They had anxiety issues, didn't sleep well, often awakened in tears. After years of war, living in peace was very hard. They left to get groceries and returned to find a shocking discovery. A massive tank was in their apartment with an odd arrangement. One side was the life support system for the tank, the other side was a large metal box, almost as tall as they were, attached via wide metal tubes. Inside the tank was a huge octopus, or what seemed to be an octopus. Still, it was a lovely arrangement, and caring for the octopus, making sure the water was clean, there was plenty of food, soft music, was not only easy, but soothing. However, during a rain storm, when thunder set off the PTSD, another surprise occurred. The octopus could talk, and, acting as a therapist, was trying to calm them down. -- Anon Guest
War is hell, and all the devils wear uniforms. Ex-Sergeant Dae knew this as a fact. When they throw soldiers at a problem they didn't want to solve by other means, it got messy. It got brutal. Those who came back without their wounds on the outside often came back with a hell of a lot more damage where it didn't show. Not until something happened to set them off.
Thankyou for your service, soldier. Welcome to Respite Station. We're going to look after you. Sit. Stay. Good dog. Dae spent a solid week inside his livesuit until all scans confirmed it a habitable environment. The lung-melting spores of Kacticus V were a lasting lesson about assumptions. He didn't need PhysServ so no therapists turned up, but the department did gift him nutritionally appropriate rations, and then options to branch out into a healthy yet interesting diet. Including options for "sanity treats". Ha. As if food treats could restore his broken brain.
The habitat was, surprisingly, a Standard Double. Space enough for two people to not get into each other's elbows, but only one sleep niche. He'd run the test protocols daily and checked the maintenance alerts like the paranoid shit he was. Pros, he had more space to throw a wobbler when something set him off. Pros, the garden space was nice and big and had an artificial sky. Cons, some spaces in this place were big enough to have their own weather. Cons, including electrical storms. Cons, especially thunder, which carried through the superstructure. Pros, if it counted, MentServ was sending him a live-in therapist sometime real soon now.
Everything was padded. Little was breakable. If he had a wobbler, there wasn't much to harm. Soldiers like him didn't hang onto much in the way of memorabilia anyway. Less to wreck, less to be disturbed about getting wrecked. He didn't need things to hang onto his memories. The flakkers kept haunting him. Especially the terrors in thunder. Nothing breakable. Nothing to lose. Which was why the giant flakk-off aquarium was such a surprise.
He'd passed out after the last wobbler. Hyperventilating in foetal position will do that to a body. Sleeping on the floor wasn't doing him any favours, but at least the environment controls in the habitat were set to ensure he didn't get a chill from doing it. Dae ran himself through the fitness routine, got himself some coffee and a breakfast, and when he went to check on the niche, there was a tank there.
It resided in the yellow-striped KEEP CLEAR zone, so he presumed Station Management knew it was supposed to be there. Dae was pretty certain he didn't become an overnight icthyophile in the depths of his convulsions. Not for something as fancy as this thing was. The width and length of a sleep niche, including the machinery that ran it. Water, plants, bubbler, and some other weird little accessories he couldn't fathom yet. The label on one part of it said it was from MentServ, and he could not see any fish. There was an octopus in an artificial cave. Just... chilling out.
"Hey there," he said. "I guess MentServ reckoned I could use some company. Figures their idea of a live-in therapist is a flakkin' animal." Dae finished the maintenance routine on the niche, then checked the specs on the tank. "Well you're not going to die on my watch. If keeping something alive is good for my brain, so be it." Oh thank the Powers, this thing was rated to keep its occupant safe even through a nuclear apocalypse. So his periodic flailings wouldn't result in broken glass and a dead cephalopod. Though maybe not. He remembered that they were semi-amphibious somehow. "I need to read up on you," he decided.
The octopus watched him from its nook.
