2 weeks, 6 days
“They’re coming. They’re coming!”
Callisto snapped to attention, smoothing her hair back with a dirty hand. She cocked her hand cannon and ducked into a cabinet.
Argo’s voice whispered so, so quietly. “Close your eyes.”
“Wh-?”
“Close them!”
Together, blind and desperate, they listened as the Fallen skirted past her ruins. Very few had passed through the actual room she was in, too occupied with leaving to notice the changes.
Slow footsteps passed her cabinet with idle curiosity, and she felt the hammering of her chest. Her heart rate far outpaced the steps.
They stopped in front of the door. She could tell without her eyes by the smell of ether and metal that they were there. Every bone in her body wanted to call out to Argo, but noise and movement would kill them both. So she shut her eyes and dared not breathe. If they opened it, she could shoot, but she was dehydrated. Exhausted. Hungry. Irritated. Scared. Maybe the adrenaline and training would guide her aim, but she didn’t want to test it. And if she hit her mark, the death would draw every other Fallen in the vicinity to her location, and lower her survival rate with every body.
Her mind wandered to aiming the hand cannon. It was so difficult to keep track of things for so long, and she hadn’t sat for such a long time. Long-gone traces of Cayde's guidance ghosted around her arms. If she missed, he wouldn’t be very happy. He’d spent so much time getting her to be a good shot...
The Fallen outside her cabinet left, disinterested.
What she wouldn’t give for another lesson. Some inkling of normalcy and comfort. The option to ask him questions she knew the answer to and watch the light in his throat blink as he spoke. Just to hear him speak at all.
“Cal?”
She leaned her head on the wall, eyes still shut.
Argo’s voice cut through her daydreams. “The Fallen have moved on. We need to get going.”
“I miss Cayde.” She opened her eyes, and the glow of them in the small space reflected back at her and across his shell.
“I know you do. We’ll find him. Are you okay?”
“What if he’s dead?”
“We have to survive long enough to find out, don’t we?”
She struggled to keep her eyes open as the adrenaline left her. “What if he thinks I’M dead?”
Argo sighed. “Then you have to survive long enough to tell him the truth.”
She nodded. “Okay...alright...that makes sense.”
“You can’t sleep here, it’s too risky. Come on, Cal.” His voice dipped from commanding to pleading and back again. “Put this on your face.” A flask of water transmitted into her lap.
She watched herself pour water into her hand like a spectator until the shock of cold brought her back. Her eyes shot open, and she nodded resolutely.
“I can keep going.”
Argo sighed. “I know you can. Just a little further. Come on.”