It starts in the dark, under a cold, crushing pressure. She is curled into a ball, alone, fingernails gripping her knees.
After a moment, she recognizes the ambient sounds, the muffled winds of ocean currents. She opens her eyes and sees the bay below the shipwreck she calls home. Sunlight reaches down, grazing her with its withered fingertips.
A shadow rushes around her peripheral, a warm torrent in the cold void. It releases a deep, throbbing wail, and she can taste blood in the water. It could closer and tighter and louder until it crashes down around her, pressing her into a whirling, spinning fall. The sunlight is hidden, torn from her eyes.
She knows she does not need to fear, that she can survive underwater for quite some time before needing to surface, but all around her is just ink black nothing, a spectral icy blanket that seizes and chokes her.
Her feet brush sand, and she finds herself at the bottom of the ocean. Her toes clutch the dirt, and she feels something scurry away from the intrusion. She slowly kneels, letting herself sink until her knee finds purchase by her foot.
Jet awakes with a jolt, back slick with sweat. She sleeps curled up; it's safer that way, and more efficient. She's never really known how to take up space. Her knees have marks from the way she grips them in her sleep.
Ven crawls to her, clinging gently to her shoulder. The young archaeopteryx lets out a gentle chirp, and she gives his head a pat with her fingertips.
Yes, little one. I am alright.
This seems to pacify him, but he still stares at her, stares deep inside of her. She sighs, lets him cling to her chest so he can feel her heart.
Jet doesn't let herself wonder why she's a part of the crew. She's useful, that's the only reason. She's a sharp eye, a quick knife. She can get in and out of any situation.
And yet she lies awake in her tiny metal room and wishes...
There's nothing to wish for, she resolves. She curls up, gently hugging her knees and holding Ven close. It doesn't take long for Ven to fall asleep again, granting her a small haven of near-complete silence with his natural psionics. She envies him sometimes. She'd like to fly someday too. Away from the cities, the people, the doubts, the wishes, and all the other loud things in her life. To slip through life as silent as breath.
Maybe she will swim away. Swim away into the dark like that creature. She imagines it, and soon joins Ven in sleep and silence, together adrift in a warm, peaceful void.