* Chapter 1 * … About a year after the events of the prologue … Etho woke with a start, his head banging against the wall as he’d attempted to turn over in his sleep. He squinted in confusion as his eyes adjusted to the room around him. The apartment. He shared it with someone he’d met not too long after coming to Earth, it was a nice room. It just didn’t feel like his. It felt.. empty. Someone stirred beside him, turning over. Ah. That friend he’d met, Bdubs, his name was. He often came in and curled up with him in bed when he had nightmares. Etho did the same too. He smiled fondly for a second and pulled the blanket further over him, tucking him in gently. After just under a year together, he could confidently say he cared a lot for the guy. He quietly slipped out of bed to not wake him up, and went to take a shower, and later getting changed. A lot had happened in that year since he first arrived on Earth. The first thing he even did was find a way to blend it. See, his species, as far as Etho was concerned, were pretty good when it came to camouflage, at least, when it came to ‘humanoid’ species, they had a different term for them back home, but humanoid was the most recognised term there on Earth. As long as he changed the colour of his skin, to look more like humans (the blue wasn’t exactly going to help him fit in anywhere) and hid his antennas, extra arms and extra eyes, he could fit in rather well. And when it came to languages, it was pretty easy for him to simply mimic language or learn it telepathically through the antennas. From that, meeting Bdubs was a complete accident, Etho had saved him from some sort of accident where he’d clearly not been paying attention and Bdubs had offered to do anything. Etho had simply asked if anyone had any spare rooms and Bdubs did. From there they got closer, got jobs at the same company and boom, there they were. Now, it was the morning before they were scheduled to actually take off, and Bdubs was still asleep, not that Etho really wanted to wake him, so he just got on with other stuff. He was standing over the stove, cooking breakfast when he was interrupted by a familiar voice at the door to his room. “Etho-? Why are you up so early?” Bdubs asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Etho smiled, “Making breakfast for us, big day today, can’t have either of us doing all that on an empty stomach.” Bdubs looked numbly at him for a second, clearly still too half asleep to remember. “Space. Today. The ship?” Etho prompted him. “Oh! Yeah- That,” Bdubs said, before looking over at the clock and grimacing when he saw the time, “Yeah I’ll go get changed now.” Etho laughed a little as he went back to cooking. The food was done by the time Bdubs was ready, and Etho brought both of their plates to their little table and passed one to him, with a smile. “Thanks, Etho,” Bdubs said. “No problem,” Etho replied. The pair ate in comfortable silence, like they often did. Even just the company was enough to cheer eachother up. Arriving on time meant they had to leave right after finishing food, with Bdubs driving them over, they both had a small bag packed of personal belongings for the long trip. The company they worked for had requested they bring things from home to liven up their living quarters on the ship. They were travelling to a different planet, it was just to deliver some supplies, or so they’d been told anyways, Etho didn’t mind it too much, even if the idea of being back out in space terrified him, he wasn’t going back home, and he was with Bdubs, who he already trusted more than most people. So perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Arriving, Etho hauled their bags inside, his being much smaller and lighter than Bdubs’s but he’d still insisted on bringing both bags inside. Bdubs followed beside him, laughing a little as Etho struggled. The rest of the day passed in a boring blur, paperwork, last minute training, hauling supplies around, greeting people. He didn’t particularly enjoy most of it, humans were.. complex beings. And he still wasn’t entirely used to their social cues or those unwritten rules that everyone else seemed to follow, but he did his best. The paperwork seemed overkill, and repetitive so he didn’t really enjoy that either.. but still, it would all be worth it eventually.
(Chapter 1 continued below, read above section first please!) By the time they actually had to gather with the rest of the crew to do final checks before takeoff, Etho couldn’t be more glad. The rest of the crew seemed nice enough. Etho obviously knew and felt comfortable around Bdubs but the rest of them he wasn’t so sure on. He was the redstone engineer on board, helping to fix any actual issues within the ships. When he and Bdubs got to the waiting area before the loading bay to get them on board, the first people he noticed were Martyn and Ren, the co-pilots, standing chatting a bit, probably just quizzing each other on flight controls, Etho presumed. Martyn really wasn’t the worst guy, he just seemed nervous around everyone but Etho just had some sort of odd feeling about him. Like he’d heard his name or seen his face before but couldn’t quite place it. Ren on the other hand was friendly, he seemed more than happy to talk to anyone or help out in training, if Etho had to describe him like anything, it’d probably be like a puppy, he had that same exciteable nature. In a little group a bit further away, there was Tango, Impulse and Skizz. Tango was the crew’s scientist, he had good knowledge of aliens and other planetary systems and how they worked, human science was fascinating too, in Etho’s opinion, and he quite enjoyed hanging around him and learning. He was weird, not in a bad way though, Etho quite liked him. He was also keen to learn redstone on top of that, and he seemed to have a knack for it. Chatting to him was Skizz, the medic, he was friendly, but clumsy. Etho didn’t really mind him, but there wasn’t much to really say about him. And with them was Impulse, the navigator. Despite his role within the crew, he had quite an interest in science and medical stuff, and he seemed to spend most of his time hanging around Tango and Skizz. He also seemed to have some interest in redstone like his friends. Etho was always quite happy to talk to those guys, these just seemed.. normal. And it was nice to share the redstone with him. The crew smiled when they saw the pair. However, they weren’t able to say much as they had to go get finished getting changed into space suits for the mission and then get onto the ship. When they were all strapped into their seats and their luggage had been secured in each of them’s rooms, the countdown began. And those nerves Etho thought he’d managed to avoid began to start up. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. And then they were off. And everything was going to be fine. ••• Next Chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1322023959/ Previous Chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1320351865/ First Chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1320351865/
