The Weight of Choice
Elara walked the corridors of the Morning Star.
The doors stretched on either side, thousands of them, their surfaces carved with names. She touched them as she passed — Elena Vance. Marcus Thorne. Sarah Whitmore. Thomas Grey. — feeling the cold wood beneath her fingers.
She stopped at a door with a name she did not recognize.
Lydia Cross.
She opened it.
The room was small. A bed. A desk. A window that looked out onto nothing. And sitting on the bed, waiting for her, was a woman.
She was young — younger than Elara, younger than anyone had a right to be. Her hair was red, her eyes were green, her face was pale.
“Hello,” the woman said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You know me?”
“I know everyone who boards the Morning Star. I have been here for thirty years. I have seen thousands of passengers come and go.”
“Have any of them left?”
The woman was silent for a long moment.
“No.”
Elara sat on the bed beside her.
“What’s your name?”
“Lydia.”
“How did you end up here?”
Lydia looked at the window.
At the nothing.
At the darkness.
“I was looking for someone. My brother. He boarded the Morning Star fifty years ago. He never came back.”
“Did you find him?”
Lydia nodded.
“He’s here. In the room next to mine. We talk through the walls. We haven’t seen each other in thirty years.”
“That’s horrible.”
“It’s life. Or what passes for life on this ship.”
Elara was silent for a long moment.
“The captain says I can end the voyage. That I can set everyone free.”
Lydia’s eyes widened.
“How?”
“By becoming the captain.”
Lydia grabbed her hands.
“Don’t do it.”
“Why not?”
Lydia looked at the door.
At the darkness.
“Because the captain is not a person. The captain is the ship. The ship is the prison. If you become the captain, you become the prison.”
Elara’s blood went cold.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Lydia squeezed her hands.
“Then don’t do it. Find another way.”
“There is no other way.”
“There’s always another way. You just have to be willing to look for it.”