Drift

The cryopod sealed without me.

That sound, the hiss followed by the metallic lock, echoed down the corridor like a punishment. Frost swept across the glass in a thin, rapid film, erasing everything inside until the pod looked less like a machine and more like a tomb. I stared at it too long. Long enough for my breath to fog the air. Long enough for the pressure behind my eyes to pulse again, bright and nauseating.

The head injury hadn’t stopped hurting. It had only changed shape. The pain felt deeper now, like something was blooming behind my temples. Growing. Curling roots through my thoughts. Distorting them.

For a moment, I thought I saw movement in the frost. Shapes forming behind the ice, shapes that shouldn’t have been there - but when I blinked, and the glass held nothing but my own warped reflection.

I tore my gaze from the sealed pod. I had to move. If I stood still, the silence became a presence, a weight against the back of my skull. It pressed against me, expectant, patient. As if waiting for something. As if listening.

The corridor lights flickered overhead. Once. Twice. The shadows along the floor lengthened, stretched, pulled in strange directions. I blinked hard, but the edges of everything still felt wrong. Too soft. Too fluid. Like the air itself was bending, warping around me.

I blamed the concussion.

I blamed the stale air.

I blamed anything that wasn’t the truth.

I exhaled slowly. The sound barely carried. The air felt thick, warm, stale. Heavy enough to hold my breath in place. I rubbed at my eyes, trying to focus, but every movement made the world sway. Made the hallway lurch a fraction of a degree off true. Made my stomach twist into tight, nervous knots.

I tried to recall the sequence of events since the accident. The fall. The impact. The blood clouding my visor. Drifting away from the ship while my heartbeat thundered in my ears. But even those memories felt slippery now, smeared at the edges. As if something had erased the lines between them.

Halfway down the hall, a soft sound broke the silence: a hum, high, wavering, almost shy. My blood ran cold. It wasn’t mechanical, nor static. It wasn’t my ears ringing.

It was a child humming.

Four notes. Barely held together. A tune my brain recognized before I did.

Twinkle… twinkle…

The air left my lungs in a single, sharp gust.

Not real.

Not possible.

Not here.

I pressed my fingertips to my forehead, hard enough to hurt. The pain spiked, white and sharp, but the humming continued. Softer now. As if someone were humming from behind a door. Or under a blanket. Or underwater. A soft, muffled sound slipping through the cracks of the ship.

I forced myself forward. Every step felt louder than the last. The corridor seemed longer, narrower. Or maybe it was me - my vision tunnelling, my lungs tightening, my sense of balance drifting in and out like a faulty signal.

The humming shifted pitch. As if the singer had turned their head. As if they were following me.

My pulse hammered in my ears, drowning out everything else.

I tried to steady my breathing: count in, count out, the way they taught me before cryosleep. But… The rhythm wouldn’t take. My breaths came too fast, too shallow, like my body was panicking on its own.

When I reached the door to Embryonics, I saw it was open by an inch. I didn’t remember leaving it like that. In fact, I didn’t remember anything after the pod sealed. My mind had blank spaces, missing frames, like a damaged reel of film.

A strip of cold blue light spilled across the floor, blinking softly and inviting me in. I swallowed hard. I slid my hand into the gap and pushed.

The room was colder than before. My breath turned white with each puff. Frost traced delicate branches across the walls, the consoles, the floor tiles. Everything was frozen in place, as if time itself had settled here and refused to leave.

Except the chamber.

Its glow pulsed. Slow. Rhythmic.

A heartbeat.

My stomach tightened.

I stepped inside fully. The door hissed behind me, and for a moment I felt certain it had closed on its own. I spun around, my breath catching.

It was still open. Barely. A sliver.

But it hadn’t sounded like that.

It had sounded like—

I forced the thought away before it finished forming.

My flashlight jittered in my trembling hand. I moved it across the room, letting the beam skim over the consoles, over the preserved embryos, over the faint bloom of frost forming on the ceiling like delicate, crystalline mould.

The gel inside the chamber churned slightly around a half-formed shape. An embryo attempt, but… wrong. Too large. Too quick. Too aware. Something about the silhouette suggested intent. As if the shape inside was listening. As if it was trying to understand the room around it.

I swallowed hard. My throat felt raw.

My pulse hammered in my throat.

Something brushed my ankle.

