Idea by Duskzilla (Guest)

There was no one onboard who'd be able to spend time with Maria but me. I asked the professor why he brought her onboard, and he told me it was because she was sick with something, something she was born with. She had no friends on the planet, either, so Maria didn't mind coming with him.

"You see, Shadow," she told me, "nobody would play with me, because I have this awful disease. The disease just makes me very, very sick. So sick I catch other nasty diseases too."

"Like what?"

She stiffened, like she was recalling some frightful memories, but turned towards me with a smile. "Oh, like… asthma and other things. When I got things like that, my friends wouldn't play with me as often..."

Once I couldn't find Maria where we were usually sat… I was concerned and then panicked, since Maria was frail- what if she'd fallen somewhere? I calmed down, since, maybe the professor and she were talking, so I headed that way.

The professor was alone in his lab, but when he saw it was me, he gave me a faint smile. "Ah, Shadow, my son," he started, "Maria isn't feeling well today." There was more equipment on the tables than before…

"Will she be all right, professor?" I wondered.

"Oh, yes. Sorry to panic you like that." He turned back to his workspace as he went on, "I'm just trying to find a cure..." I walked over to his side and acted as his assistant for the day.

While I was grabbing equipment, chemicals and books, I noticed the odd scribbles on the margins of the professor's notes on the symptoms of the disease. Anyone else would've made them to be chicken scratch or doodles of a scientist waiting for results, but the professor had us, Maria and me, to spend time with while he waited. "Chronic Metamorphosis?→Pigment Mutation," for example, on the side of the list he'd made of the illnesses she contracted. And on a separate list of uncommon ones: "Hemophilia?"

What was this… "Chronic Metamorphosis?" Metamorphosis of what? Was it something with the pigment in Maria's cells? And hemophilia-Why was there a question mark after it? Then again, I'd never seen Maria get a cut, so… but then the diagnoses were written on a separate list, with arrows pointing to a date: "January 27th-31st." Did this mean… did it mean that the Chronic Metamorphosis and the Hemophilia only showed during then?

As I walked back to my room, I was trying to cheer myself up- that Maria would be better tomorrow… however…Maria wasn't there either. She was probably just… recovering from whatever made her ill yesterday.

I thought it'd be nice to visit Maria, because if she was sick, maybe the doctors on the ARK were monitoring her vitals and making her feel uncomfortable, so a friendly face like mine might cheer her up and she'd get better sooner. So I walked towards her room, but, oddly enough the door was locked. Maria always had her door unlocked, even if she was sick, so I could see her, because she liked to still talk around me, and because no matter how catchy her disease was, the professor let me see her.

Odd. Maybe, maybe the professor was examining her illness. "Maria?" I called into the room. "Maria, are you okay?" If she was in there, she didn't answer me. I don't remember saying anything wrong the last time we talked- unless... unless she'd gotten offended by my questions about her illnesses. I didn't see Maria for three more days-unless, this next memory is true.

I worried about my friend those next days… so the night before I would see Maria again, I walked down the corridors of the darken ARK. Once again, her door was locked, but I knew the ARK well enough to get into it. I'd have to go up and around to her room, using the elevators and upstairs corridors.

The rumbling the elevator made was the only sound I heard as I made my way to the second story. The professor admitted it should be called the third story, due to that walk space from elevator to elevator, but this didn't matter. Down the hall of the second story was a ventilation system with a vertical pillar supporting the upper areas of the ARK. This was skinny enough for me to slide down as I made my way towards Maria's room.

I regretted not bringing a flashlight with me as I slid down. There was no way to tell if I'd gone too far, and I didn't know if this pole ever ended. If I jumped off of it, I might fall into an abyss leading out into space. Thankfully, there were little platforms that marked which floor they led to. The second one down led to Maria's room.

I walked down the hallway and tried to picture myself on the map of the ARK and which hallway would lead me to my friend. This was when my memory wasn't as horrible as it is now, so I must've found it and went into it.

I think I walked to her bedside because I couldn't hear her breathing. She was under the covers so I had to lift them up.

I wish I hadn't.

Her skin was unnatural, a bleach white that clung to her bones; the only place she had any color was her red, bleeding hands, and her hair was that of a dead corpse, patchy, and dull. But her eyes-or lack thereof- they were the worst.

Her eye sockets were black like those big eyes of hers had caved in. There was nothing inside, nothing but a void of darkness.

At first, I thought some maniac had come in and gouged out Maria's eyes and cut her hands, so I tried putting pressure on them, but I couldn't find the wound, and the blood just keep soaking my gloves, as if they were bleeding harder. I tried shaking her awake, this much blood could kill her-

"Maria! Maria!"

Her head turned towards me with as a puppet's would. Then I felt weak, as if… as if I was bleeding, and then, I couldn't see—

When I woke up, big blue eyes met mine with a smile, on a canvas of light, normal skin.

"Good morning, Shadow! Are you feeling better?"

I just held on to her like a little kid hangs on to his mother. I swear, I would've cried, maybe I had, I don't remember.

The next time I visited the professor, I couldn't find any of his odd notes around the margins. In Maria's room I couldn't find any blood stains.

But Maria said she'd found me passed out on her floor that night when she went to get a drink... and that I had blood all over my hands.

Thanks for reading! Remember: if you have an idea, refer to the end of Chapter 1!