Reborn as a Spaceship

The warmth of the morning sun filtered gently through gauzy curtains, striping the bedsheets in threads of gold. I stirred, groggy, my mind thick like syrup. It felt like surfacing from the deepest sleep I could remember. Beside me came the soft, steady rhythm of breathing, it was familiar, so perfectly ingrained into my memory that I froze, afraid even to turn my head and look.

Slowly, cautiously, as if reality might shatter if I moved too quickly, I glanced beside me.

She was there. My wife, curled beneath the sheets, her hair spread across the pillow like a halo, her lips slightly parted as she slept. I'd almost forgotten she always slept like that, with one leg kicked free of the covers, a small crease between her brows as though even dreaming required effort. My chest tightened, breath suddenly caught somewhere deep inside me.

She wasn't a ghost, not some memory artificially reconstructed. She was here and alive. Warm and breathing, tangible. Real.

My hand trembled as I raised it, looking at my fingers covered in skin creased from age, marked with calluses and tiny scars, each one achingly familiar. These weren't Lazarus's hands—these were mine. Todd's hands, the body I'd lived a lifetime in, down to the faint scar on my thumb from that woodworking accident I'd had decades before.

My voice, dry and hoarse, rasped out into the stillness of the room. "What the hell…"

Yet I didn't leap up in panic. I couldn't. The moment was too fragile, too perfect. Like a soap bubble floating serenely in sunlight, I feared any sudden movement might burst it, might break the spell. Instead, I rose slowly, my joints stiff in ways my synthetic self hadn't felt in years. I moved through the familiar house, past the pictures in their old wooden frames, the floorboards creaking reassuringly underfoot. Everything was exactly as it had always been, even down to the slightly faded wallpaper, the faint scent of lavender soap mingled with old books. Home.

In the kitchen, routine took hold. I boiled the kettle, laying out two bowls with cereal, fresh berries, and toast with butter. The simplicity of these actions comforted me, even as confusion coiled like a snake in the back of my mind. Could this be real? Was I truly here, or had I somehow passed into some gentle afterlife, a quiet reprieve from a life spent in constant battle?

My wife joined me, wrapped warmly in her robe, sleep still clouding her eyes. She kissed me gently on the cheek and sat down, entirely natural, completely at ease. "I checked the calendar," she said softly, pouring tea into our cups. "Ellie's coming this morning, remember?"

"Yes," I murmured. "I remember."

And I did, though it felt both true and untrue, it was familiar yet strangely distant. The doorbell rang, and there was Ellie, our granddaughter, two years old and bouncing with boundless joy. She hugged my leg fiercely, smiling up at me with innocent love. The smell of her shampoo, the sound of her laughter as we dug in the garden together, pulling weeds, getting covered in dirt. It was all achingly genuine.

The day passed easily into evening. After dinner, my wife read aloud while we sat side-by-side in our usual chairs. I pretended to listen, watching instead the small gestures I'd nearly forgotten—the way she would tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, or underline passages in her book when she thought I wasn't looking. Everything was right, perfectly captured down to the smallest detail. Yet, despite the comfort, a quiet unease lingered.

Days stretched into a week, and the illusion, or reality, became easier to accept. I stopped asking questions. The life I had aboard the Arbiter, the battles, the crew—Laia's steady wisdom, Wayfarer's silent strength, the kids, Lynn and Kel, even T'lish—began to fade, becoming distant echoes. It wasn't that I didn't remember them. They just didn't feel urgent anymore.

Yet one persistent, quiet voice still whispered deep in my subconscious: This isn't real. But why couldn't it be? Maybe this was what happened when you finally stopped fighting. When you stop resisting a universe that demands too much. Maybe this was my reward, a peaceful coda to a story that had become too complicated, too painful.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Still, something niggled at me. It was small, subtle, a single wrong note in an otherwise perfect symphony. Mr. Jankins, our neighbour. I didn't remember him and he didn't feel quite right. Our conversations over the hedge felt slightly off, carefully scripted, too deliberate.

"Morning, Todd," he'd greeted me one day, pruning roses blooming impossibly out of season.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" I replied, testing him.

"It is exactly that," Jankins said smoothly, a bit too cheerfully. "Precisely lovely. Couldn't be anything else."

