Reya was curled up on her bed holding a small, handheld mirror. She studied the lines of silver now present in her ever-paling lavender eyes. They were a recent addition she’d only just noticed and soon the others would begin asking questions.

  She didn’t want questions.

  So in her room she hid, using her recent breakdown as an excuse to get away from everybody for a little while. She thought back to Adrian’s comment he’d made while they were on one of their walks regarding her paling eyes. She’d dismissed it at first, thinking his remark to have been due to a trick of the light.

  Now, however, she couldn’t deny that she was changing into something different.

  With the evidence staring right back at her, she couldn’t live in denial any longer. At first, the transformation had seemed so far away. Things were accelerating, she could feel it. Every day, her eyesight got a little better. Everyday she felt a slight tingling sensation from somewhere new in her body.

  After seeing how Stanley had ended up, she was terrified she’d be next.

  Kell was an amazing doctor and researcher. That he’d failed Stanley so utterly as to be unable to learn anything about his condition apart from the fact that he was dying from it left little hope for her. The only saving grace was that whereas Stanley had only been a partial success to the experiments back on Earth, she’d been experimented on directly by the gru’ul, hopefully with more promising methods and understanding of how to get their desired results.

  It had been five days since Stanley’s death and yesterday she’d received the news she’d been dreading. It was time for another interview. So many details surrounding it were a mystery, and nobody had any real information on what to expect. High Command had been rather dodgy about confirming or denying anything, simply claiming that all would be fine.

  Somehow, that did little to reassure her.

  A soft knock on the other side of the door resounded and Reya knew it to be Adrian. She didn’t know how she knew, save for the fact that she had an unshakeable belief that he would be the one to open the door.

  Adrian entered the room holding a small box, proving her theory right. He closed the door with a soft click. “The tombstones for the funeral just arrived, along with a small package for you,” he said. “Tassie said they were coloured contacts.” He took a moment to inspect Reya, noting the changes in her eyes. “I wasn’t sure why you needed them but now I understand. Your eyes weren’t like that this morning.”

  “I know,” Reya said as she took the package from Adrian and opened it. Inside were several pairs of lavender-coloured contacts. “I didn’t want the others to see and start asking questions. With these, I’ll be able to buy some time before I have to answer any they might have.”

  “You’re under no obligation to reveal anything to them, even if they ask,” Adrian replied. “I understand if you want to talk about it with Rann and the rest of the team when you feel the time is right.”

  “I know I’m not,” Reya sighed, “but after what happened to Stanley, they’re going to want to know if they notice anything strange about me. Until now, I couldn’t hide my eyes.” She frowned. “It’s strange how well-timed these contacts are, now that I think about it.”

  “I’m sure Kell or Tassie told the Tribunal about your situation. If they knew you had to do another interview, they probably wanted to hide the fact just as much as you do. Maybe they sent these as a contingency in case your eyes did change to silver like mine did?”

  “I suppose,” Reya said, highly uncomfortable with the fact that her medical information might have been shared to High Command directly now that she was a civilian. She opened one of the reusable pairs of contacts and put them on. Her eyes looked just like they did before they started turning pale. The contrast was enough that she could truly tell just how pale they’d gotten over the last several months. Hopefully, the others wouldn’t notice their magic return to a darker, more normal shade of lavender. She sighed. “What do we need to do for the funeral?” she asked.

  “Show up,” Adrian replied. “Maybe say a few parting words and otherwise simply remain respectfully quiet while others are talking. That’s about it, really.” He didn’t expect an overly long ceremony for Stanley and the other deceased, given that nobody else present really knew them. If anything, Stanley might get a few remarks as his urn was buried. “I’m going to go help them unload the tombstones and get them set up. I’ll come get you when it’s time.”

  Adrian left Reya in their room and joined Beor and Rann on the ship. Three beautifully polished black granite tombstones stared back at him. “Is there anything wrong with the engravings?” Rann asked when she noticed him inspecting them.

  Adrian quickly read over the text on each stone and happily saw that everything was as it should be. “No,” he replied. “We can bring these over to the burial site.” After much discussion, it was decided to have the graves in the backyard of the house. The clearing was large enough to host the tombstones without impeding the functionality of the yard and the others agreed that it didn’t make sense to have the graves out in the middle of the mountain or anywhere near where the ship might end up.

