This was it. If this was going to be the death of her, so be it.
Miranda pulled on the thin nanofabric gloves, sealing her jumpsuit. Her cabin was dark as she selected azure and purple sticks from her dresser. They hung in the air, ready for her attention. They painted her ashen eyes and earthen-toned lips in smooth strokes. Then, back in the canister they went.
A centimeter long stick of red floated free. It spun once, twice, trailing memories of damp city streets and the sour stench of cheap alcohol. It, too, was tucked away in the canister. She still hadn’t decided whether to replace the color stick, or to simply toss it away. The canister clicked into the dresser top, a latch securing it in place. It was almost time.
Beside the door her helmet hung, a vice of polymerized glass and plastic. It fit perfectly over the groves of her collar, latches closed the seams. With a slow breath, she savored the second of perfect darkness before her door opened. Lights, painful even behind the protection of her visor, lined every corner of the polished titanium hall.
The clip of her boots was the only sound among the closed doors. Their contents were just as dark, if not more empty than what she left behind. This time, she was the only one willing to risk the trip. Space, it seemed, was less welcoming to her kind than Earth.
Hushed whispers washed through an adjacent hall. Chairs and tables covered every available surface tactfully spaced over floor, walls, and ceilings. Every seat was filled. Travelers, faces animated, drink pouches in hand crowded the space. They wanted the same that she did.
Miranda couldn’t help but feel jealous of them. Their hair flowed in invisible currents with each subtle movement, their laughter bounced off the walls without filter. The click of her steps, the tell-tale attach and release of magnets caught the attention of those nearest. Their silence was the first ripple that moved through the room. The second ripple followed: heads turned and smiles died.
It had been years since she felt the discomfort of cold. But a chill never failed to wash over her when faced with an ocean of eyes darkened with cold curiosity and heated disdain. The third ripple saw the whispers arrive. One might think it a mercy, that she couldn’t hear them beyond the safety of her helmet, but that one had never needed to know the difference between the whispers of a disgruntled neighbor and a disturbed mob.
When she didn’t stop, they moved. They floated away, opening a void around her, a bubble of isolation in the throng. At the wall she stopped, and placed a hand on the smooth glass. They hadn’t opened it yet. Perhaps they wouldn’t, just to spite her. Perhaps she would wait there to spite them, denying them of the delicate treat she had starved for.
“Why are you here?” A woman asked. Though she hovered in perfect stillness beside her table, her knuckles were white on the back of the chair.
Miranda didn’t respond.
“Isn’t it enough for you to stalk our streets? To tempt our children so you can feast on them?”
Murmurs rose like a gentle wave. Had it not been for the tightness of her suit, her hair would have been on end. The pearlescent buttons of an officer uniform glimmered as he came to the woman’s side. She shrugged out of his grip sending him back with a withering glare. It was a shame that the display would be recorded as an attempt to control the situation.
The woman demanded an answer. Others vocalized their own issues with her, some loud enough to overcome the plastic barrier between them.
“Leech,” they said.
“Murderer.”
“Leave!”
Miranda turned tothe window again. Steel rivets, perfectly sealed, stared back at her. Were they really not going to open the slide? Though she consumed no oxygen, ribs pulsed like shallow bellows seeking what they could never have. Would she die here in the same way? The thought was a corroded wire, twisting tighter around her still heart.
The loud impact of a latch releasing cut through the noise. Miranda leaned forward, an inch from laying on the glass. The rivets jerked. Steel bands shuddered as seals released, allowing the shield to slide away.
An endless void was unveiled, broken by a sharp ring of ivory light. Away from the ring the wisps reached, vanishing into the all consuming aether. The wire of fear snapped in relief. She hadn’t missed it.
The ring snapped, its purity lost as reds, greens, and blues enveloped the severed edges. At first the crescent was only the width of a strand of hair, but then it grew. The whisps faded, sharpening the line until radiant beads formed at the height.
Behind the shield of the ship’s viewing window and her visor, Miranda watched as the beads shifted and moved as the horizon grew. A mini star formed as the beads merged, melting back into the horizon as the earth moved ever farther along its path. On the planet, she knew some place would be experiencing the dawn that she watched. Watching the golden star rise over mountains as she watched it peek around the edge of the world.
The subtle complaint of gears and sliding steel was a cruel awakening. Around her people had already begun to leave, the reason they stayed having already passed. The shutter was closing, the break of dawn no longer of interest to the masses.
“No, leave it open! Just an hour more.”
None responded. Above her, the operator stood, his face illuminated by the warm lights of his screen. He hadn’t heard her.
With the flip of a latch her helmet hissed. The cuffs of her gloves, once blue, turned red. Those that ignored her now turned, eyes wide with fear. When her helmet dropped to float at her side, they began to shout.
“Please! Leave it open!” Just an hour would do. The earth would have moved enough to allow its indigo waters and ribbons and spirals of ivory clouds to be revealed. It was the side of the world she could only dream to see.
The lights were too harsh, even shielding her eyes with her hand did not let her see if he reacted to her plea. The shutters were still moving, sliding ever closer together. She pressed her palm to the glass, willing them to see, to understand her need. Officers pushed toward her against the throng. The throng needed no other motivation to flee the room.
She looked back, the slides were half way closed and still the earth was dark, no glimmer of blue or green broke through the abyss. The hard edge of steel pressed against the back of her head, warm with the laser’s charge.
“Put the helmet back on.”
“Just a little longer…”
“I won’t say it again, Vampire.”
The earth, no larger than the palm she pressed against the glass, vanished behind steel sheets. Her reflection stared back, orbs of tiny water hovered in the corner of her eyes. Her palm slid from the glass, limp at her side. She closed her eyes, cutting out the harsh light to bring back that silver halo. At least she got to see the dawn.