Codename Alpha: Intervention

"Are you alright, Conrad?"

I jolted awake, panicked. My heart was racing, and I was panting heavily. Whatever I had been dreaming about disappeared from my memory almost instantly . Instead, I saw my dimly-lit quarters, alongside Marine looking at me, concerned. I quickly wiped away the tears I could feel around my eyes. "What?" I exclaimed, still getting a bearing on my surroundings. I pushed away the pillow I had been squeezing. "I... yeah, I'm good." I wasn't under the covers, and my laptop had somehow found its way back on my bunk, which I had a vague memory of.

"I don't mean to pry, but it really didn't seem that way to me. Hasn't, really. You've been pretty restless all night," she said, leaning on the ladder up. For whatever reason, I noticed that she was wearing pretty much the same thing as me, a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants.

"Just nightmares." I knew that I completely failed to make that seem convincing. I pulled my laptop up and opened the lid, hoping she'd just drop it. I saw that the time was 3:57, so I had at least gotten some sleep. Already on my screen was a picture of the two towers that Falco had mentioned earlier today, set against the sunset, which was an odd orangish color on this planet.

"Listen, you weren't sleeping for most of the night," she sighed. "And I'm sure you know that as well. If you don't mind me asking, have you spoken to the counselor recently? Or at all?"

I sighed as well. "I... well... no, I haven't." I moved my laptop back to the side so I could see her better. "I mean, they don't have any spaces for appointments, do they? I wouldn't want to take that away from someone who actually needs it."

"Eh... yeah. She's pretty booked, but it's also her job. If you'd like, I could schedule for you. If you don't want to talk about it with me, that's also entirely okay, but I do really suggest talking to Chief Anfisa." Marine stood up and nodded at me.

"Well... alright. I'm..." I sighed again. "Sorry, I just... completely forgot how to speak, I guess."

She laughed a bit. "It's okay. But... I am gonna head back to bed. Actually, quick question- are you sure nobody else had these quarters before? I keep smelling someone else in here other than you. Well, not like, actively in here, but them having been here, sorta- if you get what I mean."

"Nope, they were completely vacant. I might need to take a shower or something myself, then, if it's that bad." That was a lie... at least, in a way. I didn't really want to keep thinking about it, though.

"Nah, don't worry," she laughed again. "It's very minor. Goodnight, Conrad. Or... good morning, I guess."

"Yeah, one of those two." She turned back around and climbed back into her own bunk across the room, pulling the curtain and turning off her reading lamp. In the ambient light provided I leaned over the side of mine and put my laptop back on my desk - hopefully for real this time - and drew my own curtain.

I laid down on my favorite side and closed my eyes, hoping that sleep would come to me quicker this time, especially seeing how I likely got very little in the hours preceding whatever I had dreamt about.

Thankfully, I seemed to fall asleep pretty quickly. This time, I was woken up by the sound of my alarm clock beeping. As jarring as the sound of my alarm clock was, I did feel pretty rejuvenated, like I'd woken up from a power nap or something. Really, that wasn't too far from the truth. I typically set my alarm to go off at 0540, meaning that I had probably gotten about three hours of sleep. I laid in bed for a couple seconds, letting myself wake up further, when I realized I now had a roommate who probably wouldn't take kindly to the interruption.

Pulling back the curtain, I saw that Marine's was still closed, but I still hopped down, stumbling as I landed on the floor, and shut off my alarm with a firm slap. As I did so, I could hear groaning from her bunk, making me feel a bit self conscious, as I'd obviously woken her up, for the second time in the past few hours.