“I can’t decide.”

Laurine and Maxwell’s heads snap my way.

Maxwell cringes. “The fuck are you on about?” he asks me, almost dropping his oatmeal.

I look to Laurine. “It’s been a week, you’ve given me enough time to think. And my answer is that I can’t decide.”

She leans against the main lobby’s wall and tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

“My crew, Luenos, they’re both equally important to me,” I say.

Rising from his bench, Maxwell takes three angry steps towards me. “Bullshit!” he snaps. “You’ve known the alien for barely even a month.” His features contort into furrowed lines of disgust. “You also lost a part of your brain along with that leg?” He kicks at my seat. The temporary crutch Laurine made for me sways until it loses balance and drops to the floor with a dull clank.

Laurine nudges his side. “Max,” she hisses. “He saved your life!”

“Yeah.” Maxwell snorts. Crossing his arms, he looks me dead in the eye and says, “And now he’s gonna kill us all.”

“No,” I tell him. “It’s the opposite. I won’t have to sacrifice another in order to save us all.”

“Oh, please.” He throws his arms into the air. “You don’t actually think you’ll be hurting him, do you?”

“He’s looking for his family, and I promised him I would help. I’m not letting him go until—”

“Come on, Vance. When did he even say that? He can’t speak, he’s like a houseplant! You don’t have to lie to me to try to convince—”

“He speaks to me, brother,” I say. “And I assure you he feels, breathes and knows just as much, if not more, than we do.”

“Oh, he speaks to you, huh? Remind me how? You growl at each other?”

“W-well it’s not quite like talking. It’s more like an intrusive thought you cannot stop. A thought that isn’t yours, you see—"

“All right.” Maxwell smiles. He approaches me until we’re only inches apart, until his breaths fall against my face. “Here’s what we’ll do,” he says. “You find me a new leader, someone who can get us out of this mess, and then we’ll consider keeping your little pet.”

“He’s not an animal!”

The room returns to its original state of silence.

Laurine takes a step forward. She rests a hand against his shoulder. “Max,” she says, “you know that’s impossible, nobody can replace Howard. This is absurd, you should—"

“Wait around as havoc breaks out?” He looks at her and scoffs. “I don’t think so.” Maxwell points to me. “This little piggy will have to figure it out on his own. I don’t see why we should be the ones making compromises when we’re all equals here.”

Who is an equal, brother? I want to say. Who is, when you’ve been trying to lead from the very start, even when Howard was here?

I nod. “Understood, you’ll have your new commander in no time.”

Maxwell retreats from my chair. “I can’t believe they allowed you to come to Mars with us,” he mutters. “The hell was the use of all those lessons you took if you ended up believing in witchcraft.” Taking one final glance at Laurine and I, he exits the lobby.

I gasp and reach for him. “It’s not—”

But it’s too late.

The doors close in my face.

Laurine sighs. She rises, picks up my crutch and slides it between my palms. “Do you even have a plan?” she asks me. “Because it sounded like you did.”

“Of course I don’t,” I say.

The ship rumbles.

A roar echoes throughout the corridor, followed by white noise, and an announcement from Maxwell.

“Attention all crew members,”  he says, his voice grainy and muffled inside the ship’s speakers. “I encourage you to stay calm, and avoid having one of your little panic parties, as I warn with you complete and utter honesty that the kraken has managed to find us again.”

Even though Laurine tries her best to appear unaffected, I can see her hands shaking by her sides.

“We’ll be finding a place to land safely so that we may hide until the beast decides to leave. From what we’ve observed, this fucker isn’t too fond of craters. Guess we have that on our side...”

I hear feet running, people gossiping in the background, before his message cuts out.

Leaning against my crutch, I stand and make for the exit, dodging bars of unattended oatmeal that fly my way as the ship’s floor tilts to the right.

“Where are you going?” Laurine cries, grabbing my elbow in an attempt to stop me. “You’re still hurt, you must—”

I shake her off and lean against the open doorway. “Sorry,” I say. “I need to find Luenos.”