"You didn't hear me?" He became disheartened, hope draining as quickly as it appeared.
She got up and went back to the chair.
"Oh no... seriously, don't ignore me again, it's getting annoying!"
...
"You're just dragging yourself into this hole with me, blockhead." He rolled his eyes, angrily, but his voice carried a strange tone of concern.
Time passed in a distorted way on that distant moon, near the black hole. For Nunes, the hours dragged on, each minute more suffocating than the last. The silence, interspersed only by the soft sound of the girl tapping her fingers on the keyboard and the ship swaying on the moon's waves, was torturous. He was trapped, wounded, helpless. Without rights. Without his grandma.
The insurgent continued working on something he had no idea what it was. From where he was, it was impossible to see anything on the monitor screen.
A long time passed, a vast and empty time. He spent that entire night trying to talk to her, but she completely ignored him, a wall of indifference more solid than any concrete.
During the early morning, she turned off the lights and went to sleep on the sofa in the living area, even with Nunes constantly disturbing her, his pleas lost in the oppressive silence.
The nighttime hours passed slowly, weighing heavily on him. He couldn't sleep; he needed to stay alert. What if she tried something with him? What if... He had to stay awake, his eyes burning, his mind in a whirlwind.
CHAPTER 3: TRIGGER
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Day 2 – Elias IIIa – Oceanic Shores
The next day, everything repeated. The woman woke up, ate something canned, and early in the morning prepared to return to the computer.
It was the second day in that hell. It was the second day Nunes hadn't eaten or had a drop of water, his body crying out for every single drop.
On that second morning, the heat began to infiltrate the ship, making the environment even more uncomfortable, a humid stuffiness that suffocated him. His clothes were drenched in sweat, completely wet, clinging to his skin. Desperate, Nunes began to plead for water, his voice extremely weak from exhaustion, just a hoarse, desperate whisper.
"Ma'am..." His voice was hoarser, almost inaudible, a lament. "Please, just give me some water."
The woman was sitting, more bored now, looking at the monitor with her hand supporting her chin.
"Seriously... I'm feeling sick, please..."
She continued ignoring him, but couldn't help a small smile on her face, visible through the balaclava, a cruel glimpse of her pleasure in seeing him suffer.
"I... I'll do whatever you want, just give me a sip of water, please..." His voice was a dehydrated whisper, a thread of sound carried by cracked lips.
She finally looked at him. Her eyes narrowed, an expression hard to read behind the balaclava... but there was something there. A flicker. An idea. A decision.
"Will you be quiet if I give you a sip?" Her voice had an ambiguous tone, between disdain and provocation.
"Mm-hmm, I promise!" He nodded with a weak smile, his eyes shining with pathetic and sincere joy.
A man who believed.
Who wanted to believe.
"You asked for it."
She got up, with all the calmness in the world, as if it were just a trivial task. She picked up a glass. Filled it with water. The sound of the running water was almost poetic, crystal clear, reverberating in the metallic silence of the ship.
Nunes couldn't look away. The glass was more than an object—it was salvation, it was a truce, it was perhaps... a gesture of kindness?
When she came back and knelt down, he looked at her as if he were seeing a miracle walking towards him.
"Thank you, seriously, much appreciated!" He spoke with childish enthusiasm, almost moved, as if she had just saved him from imminent death.
"Say 'Ah,' open your mouth," she said with an almost maternal gentleness.
And he obeyed.
The glass touched his dry lips.
The water... oh, the water... It flowed down his throat like a chilled, pure, blessed balm. The sensation was almost mystical. Like waking up in the middle of a cold night, after a nightmare, and taking the perfect sip from a glass forgotten beside the bed. A refreshment that brought not just relief, but meaning.
It tasted like life.
Like childhood.
Like Frutiger Aero.
But, like a slap of fate, her hand suddenly flipped the glass.
All the water he hadn't had time to swallow was mercilessly dumped over his face.
The thermal shock cut through the delirium.
The cold water invaded his eyes, ran down his chest, dripped onto the handcuffs.
It washed away the illusion, soaked the shame.
It was like being baptized by humiliation.
He didn't react immediately. He just stayed there, static, feeling the icy trickle on his skin, the cold clinging to his already damp clothes. His eyes watered—he no longer knew if it was from the water, the pain, or pure shame.
She looked at him as one delivers a punchline, and laughed.
A short, genuine laugh. Almost cute.
If she weren't a daughter of a bitch.
"Alright, you asked for a sip, I gave you a sip," she said between giggles, with the cruel lightness of someone who steps on a bird just to hear the crunch.
He remained silent.
His mouth agape.
His soul crushed.
"Ah..." he let out a weak laugh. But there was no humor in it. Just despair trying to escape through another outlet.