“Hey Matt, we haven’t found anything yet, do you think Dennis and Crystal have found anything?”. “Hm. No idea, Nats. I hope they did.” I scratched the back of my head, this was starting to get boring, and just then… My phone began to ring. “Oh, looks like you predicted it.” Reaching for my phone in my pocket, I quickly answered. “Hello?”  Then I heard Crystal’s voice. “Hey, Matt...y, boy. Eh anyway, I have some big discoveries. Are Natalie and Arthur with you?”

“Yeah, tell me and I’ll tell them. Just gonna say already that we haven’t found anything of importance at all.”. “Ah, well… we found a dead body.”

“What?... Crystal, you’re not pranking me, right?” With the way she said it so casually, I wasn’t sure what to think… “Come on Matt, I’m serious! I wouldn’t joke about a dead body!” She sounded slightly angry, I guess she is serious. “Alright, please explain then.”. “So, the dead body belongs to a Shielder. It looked like his energy was drained somehow, probably his soul. He’s covered in black splotches as well.”. “A Shielder? Dear lord…” [Blink, beat]. “Then this mission is serious business… Can you wait for us so we can regroup?”

“Sure, but please hurry.”

“Alright, we’ll be there Crystal.” [Click…]

I quickly gave a brief rundown of the situation to Natalie and Arthur. Natalie got shocked nearly instantly, getting progressively worse the more I talked. “W-what in the world? Did any of you tell anyone at all?” “No…” I pouted and looked at her eyes directly. “I stood in my home for the remainder of the weekend.” Arthur shrugged.  “And you and I had eyes on each other, but, let’s not waste any more time, can we get moving?” We nodded our heads awkwardly and began walking the other way. Since we went in opposite directions without going left or right, it won’t be hard. 

Then out of nowhere, Arthur stopped us. “Hold it... There’s something nearby.”... “What…?” I was confused, and so was Natalie. “Huh?” I didn’t hear or see anything, and I don’t think Natalie did either. Arthur pulled out his handgun and aimed at a rock in the distance. We followed him. ...A strange, fleshy, seemingly arachnid thing came out from under the rock. It carried eggs on its back and had tentacles for arms. Arthur quickly shot it down, it released dark goop before melting… I was just shocked. I didn’t have time to react.

Natalie, Arthur and I got running to Crystal and Dennis just after. My heart beating at insane speeds and my instincts telling me to run… I’m not sure what I just got myself into… Our footsteps combined together built a noisy rhythm. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t look back. We just ran…

We then finally reached Crystal and Dennis. Dennis looked nervous at us. “H-hey! What’s that? Why do you look so shocked and why are you running?” Natalie catched her breath and answered him, struggling to talk. “This place is not empty. It has threats. I’m guessing that thing was what made that poor human pass away…” We looked at the corpse… Crystal pouted. “Uhh… Well I think I can figure out what happened to him in more detail, Matt, can you take a photo of him? It’d be useful to investigate later on…”, “What? I… Alright, fine.” I took my phone out of my pocket and took photos of the poor guy. His badge, and his… body from every important perspective.

Arthur then started talking as soon as I finished. “Well now, We really should get out of here while we can. Now that we know there’s weird aliens killing people, we should come back prepared some other time. Come on.” Arthur started walking towards the space ship. Dennis gulped and yelped. “Hey! Wait for me!” and followed him. Crystal let out cold breath. “Well… I think this is for the best, come on.” And followed after them. Natalie and I looked at each other, making direct eye contact. She raised her eyebrow, and all I could do was pout once again like a dumbass. We didn’t say a word, but we followed them and entered the spaceship.

After closing the spaceship’s gate, we took off our travel belts. Collapsing on the seat, I tried to process what had just happened. Natalie looked at me. “Hey, Matt, you’re taking a lot of seats over there.” She sounded sarcastic, clearly. “Agh, Boss, well, Natalie, Nats, umm… I’m having a hard time processing all of this. I…” In frustration, I covered my face. “I mean, how can you be so calm after Arthur shot a weird alien thing and we witnessed a corpse? I can understand Arthur and Crystal, Dennis is definitely all shaken up, but you… I thought I knew you!”

Natalie crossed her arms. “Matt… Let’s talk about this later. For now, we’re working. I know and understand that we have been friends for so long, but right now we should focus on our jobs.” “Fine. Alright.” I got up to sit and looked down at the floor. Dennis had already gotten the spaceship moving back to Stellar Site. To think we had to return to this place later on was bothering me. The hell am I gonna do if one of those things dares to touch me? I feel like if they do I’m gonna be naming an entirely new disease!

And, I feel like there’s something definitely different in Natalie. Ever since I started working here, she was different from what I remembered… I wonder what’s causing her to act like that, although I have my own problems too. I should probably talk to her about it later as well. Crystal sat down next to me. “Come on little Matt! Don’t look so down! Think of something happy and cheerful!”

“Like… what?” I looked at her and blinked, still recovering. Unable to think of anything… what’s she got to offer? “Like architecture! Building fun houses! You like that, right?” She smiled with a wide, flashy grin. “I have only built buildings for companies. Never a house for someone… Interesting. Thanks, Crystal.”