  Beor nodded. He and Rann were both dressed in their combat suits, intending to make full use of the extra strength they granted to lift the heavy stones onto the floating metal platform beside them. It was eerily reminiscent of the ones Adrian was placed on when being transported to the surgery rooms in the gru’ul facility, but he chose not to comment on the similarities.

  Rann and Beor picked up the edges of one of the tombstones and lifted, grunting from the effort. Despite their combat gear, the tombstones were heavy. Enough to make Adrian wonder how much. Gingerly, while the others were loading their load onto the platform, he bent down and grabbed one of the remaining two headstones. With a firm grip on it, he bent his knees and lifted with all his strength.

  And easily picked up the tombstone.

  It had a reassuring weight in his arms, utterly surprising Adrian as he thought it would be far heavier than it actually was. He eyed the struggling pair next to him curiously. They set down their load and turned around to the sight of Adrian innocently standing there, holding what took two people to move without a care in the world.

  “How are you able to even lift that?” Rann couldn’t help but ask. All the tombstones were the same size. The fact that Adrian had picked one up by himself utterly baffled her. She had first hand experience as to how heavy they were. And that was while wearing her combat suit.

  Adrian frowned. “It’s not that heavy,” he said. “I’m surprised you both struggled with yours.”

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  Both Rann and Beor were speechless. “They’re very heavy,” Beor confirmed. “You’re the weird one for being able to lift up that much rock. Are you even exerting yourself?”

  “Not particularly,” Adrian replied. The gru’ul had pushed his body to the extreme during their experiments, focusing on making him stronger and faster than he’d ever been before. However, the equipment used wasn’t a good reference as to how much stronger he’d become, since it was always the same equipment, simply somehow heavier. With a shrug, he walked over and deposited he tombstone on the platform. “Should I get the other one?” he asked awkwardly.

  “Be my guest,” Rann said, If Adrian could do the work for them, she saw no need to exert herself doing heavy lifting that clearly didn’t bother the man. She made a mental note to ask Tassie just how much the tombstones actually weighed. High Command was going to want to know about Adrian’s abnormal strength.

  Adrian repeated the exercise and the three of them brought the tombstones off the ship and to the backyard where they were to be placed.

  Carefully, the three of them unloaded the headstones from the platform and positioned them properly on the ground, forming a line. Stanley’s was on the left, followed by Adrian’s family’s in the middle and the one for the other experiments from Earth were on the right. Satisfied at the display, Adrian told the others it was time to finish the preparations for the funeral.

  Rann went back to the ship to get the urn holding Stanley’s ashes and Beor went to fetch a shovel from the shed to dig the hole for the burial. By the time Rann returned with the urn and the others in tow, Beor had dug a small hole several feet deep. Adrian thought he’d have to go get Reya himself, but Rann had done an excellent job ensuring everybody was present, including the ever-busy Tassie.

  Rann handed Adrian Stanley’s urn and stood back with the others, who all looked at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. “Thank you all for coming,” he said loud enough for everybody to comfortably hear. “I’m surprised at the turnout since this is a rather informal event. I appreciate it and I’m sure Stanley would as well.” Since everybody had been briefed on what to expect out of the ceremony, Adrian wasted no time. “We’re gathered here today to remember those who have departed this world and mine before us. Stanley was the unfortunate victim of human experimentation that turned out to be lethal. You all tried your best to get to know him during his time here and while communication was an issue for the most part, you were nothing but nice to him, even in his final moments. Thank you.

  “Stanley and I are far away from home. Nothing here is the same as what we knew. While we might be alien to you, everything here about your world and your culture is alien to us. Though we may have our differences, there’s no denying that your military is the one who saved us from our fates, sheltered and fed us, cared for us while we were unable and helped us survive this strange, fantastical world.

  “Unfortunately, Stanley wasn’t the only victim of the experiments on Earth. Countless others suffered by Ava’s hands, either directly or indirectly. I know not how many came before my batch of test subjects, but it matters not. The second grave is primarily dedicated to those I shared a cell with on Earth, but it also serves as a remembrance for all those who didn’t survive their experiments. I am truly, officially, the sole survivor of my batch. For those who underwent horrors we’ll never know, I will remember.

  “The last grave has nothing to do with the experiments. Right before I was abducted, my last living family members perished in a car crash. My older sister and her husband were pronounced dead on the scene, while their daughter died later from her injuries in a hospital. I was in the process of organizing their funerals when I was abducted. I don’t know what ever happened to their bodies, but this grave is for me to find closure and to have something to remember them by. I will never see them again. Never hear their laughter or hold them while they cry. Never again joke with them or feel their love. I never made my peace with their deaths, but now I can.”

