“Check one.”

“Check two, Fen.”

The two figures, slim suits constricting their limbs with hulking oxygen tanks strapped to their backs fell silent again. In the distance glimmered something bright- a dot in the black void of space, perhaps a sun or an especially bright planet. If they were lucky, maybe it was a ship. 

Their limbs were locked together, elbows linked and back to back, one had their head tilted upwards and another looked down below- was it even below? Maybe it was up. Maybe it was right, left, here, there, where were they?

“Al,” hummed the figure looking up. “How long has it been?”

“Um,” the figure seemingly looking below said, flicking their wrist in front of their down turned face to check the time. “Um,” they repeated, after being met with a blank screen.

The person looking up sighed, then craned their neck backwards to inspect their partner. With the movement their oxygen tank clanked against the other person’s, and the metallic sound stuck in the void around them; sound doesn’t travel in space.

“We’re running out of oxygen,” said Al. They finally looked up at the other person and met their gaze. “Fen, we’re running out of oxygen.”

“I know,” Fen said, turning back around and checking a screen on their bicep. “What should we do?”

Al looked back down again to the below-above-left-right-here-there. “I don’t know.”

Again they lapsed into silence, the oppressing lack of noise pressing into their ears, seeping through their sheltered helmets and thick glass visors- pressing on their lips, cheeks, neck, like collars and muzzles without any breathing holes.

A timer beeped. The collar eased slightly.

“Check one, Al.”

“Check two, Fen.”

“You said my name this time.”

“I did.”

Fen inhaled. “You said my name this time.”

“I did. I always do, Fen,” Al said, tone quieting when a muffled beeping sounded from their helmet. 

Another beeping mirrored the one from Al. “Fen-”

“I know, Al.”

“We’re running out of oxygen, Fen.”

“Yes.”

Al clenched their fists, slightly jostling the elbows they hadn’t moved in who knows how long. “This is wrong.”

“Is it?” Fen returned, not looking back at Al, only looking above them. “How is it wrong?”

Al gulped, falling silent. They inhaled, exhaled, pressed a button to stop the beeping that started up again.

“It’s wrong because you’re not supposed to die.”

Fen didn’t say anything in return, just kept looking above them, kept blinking and breathing and moving, kept living.

“You’re right right now,” Al said. “You’re right right now, and you shouldn’t be wrong.”

“I’m always right,” Fen shot back, with a bite in their tone that hadn’t appeared in a very long, or a very short time. “And so you listen to what I say now: you let me die.”

“What do you mean?”

Fen, with a slowness that did not fit their urgent tone, just unlinked their elbows and started reaching back to grasp the round tube that held the air they breathed in. They grasped the metal that encased the precious supply, the metal that prevented the air from being vacuumed out into the unbreathable infinite room around them.

“You’re not supposed to die, Al.” Fen said, starting to unscrew something on their back. 

“Well then, I guess we’re in a disagreement here!” Shouted Al, suddenly moving from their spot looking below. They locked their other arm tight around Fen’s, preventing their partner from escaping. “Because I think for once, right here right now, you’re wrong!”

“Yeah, no.” Fen said, tone monotone and as devoid as the substance around them. “You’re going to live. I don’t care what else happens to me. You’re going to live, Al, and you better stay alive.”

“No,” gasped Al, “No no no no-”

“Yes!” Shouted Fen back, “Yes, you’re gonna live, and I’m gonna die-”

“But that’s wrong,” Al breathed, staring at the bright dot in the distance. It blurred, lines streaking through their vision, brightness bleeding out into the dark. “That’s wrong.”

Fen stopped struggling very suddenly, going lax and almost limp behind Al. The sound of clanging metal and unscrewing stopped.

Before, suddenly Fen said-

“I’m always right, Al.”

Both arms were wrenched out of their locked positions, and the rustle of fabric cut through their eardrums like pointed talons. It dug screams of anguish out of Al’s throat and determination from Fen’s racing heart; racing that, as Fen transferred the tank without permission, it slowly turned into a dawdle. A faltering step, a beat that sounded too much like a funeral march, a sound unheard by Al but felt by Fen.

Before, of course, it became both unheard and unfelt, a whisper between the two people that lasted far too short but left wounds and scars that stuck around for far too long.

A timer beeped. 

Al waited.

There was no sound. No words.

But in the back of their mind, they could hear. They would always hear, perhaps; the breathed out words that traveled through the air behind them, the words that sunk into their minds and told them that perhaps there was hope, that the light in the distance is actually a ship and that they would be saved, they would have as many oxygen tanks as they wanted and as many rights and wrongs as they could make.

Check one, Al.

“Check two, Fen.”

---

And now, through the windows of a sterile room in some concrete prism, through clouds and sky and air and void, is a person sitting in a room labeled Alex on the door. They have their arms interlocked with the beams of a chair they sit on, and they look down below at the tiled floor.

Above them there is a light, a faulty bulb that hums and flickers occasionally. It’s bright; almost too bright, and it casts shadows on the person’s face.

“Check two,” they whisper, in a tone that weeps tears and blood and anguish. They make a beeping noise with their lips, high and loose in the bustling noise in the room that comes from the hallway outside, and then after five repetitions they fall silent.

Then again. “Check two,” they whisper, and then another five beeping noises.

Then again. “Check two.” Beeping.

And then they say, “You’re wrong, Fen,” and start over again.