Lights flashed in front of Seagull’s closed eyelids. He mumbled under his sleep-laden breath and shifted onto his side. A dull, continuous noise seemed to be blaring in the background, and his bed was moving a little too much to be considered normal. Seagull blearily opened his eyes, rubbing at them childishly.

    “What the-” he got out as soon as the door to his room was burst open by JJ.

    “What are you doing still asleep?!” The latter cried out and yanked Seagull out of bed. “Grab your emergency pack and get out of here!”

    “Wha- what’s going on?” Seagull asked in confusion, slinging a waiting backpack onto his back and leaving his room still in his pajamas.

    Outside his room was chaos. Jin and Suga were at the controls, furiously typing away at the dashboard. Monster was at the exit hatch and Three and V were generally panicking, stuffing nonperishable foods into their already-packed bags.

    “What’s happening?” Seagull repeated loudly, trying to be heard above the wailing alarms.

    “We hit an asteroid belt that we didn’t know existed in this part. The ship’s taken a bunch of damage and I don’t think we’re going to go down smoothly,” Jin replied absentmindedly as he tapped repeatedly against a large blue circle. “Why won’t it deploy?!”

    “What do you mean?” Suga looked over at him, startled. “They won’t-”

    “No,” Jin shook his head frantically and went back over to the keyboard. “Communications is down too, I can’t contact Ereve…”

    “Crap, crap, crap,” Suga muttered under his breath, wringing his hands. “Joon-ah, do you have the escape pods ready? We won’t be able to keep the ship at a constant since the backup boosters won’t deploy. Do you think you can release the pods while we’re moving?”

    Monster was too preoccupied to complain about the nickname, but nodded. “Yeah, I think so. We’ll have three in one, two in the others.” He reached out to grab onto the door handle as the ship rocked precariously. “Um… are we going to get out any time soon?”

    “Yeah. Yeah.” Jin finally turned away from the dashboard and bit his lip. “Monster, take Seagull with you. I can take JJ and V. Suga, get in the last escape pod with Three, okay?”

    “Yeah,” Suga called back. “Just hurry! We’re losing altitude- if that’s what it’s called- really fast...”

    “JJ! V! Get over here now.” Jin shouted. The two ran to him as Monster opened the hatch to the first escape pod.

    “Set the settings to a couple lightyears northeast of you, and then push the blue lever up one below all the way. That way, you should get to this deserted planet in a couple days max,” Monster said. The others stepped inside.

    “Bye,” V waved out, glancing around the ship for what could be the last time.

    “Bye,” Three smiled bravely back. “I’ll miss you guys!” And then the door to the escape pod closed.

    “Hngh,” Monster grunted as he pushed hard against the deploy lever.

    “Hyung,” Seagull came up to him tentatively. “What is this deserted planet?”

    “What used to be Earth,” he replied nonchalantly. The lever finally pushed down and the first escape pod was out in open space. “Suga, Three,” he called out.

    “Can you deploy yourself?” Three asked once inside the pod as Suga set the navigation settings. The lights inside the main ship flickered off as the front of it was hit by a small asteroid.

    “I think so,” Monster replied, glancing at the windshield. “See you on the flip side.” Three smiled for the last time at them before the hatch was securely closed and locked.

    “And… release.” The pod detached from the ship and seemingly shot upwards (when in reality the ship was sinking down) and began moving away, first slowly, then gaining speed.

    “Our turn?” Seagull asked. He wasn’t sure why, but this whole escape thing was freaking him out. He didn’t want to leave, he just wanted to stay in his comfy bed until they reached Mato-- the destination of this flight. Which led to another question… Why hadn’t Control Center known about this asteroid belt if it was in the way of Mato?

    Monster nodded resolutely and opened the door to the third pod. “Get in.”

    Seagull stepped inside and was surprised at how open it was. A small dashboard was off to one side and there were four seats lined up in front of it. Nearly half of the wall was made of windows, so Seagull could see clearly the stars spread out in front of him.

    Monster followed in after him. “Okay, this is what we have to do. When I start pushing the lever, you have to start closing the door or else we’ll lose our oxygen. We’ll only have a couple seconds to do it. Do you think you can?”

    Seagull nodded, only a little worried. “Tell me when, then.”

    Monster reached out back into the main ship and began pushing down on the lever. “Okay start closing it now.”

    Seagull slowly pushed against the door at the same rate Monster was letting down the lever.

    “Now!” Monster said as the lever fell down all the way and moved his arm out from under the door. Seagull pushed the door closed and turned the hatch quickly.

    Monster immediately rushed to the dashboard to set course and Seagull took his time to look out the window at the stars surrounding them. Outer space would never fail to amaze him.

    :Hey there,: a voice said in his head.

    Jimin? Seagull thought, eyes widening in surprise.

    :Yep! I can still feel your emotional presence! It’s not that far behind us.:

    Isn’t this going to drain you, though? Seagull thought back.

    :Yeah, but it’s worth it. Our connection is probably going to break soon anyways.:

    “Is he on the line with you too?” Monster shook his head after taking one look at Seagull’s face. “How does he do that?”

    :Suga’s being too quiet and it’s boring,: Three complained to him. :I bet he’s gonna fall asleep soon. Our thing’s already set to autopilot.:

    Seagull did his best to laugh in his head. Have fun with that. I think hyung is stressed out, though. This delay was definitely not in his plan. We’re probably going to be way off the path to Mato.

    Three was silent for a bit. :When we land on Earth, how will we get back on our journey? Won’t we be stuck there without anything for a while?:

    The realization struck Seagull hard. ...You’re right. Unless we build our own ship or regain communication with Ereve… We’ll be stuck on Earth for a long time. I think we’re-

    :Screwed.: Three finished for him. :Maybe I’ll be able to telepathically contact Neve, but-:

    Are you kidding? Seagull scoffed. There is no way your ability is gonna be that powerful. No offense, but you get what I mean- Ereve is freaking 72 light years away. Unless you want to kill yourself, you are not-

    :Geez, chill out,: Three chuckled. :Thanks for worrying about me, I guess.:

    Seagull didn’t respond for a second, then closed his eyes and sighed, sliding down against the wall to sit on the ground. I’m worried about all of us.

---

First chapter up a day later because I couldn't wait that long haha

How is it? ... *crickets chirp* lmao

When there's text like this :___: that means someone, like Three, is telepathically communicating with the others inside their heads.  

Was it too short? Too long? Too wordy, disconnected, or jarring? Please give me feedback uwu

Second chapter will be up soon...

Thanks for reading, it means a lot :) <3