A MOMENT AGO it seemed like you willingly took the hand of someone beckoning to safety.

     NOW YOU'VE WOKEN UP in one of many chambers of Station 72’s nesting deck. If you had wounds, they’re (mostly) gone; if you had doubts they are - for the split second between dreaming and waking - gently reassured. This is correct. This is right. You’re safe here.

The only question is where and what here is exactly.

The compartment you find yourself in is small, though gently padded for comfort with enough elbow and head room to not be wholly claustrophobic. Still it’s difficult to re-orient yourself, and it quickly becomes clear that the easiest way out will be feet first, down the ladder you can just see the top of.

First thing’s first though: get rid of that tube running from the rear wall of the chamber to the base of your skull. Feel with your fingers down the length of the tube, to where it is pierced into your skin. It’s simply a matter of pulling it free. The moment you’ve done that, there’s the sensation like a rubber band snapping - a string in your hand being jerked. There is a rush - a sudden wave that rides up and washes over you as emotions both familiar and foreign find you. The sheer weight and force of them presses on your mind, building to a brief reactive flash of pain. After an agonizing second, it fades - muffles itself. Bearable. No time at all has passed.

Something is missing. Distant. You can’t quite put your finger on what it is, but now that you can think past the pain you can see the space you’re in has a small cubicle near the mouth of the chamber. Sliding towards the entrance will bring you close enough to fetch what is inside: all the things you brought with you, every small piece you own of the home you left behind. There’s a neatly folded pair of something like white pajamas there as well. They’re definitely in your size, though you have the option not to wear them since you’re still in the clothes you left home in. Of course, your clothes might not be in the best shape.

Sliding free from the chamber pod and stepping out onto the ladder, you’ll find yourself in an open space. The room is broad and pale and clean, its sloping walls featuring dozens and dozens of holes like the one you just wiggled out of. Most of them appear empty. In some of them are familiar strangers, sleeping soundly. The deck itself is mostly empty too, save for the people you may have woken up with and from here you’re aware of a noise in your head, like whispers across a crowded room. Some are clear - thoughts, words - others are simple feelings, flashes of emotions and senses. Some rise and some fall, and as you make your way towards the others it becomes clear that it’s louder near them. Some may draw you in even further than that - their minds call to you, a singing in your blood and your bones, a sense of rightness - welcome or not. Still, that pressure in your head doesn't worry you --Shouldn't it worry you? Does worrying - about the headache, about the world and people you left behind, or the strange place you’re in now, the odd collection of people you’re with and the fact that you feel strangely drawn to five or six of them - make the headache better? Or worse?

If you manage to push the sound aside and listen with your true ears, you'd notice you can't hear anything besides this small group of fellow hosts: their footsteps, their oddly sharp breathing. There’s no sound of traffic, no wind in the trees, no birds, no hum of a ship. Only circulating air and silence.

And nearby, just past the entrance to the Nesting Deck, two strangers: a man whose mind is very quiet, and a woman whose mind is not. They are here to welcome you, to let you settle in for a day - maybe less - and then they will usher you to the flight deck. There’s a feeling of emptiness in you that can only be resolved by chasing the link you have to the planet below.