I'm so tired of waking up like this. Of slowly opening my eyes, wondering where I am now, hoping that I recognize something in the obscure mess.

My whole body aches like I was hit by a speeding VRAP. I moan as I try to shift. Hands hold me still.

"Thank the Christ child, you're awake."

Knuckles' familiar voice ushers in the sudden rush of other noises. Whimpers, anguished groans, desperate sobs. I pick his voice out from the mass and cling to it.

I can't open my eyes yet. It was a bad dream. All of it. It all must have been my worst nightmare yet.

His warm hands lift me by my biceps. I realize I'm leaning against his chest, my body between his legs. We're on a cold floor, his arms are wrapped around me.

"Move your fingers for me, love."

I wiggle them slowly.

"Now your toes."

When I focus my attention below, I realize my feet are bare. My boots are gone. How much of me remains?

"Good, good." He rubs his hands up and down my arms. It's then that I realize I'm freezing. The cold seeps all the way down to my bones.

"Can you open your eyes for me?"

"No."

"You can't open your eyes?"

"No."

"They don't appear to be welded shut."

I squeeze my eyelids tighter. Tears slip out from under them. In my head, in the darkness behind my eyes, I see the room with the blue light, the tentacled monsters, the bulls, my son. I see the creature turning, my son disappearing with it. I can't see that image anymore. I can't be in that room, but I can't open my eyes to confirm it either.

What if it was real? What if my son is gone? What if I look down and there's nothing there but me.

"Janika." Knuckles squeezes my arms. His body heat is too hot. I shove off violently and land face first on the floor.

I place my hand on my abdomen.

He's gone.

All the surrounding noises are sucked into a single sound. It's my own gasp. I can't hear anything but the howl coming from my broken, empty body.

I cry, lying on my belly, pounding the ground with a fist drenched in my tears as I hold myself up with the other arm. Sobs wrack my body. I shake from the strain of trying to hold myself up while breaking down.

Long minutes pass. When my sobs subside, I realize I'm the only one crying anymore.

I finally open my eyes.

The people of ARC10 surround me. They wear matching white, flat sheets draped over their bodies. Their heads are bald. Their eyes are wide and glistening. They stand over me with pathetic pity.

"Get away," I scream at them.

"Lorn, for the love of God, come here. You're going to injure yourself further." Knuckles stands. He also dons the new white uniform for the people of ARC10 along with a shaved head. He drops to my side and pulls me into his lap again where he rubs his hands up and down my arms.

I'm so empty. Like my lonely single heart can't beat the right way anymore.

I want to curl into Knuckles, to grab his white tunic, to cry against his chest. But I don't. I let the frost creep across my skin despite Knuckles' efforts. His hands rub my cold limbs harder.

"Commander?" Coodi's voice, more timid than I'd ever heard it before, startles me.

The thought of that role brings full hate into my heart. I don't answer her.

"Commander, we're waiting for orders."

"Are you blind, girl?" Knuckles snaps with his hostile baritone. "Can you not see that she has just experienced something so traumatic, she has lost nearly all the blood in her body along with her fucking child? Can you not see that I'm literally trying to rub the life back into her veins? Do you mind giving her one fucking second to recuperate?"

I don't want to wait around to heal. I want to rise, grab the first object within reach, and bash in the brains of the evil behind this. With my bare hands, I want to dismember, tentacle by fucking tentacle, whatever creature stole my child from my body.

With the little strength I have, I clench my fists and sit up. Sharp pain rushes up from my middle. I cry out and slump back into Knuckles' chest.

In this condition, with my body struggling to remain functional, I'm useless. While incapacitated, this is the time to plan, to wait, to see how this whole disaster will play out.

"Lay low, Coodi." My voice is raspier than it's ever been before. "Observe. Understand our location. Make sure the people don't do anything stupid to get themselves killed. Come to me when you establish the target's pattern. We'll engage when the time is right."

Coodi twitches as if she was about to strike a spectacular salute in front of me. Instead, she plops down in front of me.

"Aye-aye, Commander," she says softly into my knees. She takes one of my bare legs and rubs her warm hands over it, working in time with Knuckles' movements on my arms.

"Commander?" A familiar and very unwelcome voice rings from above.

"You don't get to call her that anymore, Avant." Coodi doesn't look up from her work on my leg. "VIPERs don't betray the people they swore to protect."

"I was protecting them," she says with every inch of confidence in her body. "I didn't think anyone else was doing a better job. I saw an opportunity to improve our security, and I took it."

"She's right, Coodi." I shift, trying to prop myself farther up on Knuckles' body. He steadies me.

If Avant is startled by my confession, she doesn't show it. Her frown is consistent through our entire conversation.

"Nothing that happened on ARC10 was done well. There were too many loose ends, too many miscommunications. We didn't have the full scope of what we were really getting into on that ship. So when shit when wrong, none of us—" I grit my teeth and hiss out a long breath of pain. Something must have bruised my ribs. This kind of hell is all too familiar. "None of us knew how to process."

Out of the corner of my eye, Umpire and Grant, massive and bald-headed, stand behind her. I nod at them and instantly wobble in Knuckles' embrace as the world blurs in and out of focus.

"This is all new. To all of us." I'm starting to lose my focus. "We stick together. We work as a unit because none of us have done this shit before. We learn something new every day." I try to rise but Knuckles' grip is firm.

"That's enough. Give her a moments' rest." His command is the firm note only medical professionals can reach. All depart but Coodi. Her hands switch to my other leg. They work silently on my body, massaging the blood back into my cold corpse.

My head lolls from side to side, too tired to keep it up anymore. To my left, against the glass wall of our strange container, Warren Freyer sits with his leg extended in front of him. He gazes up at me and immediately looks away.

I drift in and out of sleep, only barely aware that the people of ARC10 aren't crying anymore.