Episode 34 - Two Versions of Stillness
She found him in the Viewing Room.
The small one. The one with the overstuffed chairs, the film-burned curtains, and a projector that only played memories when no one was watching.
Bernard floated gently near the ceiling, half-dissolved into the shadows, humming something in a key she hadn’t heard before. Not music. Not really. Just… tone.
She sat without speaking.
He adjusted his shape slightly so a soft tentacle could hover near the armrest beside her.
They stayed like that for a while.
Eventually, Olivia said, “I’m not scared. Not exactly.”
“I know,” Bernard said. “But you’re allowed to be.”
She stared at the blank screen.
“I think I remember places I’ve never been.”
He pulsed quietly.
“That’s normal here.”
“I think… I’m starting to want to go toward them.”
Another soft pulse. “That’s also normal here.”
Olivia glanced at him.
“You always float in the same way when something important is about to happen.”
He grinned with at least six eyes.
“You always make tea that tastes like intention when you’re ready.”
The room shifted around them.
Not physically.
Just in tone.
The screen flickered, briefly.
It showed Olivia’s desk. Then her reflection. Then the projection booth. Then static.
She didn’t react.
Bernard sounded thoughtful when he spoke again.
“I used to think people like you were just… passing through. Brief sparks. Temporary entries in the ledger.”
“And now?”
“I think you’re something the station didn’t realize it needed.”
A pause.
“Something we didn’t realize.”
Olivia leaned back.
Tail curled around her boots.
The key in her pocket felt warm. Not urgent. Just expectant.
“I don’t want to disappoint it,” she said softly.
Bernard blinked slowly.
“You haven’t disappointed anything. You’ve just… activated more options.”
She laughed once.
“That sounds like something the vending machine would say.”
“She gets it from me.”
They sat in silence again.
Two beings who had nothing in common on the surface—one made of questions and coils, the other made of breath and will.
But both were archivists now, in their own way.
One remembered everything.
And one was just beginning to choose what she would become.