  Adrian was tearful by the time he finished his sermon, his voice thick with emotion. Several of the others teared up as they heard the grief in his voice. Reya in particular, now aware of the entire story, understood more than the rest the suffering and anguish the graves before them represented. Their stories were her secret to keep, and she vowed to never forget them, so that the poor souls could live on in someone’s memory.

  Adrian lowered Stanley’s urn into the hole and invited the others to give their parting words. They each took a small handful of dirt and tossed it down over the urn. The process didn’t take long, as nobody knew Stanley that well, nor any of the others the other graves represented. Once finished, Beor filled the hole back up and the ceremony was over.

  The crowd dispersed until only Reya and Adrian remained. They stood side by side, their gazes fixed on the graves before them. “Thank you for letting us be a part of their burials,” Reya said softly. “I don’t know how death is handled entirely back on Earth but today was a good indication. As you can probably tell, respect for the dead is highly important to us.”

  Adrian said nothing for a moment, his eyes lingering on his family’s grave. “I never had the chance to do this until now,” he said softly. “It feels more real, seeing the grave stones in front of me. I wish you could’ve met my family. They would have loved you.”

  “I would’ve loved that. The stories you’ve told me of them make them out to be wonderful people,” Reya said. The tears Adrian had been holding back during the ceremony spilled over and ran down his cheeks. She reached for his hand and held it tightly. She studied their grave once more, making full use of her language lessons to read what was written on them. “May they rest in peace.”

  Back inside the house, Jyn looked upon Reya and Adrian before the graves from the window. The others dispersed, off to do their own things while Tassie returned to the ship to continue her research. Rann approached him from behind. “I’m surprised you allowed this,” she remarked as she followed his gaze.

  Jyn turned to face her. “You think I would disrespect the dead?” he asked, his eyes sad. “Just how little do you think of me?” Though he might not know what the other human experiments on Earth suffered through, if they were anything remotely similar to what he knew of Adrian’s treatment at the hands of the gru’ul, they deserved his utmost respect, alien or not.

  Regardless of their hideous skin colour.

  Rann studied Jyn carefully. The last two weeks had shown a startling change in his demeanor. Ever since Stanley’s collapse, something had been different. She needed to figure out what. “You’ve done many unreasonable things lately,” she replied. “We don’t know what to expect from you anymore. That’s the problem. Anything involving Adrian is met with hostility from you. Given that the funerals also involved him, we assumed you’d somehow be against them. What changed?”

  Jyn took a deep breath. “That’s classified,” he replied. He knew Rann wouldn’t be satisfied with the answer, but he refused to get in further trouble with High Command by telling her of what he’d come to learn despite having orders to keep his new knowledge secret.

  “Classified?” Rann bristled. “Such that you can’t even tell your second?” She was furious. There were so many secrets floating around that it was causing the team to break apart. How could Jyn keep information from her? What was so important that nobody else could know?

  “I can’t,” Jyn said, shutting her down before she could launch on a tirade. “I’ve been ordered directly by High Command not to disclose anything. General Nessah gave me the order on behalf of the Tribunal.”

  Rann paled. “Is that why you came back from the ship drunk the other day?”

  “Yes,” Jyn nodded. “I learned something so terrible that I didn’t know how to take it. It’s made me reassess how I’ve approached our mission thus far. I can’t even say I’m glad I learned of it. I pushed hard for something I wasn’t ready for. High Command was right in that nobody else should know the full extent of it. Not even I should’ve learned anything. In hindsight, I’m surprised they let me.”

  Rann took a moment to digest the severity of what Jyn had revealed to her. “Are we in danger?” she asked. If what Jyn learned caused such a drastic shift in his demeanor, she reasoned it must be due to a threat.

  “It’s a danger to everyone,” Jyn said. “One so terrible I never thought I’d live to see the day where something like it would exist. High Command is hopefully working on a solution to it, but I can’t be certain.”

  “Are you scared of it?” Rann couldn’t help but ask. She saw the naked fear in Jyn’s haunted eyes and bit her lip. Already, she’d learned more than she was supposed to and couldn’t help but wonder if it was related to the time Tassie, Reya and Adrian returned from the ship out of sorts. She felt that she should know more information, but if Jyn had finally learned more secrets relating to the facility and didn’t like what he saw, should she really?

  “I’ve never been more terrified of something in my life.”