I jerked away, heart stopping for a split second. My flashlight beam snapped downward, searching, but I found nothing there. No loose cables. No fallen tools. No frost drifting.

But the sensation lingered. A fingertip. Light. Curious.

My breath trembled out of me.

I turned back to the chamber. The silhouette inside had shifted. It was small, curled, with limbs not fully formed. But its posture - its angle - suggested attention. Consciousness, facing toward me. As if it was trying to stand. Trying to get closer.

A flicker of motion beside me made my head snap around, but again—nothing. Just frost catching the light. Just my brain conjuring shapes it longed and feared to see.

I sucked in a breath. The air felt thinner now. Colder. The ship must have begun shutting down climate control completely. Every inhalation scraped my throat. Every exhale lingered too long in the stale air.

The humming came again.

Not from the chamber.

From behind me.

A soft, tentative sound. Like a child humming to themselves as they wandered a dim hallway at home, unaware they were being listened to.

I didn’t turn. Couldn’t. If I turned, I would see something there that I wasn’t ready to see. I stared at the chamber instead, blinking through the ache building behind my eyes.

Then the humming grew clearer. Closer. As if tiny footsteps padded across the frost, carrying the singer toward me.

A child’s voice, small and breathy, picking out notes carefully, like someone singing alone in a dark room, not sure if they’re allowed to.

Twinkle… twinkle… little…

The last word was lost in a soft click behind me, like feet shifting on frost.

Like someone taking one careful step.

Something in me locked up. Not fear, not really. Something more ancient than that. A primal stillness. A sense that even breathing might draw attention.

I closed my eyes. That was a mistake. Darkness made everything louder. The humming grew thicker, more confident, the voice adjusting pitch the way my child used to, back when he thought no one was paying attention. Back when we still had late afternoons under the willow tree. Back when the hat spun in the breeze, and he ran in circles until he stumbled into my arms.

My chest tightened. I opened my eyes.

The chamber silhouette had moved again, closer to the glass. One small hand pressed outward. Fingers splayed, reaching. Pushing.

I hadn’t looked away for more than a moment. A blink. A breath.

My heart climbed into my throat.

My flashlight flickered. Once. Twice.

In that flicker, for the briefest sliver of a second, I saw something else across the room: a small figure standing beside the doorway.

Tiny.

Still.

Head tilted.

Watching.

When the light steadied, the figure was gone.

My lungs seized.

No more looking away. No more blinking. My eyelids felt raw all of a sudden, the urge to blink growing threefold. The air felt colder. Or maybe my skin was warming with panic.

The humming rose again. Higher this time. Off-key in a distinctly childlike way. Wavering on the second note. Rushing the third.

Exactly the way he used to sing it.

Twinkle… twinkle… little star…

My vision blurred. Tears, cold and uninvited, gathered at the corners of my eyes. I brushed them away angrily. My hands shook.

The chamber lights flared.

Something on the floor caught the light. A splash of colour against the frost. I knelt automatically, before I understood why.

A hat.

Small.

Bright.

The one from the picture. The one he wore under the willow tree on days we thought would never end.

I reached for it, slowly, as if touching it might set something off.

Warm.

Recently worn.

My throat closed around a sound that wasn’t quite a sob.

Behind me, soft footsteps pattered across the frost. Careful. Curious. Childlike. They stopped just behind my heels. Close enough that I felt a shift in the air.

The cold warmed, only for a second. As if a small hand hovered inches from my calf.

I did not turn.

If I turned, I thought, something would be standing there, humming to itself, head tilted, waiting for me to meet its eyes. Something that moved only when I couldn’t see it. Something shaped by my guilt. Or by the ship. Or by the impact with the hull. Or by all of it together.

My vision swam. My balance wavered. I could feel my heartbeat in my teeth.

The humming stopped.

Silence swallowed the room.

Then…

A breath.

Right behind my left ear.

Soft. Wet. Child-sized.

The kind of breath a toddler takes right before they tug your sleeve to show you something they’ve drawn.

Twinkle… twinkle…

Every hair on my body stood on end.

I finally turned.

The room was empty. Utterly empty. No footprints on the frost. No disturbance in the air. No child.

But the chamber silhouette was now pressed fully against the glass. Face forward. Hands spread. Mouth open in a silent attempt at a note.

And on the glass, where its breath met the cold, a tiny patch of frost melted away.

Almost the shape of a smile.

The lights went out.

The humming began again in the dark.

Closer than ever.