorers can get a better look later. I stay in touch with a few friends from CTAC and keep myself in the loop about the day-to-day back home, but other than that, I'm almost as far from home as I could possibly be. Just about everything I find out here is something nobody's ever found before, which makes exobiology collection lucrative. It's really not too bad out here.
I miss CTAC. I really do. The food, the sense of belonging, Mags and Phoenix, I miss all of it. Most of all, I miss being able to think it was so separate from the rest of the Bubble. It's not like I can see any signs of humans out the window except for ships, so it wasn't a difficult delusion to keep up.
As soon as I jumped to another system, that delusion was gone. It made me realize that he could find me whenever he wanted. In theory, I could find him too, and try to figure out why he hasn't come looking, but just thinking about him at all still hurts. I'm still afraid of him, despite knowing that if he came after me, he wouldn't be able to hurt me- in fact, he probably thinks I'd kill him on sight. I know the chances of me seeing him again are zero, but I'm still terrified. I've stayed in touch with quite a few people at CTAC, but other than that, I ran as far away as I could.
Hopefully I won't be so terrified someday. Hopefully I'll be able to go back home.