PhysServ had sent along some things for his new pal. Preserved fish. Nutrition tables. Fun facts about how the plants in the aquarium would be maintained, farmed, and harvested by his new friend. Dae went on a bit of a wiki walk about octopuses and learned that - yes, they were smarter than they seemed.
After an hour and a handful of assorted fishy things, the octopus got out of its niche and set up an array of shells and things on the substrate. Dae sat to watch his new buddy rearrange things as he ate. It was remarkably calming. He said, "Guess they gave me you because they didn't trust me with a kitten or a puppy. You're the first living thing I've talked to outside of Group, and I dunno how to speak octopus. Y'all are smart, I know that. How smart is still up to debate. But you're not a Terran octopus so I don't even know. I don't know a lot."
He had Group in an hour, a fact that he passed on to his cephalopod friend. It was after Group that he came back to bitch about the drama of the group and how some asshole always takes the last jelly doughnut before he got his fair share. No matter what, the jelly ones were always extinct before he showed up. Someone was a sweet tooth like him, sure, but they didn't have to snork all of them up before everyone showed their faces. Deesh!
Dae found it better therapy than talking about the war in Group. He could -and did- spend hours just watching the octopus go about their business.
They spent weeks like that. Dae companionably chatting to the octopus, which seemed singularly uninvolved with the entire process. It was actually doing him some good. That and the fact that Group had decided to bring in more jelly doughnuts than any cogniscent could conceivably engulf. Life was just that little bit sweeter as a result.
Then the big storm flakked everything to hell. It was an epic wobbler, he knew that much. He was in the war again. Brace for impact! Jones! Jones, get back here! That's a flakkin' order!
"Soldier! Atten-HUT!"
His bones obeyed before his brain could process all of the words.
"Name!" Barked a voice. "Rank! Serial number!"
"Elvis Dae. Sergeant. GP10041118-727S."
"Look around, spot five objects. Report!"
Flakkin' brass interfering with... wait. This wasn't the battle ground. "Sir! I see the fishtank, the hygeine unit, the latrine enclosure, the sleep niche and the soft seat, SIR!"
"Touch four of them soldier. Report."
"Sir, touching the soft seat, sir. Sir, touching the hygeine unit... the latrine door... the niche..." It was just thunder. It was just thunder. It wasn't the enemy's concussion cannon. It was just thunder.
"You're doing great. Focus. Breathe. Name three things you can hear."
Dae almost said, "Enemy fire," but it wasn't enemy fire. Had to remember. "It's just thunder. I hear thunder... I hear... my own heart. Spit, this is a bad one. Uh..." he looked over to the tank, where the octopus had halfway climbed out and had turned on a translator unit that was camouflaged with all the other tech on the tank. "Holy [EXCREMENT] you talk?"
"It's always a little alarming when my kind introduce ourselves to your kind. I get that a lot. We have to run the full five standard senses. Tell me two things you can smell."
The deep breath helped too. I hear thunder, I hear thunder, hark don't you? "Recycled air. My own stink. I need to wash."
"Yes," ze chuckled. "That can wait. One thing you can taste, now."
He took a swig of his medicated hydro-mix. "Lemon lime and unconcealable med-mix. Bleh." It was just thunder. He was shaking and it was just thunder. This was real and it wasn't the war any more and that distant booming was only a noise and he and his troop were not in danger... "Okay, so you're a someone and not a something... You got a name you'd like me to use? Oh. And sorry for calling you an animal."
"A reasonable assumption. I am used to it. My name is... Coral."
"Hi Coral. Gotta say, you're an excellent listener."
The problem with the thunder, they eventually worked out, was the dissonance. The artificial sky of his habitat's garden was always sunny and blue, and in the night cycle clear and starlit. Thunder in a blue sky meant huge amounts of trouble in the war.
It was shockingly easy to set the sky controls to match in-station weather. He had a drastic drop in wobbler incidents after that. In two more weeks, Coral's interaction livesuit would arrive and they could actually cohabit.
Two weeks after that, he adopted a kitten.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / MattiaATH]
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