A S T R A

"There's something off about this place," I said slightly underneath my breath.

"You don't say?"

My eyes rolled underneath my helmet, "Besides the obvious," I shot back before taking another look around. "I haven't seen a normal person since we got here."

"A normal person?' She replied, glancing at some of the humans that walked past us on our way to the dome's butchery. "Are humans supposed to look different."

I eyed some of the humans that were standing in line to get some food, "Not how they look silly, who they are," I pointed at the humans, "Like every person in that line over there is a billionaire back on earth."

"A billionaire?" She asked in confusion.

"Like a stupidly rich person," I looked around us and locked eyes with someone who was chatting with other people on a bench, "Those two over there? The blonde one's a duchess and the dark haired one is literally the president of Mexico's daughter."

Sol barely spared them a glance "So what? Everyone in here's a celebrity?"

"Sunshine, the boy that came to pick up our mail was the lead singer of a popular boy band back on earth, like I mean very popular," We turned around the corner and I stopped walking for a second, "Even Teegan's mother is a well-known actress and Kofi's parents are huge oil tycoon's."

"They have the rich and widely famous in here doing desk jobs and running security," I exclaimed, "Where are the regular people!"

"Maybe they're doing the other jobs that we just haven't seen yet?"

"Yeah and the royalty are okay with scrubbing the floors?" I sarcastically replied, "No, they put them somewhere else. Perhaps there are other domes?"

She shook her head, "Wouldn't Tempest have mentioned them?"

"Or maybe there other levels of this dome," I frowned, the idea not even making sense to me, "Like floors?"

"Don't think about it too hard, " She gestured to a little building up ahead, "Look there's the butchery."

I nodded, still in deep thought whilst Sol began to lead me to our destination with her hand low on my back, rubbing circles into my suite for comfort.

My eyes followed the short round man who had greeted us at the entrance. He was surprisingly the only working here, Henry Muller, a man who if I remembered correctly came from a family that owned a plantation and used to the blood money to help fund a couple of wars. He had the kind of wealth that made law enforcement skip over him and the tax collectors go blind, and now here he was, showing me frozen meat.

"I was just wondering if the last time I was here I might've left something?" I asked him with a feigned nervous laugh as I patted down my pockets, "I seem to have misplaced one of my...keys?" I searched for any indication he had a clue what I was talking about but his face came back blank.

"Teegan Monroe right?" I nodded, "I'm afraid I haven't seen you since we opened up the place, usually Kofi here does all of your food runs."

I frowned, "Well what did I come here for the first time?"

He chuckled, "Weak memory huh?" He shook his head before wiping his hands on his apron and grabbing a key in front of him, "I don't normally do this but for the baby? I'll check in the back if I can find any parcels with your name on them."

He turned around and went to go and unlock a large heavy metal door behind him. As he began to disappear behind it Sol surprised me by diving over the counter and stopping the door with her pinky quietly before it completely closed, yanking me with her.

I looked at her alarmed but waited for the mans footsteps to get quieter before whispering angrily "What are you doing?"

"You don't actually trust that nitwit to find anything do you?" She asked me, pulling open the door with her hand at I winced at the loud creaking sound it made. I shushed her harshly, "Don't blame me, this door is shit," She said defensively holding the door open for me to enter befoore following behind me.

As the door shut behind us we were enveloped in darkness and silence until I heard the sound of shifting metal. "Are you...Removing your helmet?" I asked shocked.

The sound of the helmet hitting the floor made a clang and I felt her long black hair tickle my fingers as she shook it free. "I can see better without this thing and besides him seeing my face doesn't matter."

She entwined our fingers and began leading me down the hallway making me shuffle closer to her. 'Why wouldn't him seeing an alien matter?"

"Because dead people don't tell tales- watch your step."

We'd reached a spiral of stairs and she took the first step before noticing I wasn't following her. "You can't just go around killing random people."

"Ironic, that's exactly what the humans did," She chuckled, "Are you coming or not?"

"We don't know the full story, we can't just go around assuming everyone here is completely evil. They probably don't even knoww about the experiments or the other sick stuff," I told her, following her nonetheless, "If you want your pound of flesh we can visit Ambrose straight after this."

"Nah I'd rather kill off the people he tried so hard to protect first," We now stood in front of another door, "Even if we do end up dying on this horrid planet, I want to make sure I take some of these fuckers with me."

I reached out to touch the door before recoiling sharply, "I can feel it through my suit."

She cursed to as she touched it but yanked it open regardless, the light that escaped made s both look away for a second before our eyes adjusted and we could see what was inside. At the end of what was a large refrigerator stood Henry with his back facing us.

Sol made a gesture to me to be quiet as we both stepped inside and closed the door behind us, moving into one of the aisles to stay out of his sight. We both crouched low towards the cold floor and stayed there, keeping our eyes on him as he hummed, his ear filled with a device he was presumably using to listen to music.

We stayed there until he shook his head and walked further into the fridge and away from us and as soon as he was out of sight I reached up and removed my helmet too. "Suffocating?" Sol asked me smugly.

I shot her a glare, "No but if we're going to find anything in here I'll need my full range of eyesight," I told her before muttering under my breath, "And if you're going to kill him I might as well be comfortable."

"That's the spirit," She laughed, before looking around at our surrounding. Her every breath was visible and if I looked closely she was trembling slightly, "Out of all places to hide a key to Ambrose's office, why the fuck here?"

"She didn't want Kofi to find it, and let me tell you, he is really good at finding things," I explained, "I don't know why she'd choose here but if Connie says it's here it's probably around somewhere."

"And if she was lying?"

The thought hadn't come to me until now but the idea left a chill down my spine, "And what reason would she have to lie?" I asked starting to doubt myself and question why I'd believed her in the first place. "She's caught, we've already won."

"Buying time," Sol shrugged, as we both weaved through the hanging meat. There was enough of it to last a very long time which I assume was the point. But somehow I thought it'd be bigger. "I told her I'm going to kill her when this is all over, stalling would be the smart thing to do."

"I don't know, Sunshine," I shoved a heavy piece of meat out of the way so I could walk, not really paying attention to my next steps. "I feel like she really does feel bad about what happened, she seems like she wants to make things ri-

The words were stolen from my mouth as I slipped on something and hit the ground hard on my bad arm. Sol was immediately on her knees, trying to pull be back upright as I hissed in pain-my eyes pricking with tears. "You okay?"

"Hit my arm pretty bad but I should be," I stopped speaking when I realised what I was looking at. I had made eye-contact with a face, a frozen face. It was white, pale like me and their face was frozen over in a ghastly expression. It took me a second to realise who it was and when I did.

I screamed.

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