I blink myself awake, shaking my head to scatter the memories hounding me in my sleep. Ignoring the low conversation I focus on the roar of the engines, and wipe the sleep from my eyes. The shuttle is angry, the anger evident in how it screams as it fights against the force pushing it towards the ground. I am leaving my planet today. I find it strange, not a month ago I first saw the sky, and here I lay in a box of iron spewing fire to escape it.

But to call this a box of iron would be denying its splendour. Running my hand along the smooth leather of my couch-turned-bed, my eyes land upon the stocked kitchenette, a glass cabinet stacked high with tall, thin-necked bottles, and the floating servant-skull that mans it. I rise, the thick cushion swelling to recover from the well my lap left within it, to be startled by a burst of static. I glance towards the two men conversing in two armchairs across the room, recognising the noise one that the shorter of the two uses when talking to machines, yet find myself confused to see neither have turned their attention to me, nor stopped their conversation.

I listen in to the pair discuss the detoxification and purification of my former home, but struggle to follow along. Both of these men speak wrong. They use too many words and spend too much time to say a single thing. I drilled holes into the side of the shorter man's head with my eyes, in the time that I've known him, he has always been domineering, and nobody would dare question him. Yet despite the taller man's questions, interruptions, and corrections, he remains calm, maintains his focus, and lowers his gaze. A weakness?

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Before I succeeded in discovering how the taller man is in control, I am distracted by the clinking of tableware. The servant-skull has placed a glass upon the table in front of me, filling it with a pale green liquid from a bottle held by mechanical manipulators.

"JUICE. CITRUS." It speaks, the voice cold and distorted, contrasting with the grace it places down a plate with a mysterious white lump atop sliced bread, specks of green scattered over them. Plants? The skull delicately drags a blade across the white thing, and a yellow liquid oozes out, absorbing into the bread. "TOAST. EGG. POACHED." I am informed, and instructed to eat. Once more I am shocked by the affluence, actual plants on my food. Actual food, on a plate. All other thoughts vanish from my head as I tune out the droning conversation to better focus on the new experience. I try to savour it, but find myself lost to a hunger I wasn't aware of until now. I gaze upon my empty plate, and wonder how I came to be in this situation.