These Tainted Waters..

Joni

The Ephira’s rooms for crewmates were always small. A pretty obvious fact, right? The cluster of blankets and pillows directly on my bed also made this room feel way smaller than it should’ve, the bleach white walls also played a factor in the claustrophobic ways of this room.

The white walls were an off-color from a bleached color though, and there were some splotches on the wall that looked oddly familiar to dried blood. It added to the emptiness of this room--- to a great extent. I looked towards my bedside table in a jerky manner, looking at all the items that were meticulously, yet messily placed on the table. One of the main things that were on my desk was stale bread and a flask of half-drunken water.

“Ki…” I muttered to myself, knowing that all the useless stuff that was placed on my bedside table was his doing.

I then looked toward the corner where he had been hidden out, legs crossed with a paper on his thigh and a feathered pen in his left hand. I could easily tell he was in a state of utmost concentration, and if not obvious enough, he was slightly biting his lip; a common thing he did when he was concentrating. From my angle, all I could mainly see was his head full of vibrant blue hair which stuck out in a crowd.

“Oi, Ki,” I spoke out, as a sudden feeling of dread came across me. I simply ignored it, as Ki looked up at me with his eyebrows furrowed.

“What is it, Joni?” He replied, seeming to have been thinking of saying something else.

I quickly cut him off before he was able to say it, “The captain is up to something, Ki. I can tell.”

Ki looked confused, “That’s a bold assumption, Joni. What makes you so sure about this?”

A sudden anger came over me, “He’s the captain, he has to know about Aramis’s disappearance! He’s covering something up, I know it!”

Ki’s expression softened slightly, as he stood up, walking towards me, “I know what Aramis meant to you, Joni, but are you really sure about this?”

I nodded, “I am very sure, Ki.”

Ki went up to me, and slightly rubbed my shoulder, as a way of trying to comfort me. Which wasn’t working as effectively as he might’ve been thinking. “I’m going to confront the Captain. I'll tell him I know he’s covering something up, and that I’ll find out whether he likes it or not. I will figure out Aramis’s disappearance.”

Ki started to slouch. That wasn’t a good sign. “Joni,” he paused, closing his eyes for a minute. After that minute, he opened his feline-like eyes again which were filled with a look of determination, “I’m coming with you.”

My eyes widened, “You are?”

Ki nodded, as he then flung open the door, walking out first onto the main deck. The clamoring and small chatters of the crewmates felt deafening as we walked by, and I could feel some of their eyes on the back of my head. They had always started to look at me weirdly after Aramis’s random disappearance as if I was suddenly going to go feral.

Ki then made a little gesture to me, as if to say ‘Hurry up’, to which I responded by walking slightly faster. Ki rolled his eyes at my antics, which made me snort. Seeing Ki annoyed had always been amusing.

I jogged over to him, spending about a minute walking over with him to the captain’s quarters as I then suddenly stopped in my tracks, right before the door. I put my hand over my chest, as I felt my heart race. And the same sense of dread was coming back to me. It was as if every fiber of my body had been telling me not to do this, and that this was going to end in tragedy.

But I didn’t listen to that gut feeling.

Ki had his hand over the metallic doorknob when I looked up again, his face was scrunched up with confusion. He didn’t understand what I was doing, and in my best guess, he probably thought that I was having second thoughts about doing this. I frowned, as I swatted his hand away from the doorknob. “Stay outside, and if anything happens,” my expression dulled, “Don’t forget me, okay?”

Ki’s face went blank, “I will never forget you. But I don’t like what you’re implying. Joni, you’re one of the closest friends I’ve got on this ship. I don’t want to be alone again.”

“You won’t be alone again, I promise, I’ll come back. You know I don’t go down easy.” I said, in one of the most genuine tones I could muster. “Here,” I tugged at my silver necklace, and unclasped it, then scrunching it up, as I handed it to Ki. “This is a symbol of my promise.”

Ki looked at it, with an undefinable glint in his eyes, “Okay,” Ki had said simply, “I will trust you.”

And with that, I grabbed the cold, metallic doorknob, and headed inside the captain’s quarters. Unaware of what would meet me next...