He wakes up in the dark, which isn't remarkable; he's usually up at least once in the night, ever since he was a kid. But he wakes up somewhere dank and stuffy, in a basement room, maybe, and he wakes up alone.
For a confused second or two his groggy brain tries to work it out - is he at Granddad's? Did he pass out doing the laundry? - and then registers the shape of the dark around him, the wholly unfamiliar echoes, the ambient noise muffled by the walls: distant voices, footsteps, electronic warbles, occasional dull clangs. Like a hospital, or an airport, or--
Panic hits him like a bullet from behind. He flails upright, groping for a light switch, for anything recognizable. His hand meets empty air, but the lights flare on anyway, a sullen glow illuminating a small, spartan, windowless room. Featureless furnishings. A small screen set into the wall, and a door with no handle.
"Jesus." His own voice sounds small and stifled, a frightened wheeze. Cassian knots his hands in the weirdly-textured bedclothes beside him and breathes in deep. Breathes out, deliberately. And again. On the third breath he manages to say aloud: "Jyn? Bodhi?"
No answer.
"Jyn?" he tries again, louder. Djem, is his next natural thought, but no, no no no, he's not going to think about the kids right now, whatever's happening can't touch them, even inside his head, no. No. "Hello?"
The door shoots open and someone - something - looms in the doorway, a huge distorted figure like an armored insect, easily eight feet high. It cranes toward him, and he flinches backward but there's nowhere to go, just the bunk behind him and the wall behind that--
"Oh," it says. "You are conscious."
The voice is crisp, resonant, but not quite human, and he'd know that put-upon note anywhere.
"K," he says blankly, and without missing a beat the thing - the robot - fires back: "Who were you expecting?"
He's dreaming, then. Clearer and more detailed than any nightmare he's ever imagined, but still. Cassian scrubs a hand across his face, trying to believe it.
The K-thing draws itself up a little, whirring, and demands, "Are you all right?"
Which is a good question. "I don't know where Bodhi and Jyn are," he tells it with the simplicity of dream-logic.
"High probability that they are in their own quarters." The smooth head cocks at a familiar angle. "And that comms are functioning normally."
He almost laughs. Looks the K-thing in its cold-glowing eyes. What the hell. "Can we go there?"
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branchandroot
in space, no one can hear your parrot demanding breakfast.
Date: 2018-11-15 07:23 am (UTC)For a confused second or two his groggy brain tries to work it out - is he at Granddad's? Did he pass out doing the laundry? - and then registers the shape of the dark around him, the wholly unfamiliar echoes, the ambient noise muffled by the walls: distant voices, footsteps, electronic warbles, occasional dull clangs. Like a hospital, or an airport, or--
Panic hits him like a bullet from behind. He flails upright, groping for a light switch, for anything recognizable. His hand meets empty air, but the lights flare on anyway, a sullen glow illuminating a small, spartan, windowless room. Featureless furnishings. A small screen set into the wall, and a door with no handle.
"Jesus." His own voice sounds small and stifled, a frightened wheeze. Cassian knots his hands in the weirdly-textured bedclothes beside him and breathes in deep. Breathes out, deliberately. And again. On the third breath he manages to say aloud: "Jyn? Bodhi?"
No answer.
"Jyn?" he tries again, louder. Djem, is his next natural thought, but no, no no no, he's not going to think about the kids right now, whatever's happening can't touch them, even inside his head, no. No. "Hello?"
The door shoots open and someone - something - looms in the doorway, a huge distorted figure like an armored insect, easily eight feet high. It cranes toward him, and he flinches backward but there's nowhere to go, just the bunk behind him and the wall behind that--
"Oh," it says. "You are conscious."
The voice is crisp, resonant, but not quite human, and he'd know that put-upon note anywhere.
"K," he says blankly, and without missing a beat the thing - the robot - fires back: "Who were you expecting?"
He's dreaming, then. Clearer and more detailed than any nightmare he's ever imagined, but still. Cassian scrubs a hand across his face, trying to believe it.
The K-thing draws itself up a little, whirring, and demands, "Are you all right?"
Which is a good question. "I don't know where Bodhi and Jyn are," he tells it with the simplicity of dream-logic.
"High probability that they are in their own quarters." The smooth head cocks at a familiar angle. "And that comms are functioning normally."
He almost laughs. Looks the K-thing in its cold-glowing eyes. What the hell. "Can we go there?"