“Haha! No problem! You know I’m always here to help if you need it!” I thought about it as the ship traveled back to Meex. Building houses, huh… Maybe I should try building a house for a family when I’m free… Thanks, Crystal… of all people… with that throwaway line to begin with… Perhaps she comes up with ideas on the fly? Either way… We arrived back at Stellar Site, I stretched slightly and got up. Afterwards, I approached Natalie. “Hey Nats, do you mind coming over to my house tonight? I would like to talk with you about something. As friends.” Natalie looked to her side for a bit, then back at me. “Alright, sure. I’ll be there at six.” “Alright, let’s just continue working until then. Thanks.” We took a bus back to Silver T. Big to resume our working duties for the rest of the day.

I went on to inspect the building carefully looking for any issues as my Monday maintenance requires. Fortunately, the only problems were some visible worn marks on some of the walls, so it was easy to fix with some painting, cleaning and such. The day continued with nothing much else of importance. I tried to not think of that Raymond guy, or the Emptiness, so I went home to relax. And when it was about to be six, I heard my house’s bell. I walked to the door and opened it, to see Natalie. “Hey, Natalie. Welcome! You’re early…”

Natalie shrugged.  “Well it’s better to arrive early than late. I don’t want another Crystal incident…” I chuckled a bit. What a clown. “Alright then, walk in, I have no pets or anyone else so this is gonna be a chill night. Just us.” Natalie walked in and looked around. “Really? Do you live alone? Why?” “Well, I like solitude. It’s relaxing and quiet, now that I’m independent I wanted my life to be just about me. Anyway, sit down alright? I’ll get us some coffee if you want.”. “Coffee at night? Hmm… Well, sure.” Smiling, I walked to the kitchen to prepare some coffee, fortunately my kitchen was extremely close to the living room due to how small my house was which allowed me to keep track of Natalie,  and after leaving the kettle boiling I returned to her.

“I want to talk about not only Raymond and The Emptiness, but I want to talk about… us.” I looked to my side a bit. It was hard to keep eye contact on her. “Ah. I get it. Well, how about we talk about ourselves first? We’re at your house, I think that’d be better for the both of us.” “Alright…” I inhaled deeply, trying to gain courage for, well… I was nervous, it had been a whole year since I spent time casually with her. “Well, I’ve noticed that you seem less emotional ever since you started working. Why is that?”

Natalie just stared at me. I wasn’t sure what to think or say. After a few seconds, she answered bluntly. “It’s family problems.”

“Oh… Can I listen?”

Natalie gave me the look. “Alright, Matt. I don’t like to talk about my problems much, but we’ve known each other for a long time, and you seem genuinely interested, so I’ll make the attempt just this time. You owe me.” She then looked to her side shortly, then redirected her eyes at me. “It’s my parents. They’re really strict and insistent. Ever since we studied together, they always threatened to hit me or take away something from me. Since last year I moved to my apartment and I’ve been living alone just like you. But I talk to Arthur regularly, or hang out with him.”

“Ah. I see. I’ve heard plenty of stories of parents being too strict, sometimes more than necessary. I never knew you were in that group though, you seemed so cheerful and emotional during the time we studied together. Why the sudden change?”. “Let’s just say they started to become a lot more drastic at some point.”. “Geez.” The fact that my closest friend was going through so much when I had no idea… I felt powerless and… sad. “Hey, Natalie. You like to play chess, right?” Natalie blinked. “Yeah, pretty sure Arthur and I told you. Why?”... “Well why do you like to play it?” 

“Well, because it encourages the players to focus on it and not think of anything else. I can put my mind into the game and forget about my issues.”... “Ah, that’s good. The same thing happens to me except I just watch TV. I think I like the idea of doing so alone, you play chess because you want to think with someone, right?”. “Yeah…” Natalie chuckled heartily. “You just seem to like way too much to be alone. I prefer to be with people. I know I can be cold often at work, but when I’m free I just want to spend time with friends.”

“Hah, alright. How about we watch something while the coffee is being made? then we can play chess if you want. I’m not good at it, but I want to make my best attempt to help you have fun.” Natalie looked at me silently, just as I looked at her back. No words. No movement. Just us in silence… “Thanks.” Natalie broke the silence and smiled. It was hard to see her smile nowadays unless she laughed, so I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Alright, you got any favorite genres? I like police dramas. But anything that’s remotely interesting is fine by me.” “Hmm… Let’s watch an animal documentary.”. “What? Of all things? You sure?”. “Yeah, I want to see something relaxing and informative. And I like animals.”  …“Alright then. I’ll make the attempt.” Reaching for the remote controller, I turned on the TV, I searched around for something oddly cute yet threatening… A weird one called ‘Swamp Cat’ caught my attention. After shrugging, I played it. We watched it for almost eight minutes while the coffee was being made.

It was kinda boring but I appreciated the information, Natalie seemed to like it though, but that’s to be expected from a Terran. I got up and got us a cup of coffee each. “Do you like it dark, or should I add some milk?” “Milk, please.” Nodding, I added some milk to her coffee. I preferred my coffee dark, but it was nice to know her preference. After having the coffee ready, we spent about two hours drinking the coffee slowly and playing some chess. Needless to say, I lost all matches but one. She’s pretty good.