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Something moved just inside Matteo's peripheral vision. They whipped their head to the side, catching a flutter of white around the bend of Perihelion's twilight rest-cycle corridors.
They knew they were safe inside Peri. Nothing could get them in the wormhole... Unless that something was already on the ship. They really shouldn't follow whatever that movement had been. It was probably their imagination. They were exhausted and over-caffeinated. They should go to bed and... What if it wasn't in their head?
Reluctantly, Matteo turned away from the corridor leading to their crew cabin and padded softly in the direction of the something. If they saw nothing after a minute or two they could simply turn in for their rest cycle and laugh about it in the morning.
Another flicker of movement caught their eye, moving away from the crew cabins and towards the bow. This time Matteo caught sight of something roughly average humanoid height before it disappeared around the bend. But the way it moved? It hadn't appeared to be touching the ground and it certainly didn't match any drone specs Matteo knew of.
"Fuck. Peri are you seeing this?"
"Seeing what? You appear to be in an empty hallway."
Peri loved semantics. Matteo just wanted to go to bed. "Whatever it is, it's a corridor ahead of me and moving fast. We might have an intruder."
There was an uncharacteristic pause before Perihelion replied, voice somewhat strangled. "You must be mistaken. There is nothing notable in that corridor." It's voice warmed slightly. "And SecUnit would know if I had an intruder. Which I do not."
Matteo knew they had seen something. Something white and gauzy that floated around corners without touching the ground and... Their tired brain helpfully supplied all manner of tales from when they were small. Camp stories and urban legends of the strange things that lived inside wormholes.
They were in a wormhole right now.
Swallowing hard, Matteo crept further up the hallway to peer around the corner. Nothing there, but they heard the faint swish of a doorway sliding shut. As far as they knew, no one else was awake this late in the cycle... Except perhaps SecUnit.
Matteo didn't want to bother it but... Safety came first. They sent it a ping over the feed and were relieved when SecUnit pinged back, a raised eyebrow emoji attached.
«Shouldn't you be enjoying your rest period?»
«Had to finish some data cleanup before I turned in. Have you seen anything weird on the cameras? Static? Artifacts? Glowing floating blobs?»
For a long moment Matteo wasn't sure SecUnit would respond. Then it sent, «There is nothing concerning on board the Perihelion. You should go rest.»
Nothing concerning but not nothing at all. In the camp stories Matteo's friends had enjoyed, the entities that haunted wormholes could possess the living. That included constructs so maybe...
They had to check.
Heart hammering wildly in their chest, Matteo crept closer to the observation deck. Low light flickered into the hall from the small windows on either side of the door, too orange to be ambient light from the edges of the wormhole.
Flattening themself to the wall, Matteo sidled up to the window and peered inside. Their heart-rate jackknifed, breath catching in their throat before their mind caught up to what their eyes were seeing.
In the center of the room floated the mysterious figure: diaphanous torso and arms, devoid of lower body or head, surrounded by flickering candles. Against the open observation window a tall, imposing shadow stood backlit by the hazy pastel glow of wormhole travel. As one, the figures turned toward Matteo, who stumbled backwards, hitting the opposite wall hard enough to knock their frozen breath from their lungs.
The door to observation slid open just in time for SecUnit's familiar voice to ring in the silence. "-did try to tell them. Not my fault they decided-"
Peri's familiar amused snark cut it off. "Nothing concerning on board implies that something IS on board and you know my humans are curious."
Pulling themself shakily to their feet, Matteo recontextualized what they were seeing. SecUnit, dressed more formally than Matteo had ever seen it, seemed to be barely suppressing a laugh as it stepped away from the window. The flickering candles were artfully draped strings of fairy lights, likely held aloft by SecUnit's drone swarm. One of Perihelion's own long-limbed operations drones floated serenely near the door, draped in a garment made entirely of gauze and synth-feathers, one shoulder falling away from it's disc-like central body in a way that on any other being might be categorized as "enticing". Maybe to someone it was.
Matteo was suddenly very certain they shouldn't be here.
"I... I thought you were a ghost." They stammered out, feeling their face heat. "I'm. I need to go. To bed."
Their feet carried them back down the corridor more quickly than they had come, but not quickly enough for the door to slide shut on Peri's voice dropping into a syrupy fawning timbre.
"Now, where were we? Ah. I'm sorry, Officer Eden. I haven't seen my husband for days. I'm so very worried-"