Thawed

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PROLOGUE
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USCSS Montero > A Deck > MedLab
December 27, 2183
5 Days from Orbit around Sutter's World

Tsuki was surrounded by a field of gray nothing. No emotion, no feeling. It was peaceful. Was it heaven? She didn’t know. She listened as her mind and body, separate from herself, argued whether to continue or to give up. Were they going somewhere? Why didn’t they invite her to come along with them?

“Wake up.” came another voice suddenly from afar. It was the deep voice of a man. He was strong, Tsuki imagined.

In a flash, but only for a moment, she became one whole person again. Her skin felt hot, but weird… and tingly, like the way your hands and feet feel when warmed by the fireplace after you’ve been playing in freezing snow for too long. The feeling evoked a memory of her younger brother, Mamoru.

Suddenly Tsuki felt weightless; her stomach rose to her throat like when you are riding over a hill at high speed.

Before she realized it, Tsuki was a third person again. Her body whined about being so tired, but her mind protested that they had rested for so long. Why was she being the ignored friend on the sidelines? Why didn’t the two of them bother asking how she felt and what she wanted?

Tsuki turned her head at a distant popping sound, something like firecrackers and the fields of gray shook like an earthquake. There was a sharp pinch on her arm and she was pulled into the air. It stung for a second but now she was floating, weightless and happy. Eventually the stupor subsided and she came to slowly rest on her back.

“Please… Tsuki, wake up.” cried the man’s voice.

Once again she was whole and the field turned from that dull gray to a crisp bright white. It was… 眩しい. “Radiant.” in English. Mama was always proud of her skill with English vocabulary and spelling.

Tsuki could feel the lids of her eyes now. They were heavy, like when you try to stay up late with dad watching old cinema on the vid screen.

When she finally opened her eyes, the white gave way to a mirror shrouded in light, Wait... It wasn’t a mirror… the reflection she was looking at... it was her twin sister, Hikari… but she looked much older… and she had been crying.

“Hikkiちゃん 大丈夫か？ どうしたの？

“Hikki, are you ok? What happened?” Tsuki’s voice was thin and feeble as she tried to console her sister. She was so thirsty and she couldn’t clear her throat.

“Tsuki!” cried Hikari as she leaned over the medpod. “Oh my god. Thank you, god.”

“Eh? Hikki… You… so OLD.” Tsuki said in broken English. She was confused. This was a weird dream. “But you… 美しいだね。 Beautiful.”

Hikari laughed through the tears, covering her face with a hand as she nodded. God, she hated this. She hated it so much. She hated that she had to relive the exact same scenario that she had endured all those years ago when she woke from cryo-sleep. And she hated that she had to be the one to crush the poor child with the devastating revelation that she had been asleep for 73 years and all of the terrible things that had transpired, not to mention that this was her own twin sister and they were now two very different ages.
It was cruel but it had to be her, right? Who else was left? Mom was dead. Their father was surely dead, if not before, he was certainly obliterated in the self-destruct blast of the USCSS Cronus. And Mamoru, their younger brother, was now parsecs away at Anchorpoint Station.

With her sister in front of her and the rest of the USCSS Montero crew in hibernation, Hikari felt so alone.