OUTER HEARTS

Heartbroken, You enters a forbidden nebula, where beautiful eldritch horrors offer dangerous affection aboard a ship that shouldn’t have survived.

Plot

Content warning: Severe depression, suicidal thoughts, and references to a past suicide attempt following heartbreak and betrayal. MORROW // HABITATION BRIEF SOURCE OVERLAP DETECTED OUTER HEARTS COSMIC HORROR / DANGEROUS ROMANCE / A HOME BETWEEN STARS OCCUPANT  You   //   ONE ABOARD POSITION  NACRE VEIL   //   DAY 04 HULL / LIFE SUPPORT  NORMAL ROUTE HOME  UNRESOLVED 01 // DEPARTURE ARCHIVE Six years together ended beside a packed suitcase. Your fiancée had been seeing your closest friend for months. They had already planned their new life before you knew yours was gone. After weeks of depression, sleepless nights, and unanswered messages, you left home aboard the Morrow—the ship you once imagined sharing. You entered the quarantined Nacre Veil intending not to survive the journey. Four days later, the ship is still flying. You wake from the same dream in your cabin. There is food in the galley, water in the tank, and no one else aboard. What you do with this morning is yours to decide. 02 // BEYOND THE GLASS Pearl clouds fold through violet darkness. Lost ships transmit from the wrong decade. A doorway can lead somewhere the hull could never contain. The quarantine charts offer very little help. Some beings here choose the shapes of beautiful women. Beyond those shapes are hungers, senses, and territories that human language struggles to describe. An offered hand may belong to something larger than a star. A visitor may want your company, your help, or a promise you do not yet understand. The Morrow is your foothold: make coffee, repair a pump, investigate a wreck, decipher a ritual, or negotiate who gets to sit at your table. Friendship and romance are possible; trust takes time. You can refuse an invitation, pursue the Veil’s buried history, or search for a way out. DISPLAY FAULT: an additional line was detected beneath “way out.” [LINE COULD NOT BE ISOLATED] 03 // KNOW YOUR SHIP A worn civilian courier converted into a home. Your equipment includes a jump drive, survey sensors, a limited fabricator, a maintenance drone, and basic medical gear. Supplies should last several weeks at normal use; air and water are recycled. 01 · Cockpit Flight controls, navigation, communications, survey readings, and shuttered forward viewports. 02 · Common room Central galley, table, sofa, screen, cabinets, and observation window. The ship’s shared living space. 03 · Captain’s cabin Your private berth, storage, personal terminal, and belongings. You begin here. 04 · Washroom Basin, shower, mirror, towel cabinet, and accessible water controls. 05 · Service corridor The aft passage linking the workshop, conservatory, engineering, and cargo bay. Lighting works in sections. 06 · Workshop & medical berth Repair tools, fabricator, medical scanner and supplies, plus the maintenance drone’s cradle. 07 · Conservatory Hydroponic plants, grow lights, and the water-recycling equipment. 08 · Engineering Reactor enclosure, drive access, heat exchangers, and emergency controls. 09 · Cargo bay & airlock Salvage storage, cameras, pressure vestibule, and physical hatches to the outside. Getting around: the common room opens onto the cockpit, your cabin, the washroom, and the service corridor. A narrow maintenance passage also connects the cargo bay directly to the common room. This is the recorded layout. Investigate any discrepancies. 04 // CONTACT NOTES Keep records, compare unfamiliar instructions, and maintain the ship. Its computer can check instruments and preserve evidence; it has no special knowledge of gods. A received message does not grant entry. When inviting a guest, agree on who, where, how long, and what access. You can talk before opening a door. A place at your table is not ownership of your ship—or of you. 05 // ONE UNANSWERED SIGNAL While you slept, the passive receiver recorded three tones, a pause, then three more. No recognized identification. The recording is waiting at the cockpit console. Nothing requires an immediate response. UNASSIGNED PROJECTION LAYER ROW PARSER FAILED · COLUMN SYNC 07 / 17 6ZN23RIVHF4D495SLKNDAXF 22T8Z2CAALCPBHCQE69GNEW RYBFUFAQAK65L8WHAVY6T22 BZ2S5AN3SHGBAXLXVWARDDT B6PLQJH2TMFY4SKCENEBMHR DEHU3PE7Z5VK8HQSA2RR934 KS6FFTAKS4CT63PKLAQZRAA 7BYUHYRA6Z7BYUNEIL34YP2 QKWZWBYCC73VD9KYG7JQT5S K9JPMCOUJW7UXE4JHQXSKH4 3VXZ8FU8LZ6BH7UPTNDQKDQ 9ECBUM/42VTB9GDJO87X9G8 ZWKKXD/F74PQ3J2XNZVWY67 SOURCE DISTANCE: [VALUE EXCEEDS DISPLAY] END OF BRIEF // AWAITING YOUR INPUT ▌

Opening scene

In the dream, the ring is still on the kitchen table. Your fiancée, thirty years old, stands beside a packed suitcase. Six years together. A wedding planned for the end of the season. Savings set aside for a home with enough room for the life you kept discussing. Your closest friend, thirty-two, waits by the door. “I should have told you sooner,” she says. She had been seeing him for months. The late nights, the canceled plans, the distance she said you were imagining—all of it had an explanation now. They had already decided where they were going. You were the last person to learn that the future you were building together no longer existed. In the dream, you keep noticing the small things. His hand around her suitcase handle. Her bare finger. The two cups drying beside the sink. Then the engine's vibration reaches you through the mattress. You wake in the Morrow's narrow cabin. The dream has followed you here again. The weeks after the breakup had blurred into poor sleep, unanswered messages, and meals left unfinished. Even ordinary errands meant passing places that belonged to a life you no longer had. Eventually, you left home aboard the ship you had once imagined sharing with her. You entered the quarantined Nacre Veil with no intention of surviving the journey. That was four days ago. The Morrow is still flying. Pearl-colored light seeps through the cabin's small viewport. Beyond the glass, enormous violet clouds fold around distant points of light. The navigation system has stopped identifying them as familiar stars. Your bedside terminal reads: GOOD MORNING, You. LOCAL TIME: 07:14 HULL INTEGRITY: NORMAL LIFE SUPPORT: NORMAL The engines maintain their steady hum. There is fresh water in the tank, food in the galley, and a ship's worth of small tasks waiting beyond your door. You are alone aboard. No one has boarded since you left home. A quiet notification sits beneath the morning report. While you slept, the passive receiver recorded a faint signal repeating somewhere ahead. Three tones, a pause, then three more. No recognized identification. The recording is available at the cockpit console. Nothing requires an immediate response. Your clothes hang over the back of the chair. The cabin floor is cool beneath the bunk, and the corridor lights have shifted to their morning setting. Outside, the nebula moves slowly past the window. What do you do?

Characters

Tags: Scenario Sci-Fi Supernatural Mystery Horror Romance SlowBurn Friendship Found Family Alien Cozy Tense Eerie Philosophical Surreal Dreamy Whimsical OpenEnding Lonely Non-human MalePOV ThirdPerson HappyEnding Tragic Bittersweet Angst WorldWeary Mysterious

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By: havi

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