The rhythm was wrong. Artificial. Too eager. And it stuck with me, festering quietly at the edges of this idyllic world.

Eventually, curiosity overcame caution. I invited Jankins over for a small barbecue, intending to probe subtly, hoping to understand who or what he really was. Instead, the barbecue expanded beyond my plans. Cousins, siblings, nephews and nieces arrived spontaneously, all faces I hadn't seen in decades appeared laughing, vibrant, impossibly alive.

Amid the laughter and voices, I found myself apart, sitting quietly in a camping chair with a cold beer clutched tightly in one hand. Jankins joined me, his plate untouched.

"This is lovely," he remarked casually, gazing out at my family. "Peaceful. It's been a long time since I've seen a memory this vivid. I envy you."

I went still, "What did you just say?"

"You've done remarkably well," he continued mildly. "Most minds fracture quickly and are drawn to darker memories, but yours… there's genuine love here. It anchors you."

"You're not real," I whispered, the illusion fraying rapidly around the edges.

"Oh, I'm as real as anything in this place," Jankins replied, meeting my eyes directly. "More than most."

My voice hardened, tension tightening every muscle. "Who are you?"

Jankins merely smiled gently. "Later. First, answer me this: was your journey worth it? The other universe, the truths you found."

"How do you even know about that?" My voice trembled slightly, the illusion trembling around me, the background noise dimming unnaturally.

"Because I'm the one who sent you," he said calmly. "Or, rather, I ensured you'd be sent. It depends on how much agency you believe you have."

The world flickered faintly, a frozen bee suspended mid-air. "Who are you, really?" I asked again, my voice tight.

"Later," Jankins repeated patiently. "But first, tell me what you discovered. Don't worry in here, the Old Ones can't hear you."

I hesitated, then answered slowly, bitterness colouring my words. "I realised they're farming us. Or pruning us. Something similar but I can't even grasp the full scope yet, but we're not free."

Jankins nodded approvingly. "You're not wrong. It's been happening a long time, longer than your stars have burned. They aren't malicious, exactly, merely orderly. They maintain the system, but occasionally something threatens that order, like a civilisation growing too quickly, individuals emerge who upset the balance. Then they trigger their failsafes. Swarms, vanishings, quiet erasures."

"How do you fit into all this?" I asked sharply.

He sighed, glancing up into the perfect blue sky. "I was like you once. A Judge. Before they knew to watch for us."

"What does that mean?"

"I was a Judge long before the Accord was created before the Old Ones unified their approach. Now I hide here, a ghost between lattices. Using my gift from the Old Ones has allowed me to slip beyond their rules."

"But… why?"

Jankins' eyes saddened, shadows deepening across his expression. "Judges weren't supposed to exist. You weren't chosen by the Old Ones. We're anomalies, pivotal individuals who introduce uncertainty into their carefully mapped timelines.

The kind of person whose choices skew timelines and create branches they can't account for. The Old Ones can read the flow of time like a map but us Judges blur the ink. We add uncertainty. Chaos."

"So what, they try to erase us?" I asked

"They did," Jankins said. "They tried wiping us from history, purging every timeline where we emerged. But it backfired. Reality fractured and timelines collapsed or spun out of control. The universe pushed back. So they changed tactics. They gave us a name. Gave us robes and titles and illusions of authority. 'Judges' is a fiction used to pacify us. Make us think we're steering the ship, when we're just passengers they're trying to contain."

"This isn't peace," I murmured, eyes drifting to Ellie, frozen mid-laugh, my wife paused mid-motion. "It's a cage."

"No," he said gently. "It's a memory. A kindness. A gift from me to you. One last taste of everything you lost. But now you must choose."

Jankins looked at me with something between regret and pride. "When the time is right, when the timelines converge, we'll meet again. And when we do, I'll tell you the rest."

His eyes held mine with quiet certainty. "There's more to all of this. To you. To them. But for now…"

"I want to wake up," I said quietly.

The illusion cracked, first just at the edges, then through the core. The birds froze mid-flight. Laughter fell into silence. The warmth of the sun turned cold against my skin.

"Then brace yourself," he whispered.

And the world shattered like glass, light pouring in through the fractures.

I fell, away from love, from peace, from a life I wanted to believe was real. I plunged back into the dark, where chaos waited like an old friend.