#evanescewriting

[evanescewriting]

"i can see all the colors"

above me they are shining and finally, I can see all the colors that surround me.

CONTENT: Vague descriptions of injury, descriptions of character death, potentially disturbing sensory (rotting corpse smell mentioned, etc.) comforting character death (for Curly), regret (for Anya’s situation), j***y is not named (🖕) SYNOPSIS: Captain Curly gets a glimpse of the universe outside the foamed up walls of the drifting Tulpar. AUTHOR'S NOTE: mouthwashing folks how are we feeling about that ending

In the end,

no one came.

No one came to free him from the cryopod. No one came to free the bodies scattered around the ship - no one to bring them home. Or for that one, dead, rotting pixel he had no choice but to now see - no one to throw him out into the endless universe like trash.

It was just him.

The bodies.

The tulpar.

And the cryopod he wasn’t meant for.

God, if one could hear him this far from Earth, he would give anything, anything, to be a captain worthy of that honor. Anything to go back in time, pick up the pieces of his sense he let fall to his feet, shattering and cutting him and all that once stood around and with him. And how they bled. How they bled so much that he thought, perhaps, the crimson beneath his feet was a red carpet that marked his glory. His leadership.

Perhaps this was punishment.

To want to give everything to go back as you freeze in a pod, slowly, slowly dying with no one to come save you.

A captain always goes down with his ship.

He wishes he could close his eyes - burning from dryness, and the cold. Perhaps this was punishment too. For not seeing. Now, all he could do was see. He felt as if he had been stripped away of everything. Gone were the skin and limbs. Leaving only behind the most vulnerable, most human mechanisms in his body. To see. To hear. To create sounds of pain, sadness, and desperation. He was a canvas of red - a tiny splotch of blue amongst the various crimson shades. Scaled small on the canvas, but within it so much knowledge. So many things that had finally been seen.

Time stretches by so slowly.

It rakes its nails across him and his ship. Chipping away at resolve and cleaning the remnants of sanity from his mind.

And still,

no one comes.

His ship is failing. His body is failing. What was it, that saying he had thought of not long ago as he considered his punishment? Ah- a captain always goes down with his ship. Well, Captain Curly was going down with his ship.

And his crew.

They are rotting. He is rotting.

And how long had it been, counting his time through the days, hours, and seconds that had gone by since he was.. not this. He felt that he had become something more. Something different. But truly - he was still himself, wasn’t he? The crash had changed him, of course, but isn’t that similar to the process of a sudden metamorphosis? It felt more burden than butterfly - but what if there were still the remnants of the caterpillar in him? Would it be somehow possible to call upon them? To use the skills from the past and translate them to something he could do now?

Yes - yes he thinks perhaps he could. He could call upon them. Use the strength of this form to deliver the most powerful something of all. Do something so very caterpillar (human) while being so butterfly (in his view, not human).

In this freezing, empty chrysalis, he reverts back to his roots, opening his jaw with pain - but that was a familiar thing already - and wheezing out something that only reverberates within the chamber. Echoing down the long hallway of his punishment, lost on the ears of the dead.

“S-S - orry.”

And then no one came.

And then he could not close his eyes.

And then, just before the end, he realized he was neither caterpillar, nor butterfly, nor human, nor anything more or less than that - but maybe, just maybe - he was forgiven.

And then he went down with his ship.

The metal walls and layers of the Tulpar had unraveled itself. All that remained was the exoskeleton of a ship - bones and ribs and skull - drifting through space. One, singular pod still connected to it. Two long dead bodies bound in their infinite voyage.

But maybe that wasn’t true.

Because he feels himself, somehow, come out from the pod - standing just on the edge of the peeling metal. Feet planted impossibly confidently with the absence of gravity.

Beyond death - Captain Curly can still see.

There are so many colors.

Purple, blue, orange, red - a cornucopia of color beyond imagination. Hues and shades the human mind could not even digest. He can see them all before him.

“I think my favorite might be the blues.” There is a voice behind him - sounding different when it lacks timidness.

“Guess mine!” Cheery, useless ray of sunshine that beams so far away from the sun.

“Green.” Straight to the point. But Curly knows that underneath the tone is a fondness for the two.

He can feel them behind him. Eyes turned to the mass of color above.

“Close! It’s pink, Swansea. Me and Anya’s colors make purple.” Daisuke says, and he just knows that maybe he is putting his hands on his hips in a ‘see how greatly that works out?’ motion.

For a moment, silence passes. Comfortable. Peaceful.

“What about you, Captain? What’s your favorite?”

And then he turns - and they are before them.

The crew. The three he should have saved. The three he could not save. The three he failed.

Whatever form he takes now - they stare at him with indifference. Passive curiosity on the simplicity of his favorite enveloped in the beautiful mass, far away from life.

He feels, somewhere within, the feeling of a held in cry or scream that only comes out as a freeing-

“Maybe the yellow. But the pink is nice - so is the blue.”

“Yellow is the best choice.” Swansea voices his agreement as he looks back above him.

“Yeah. Yellow is a good choice, Captain.” And of course, Daisuke’s eyes follow his mentors, even here. Even now.

“Blue is the best choice, though.” Anya says as she joins their gazes lifting back up.

He wants to ask them: was this always just right outside those walls? All these colors he could never see? All these ideas and concepts? All that pain and suffering?

But he knows that they’ll tell him yes, it was. And only now can you see it, Captain.

Only now can you see all the freedom, the relief, the joy, the stars and their colors.

And tell us - tell us when you come to that conclusion, too.

Tell us if you think it is beautiful.

[evanescewriting]

Hello.

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I am @evanescewriting (they/them) , and I am an independent writer for multiple fandoms - based on Tumblr.

While I encourage creativity of all forms - I am a writer who does not do suggestions or requests. Sometimes, with a post, I may open these for a short period of time, but most often, that option will be closed.

PLEASE do not upload or repost my work to websites outside of Tumblr under my name, or any other name entirely. Any external links for options on where you can access my work will be available ON that Tumblr post.

With that being said, reader, please - enjoy what I make.

Goodbye.

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