Over black, a distant melody breaks through: the SOUND of waves crashing on a shore, an undulating rumbling in the distance...
INT. A CRAMPED, DECREPIT SPACECRAFT - NIGHT
The controls glow halfheartedly in this crawl space. Empty plastic pouches drift, torn open. Some fridge magnets line a small patch of the metal wall, faded, some bearing scorch marks - all their markers unrecognizable now.
A singular skylight softly illuminates the face of FARA (35, gaunt and weathered). She stares up at the faceless memorabilia, impossibly silent.
She moves slowly towards one. Her forearms brace against the wall, body hugging it to get closer. Her fingers pry one off - the paint long gone but it still bears the unmistakable shape of a clamshell.
She lifts it toward the skylight. Examining it, squinting, she curiously grazes its ridges, waves growing closer when...
A child moans weakly.
She lets out a deep sigh.
She pushes off, forcibly, body launching away from the skylight and into the depths of the spacecraft, turning a corner to reveal...
LAILA (10, Fara’s daughter, small even for her age), half-asleep. She wriggles in her sleeping bag, firmly fastened to the wall. Around her, small chunks of vomit hover.
Fara grabs the nearest empty pouch and scoops up a piece. She seals it off before moving on to the next mess.
She fishes out a towel from her back pocket, wiping at the corners of her daughter’s mouth. She loosens the sleeping bag around Laila’s neck and checks for stains. Spotting one, she licks a clean corner of the towel and gently dabs as she inspects.
She hesitates on a patch of mussed black hair, towel lingering.
BEGIN FLASHBACK:
INT. THE SAME SPACECRAFT - TEN YEARS AGO - EARLY MORNING
Stark white medical lights wash over. We see droplets of blood, clumps of crimson tissue suspended in the air.
Fara sits, alone, legs strapped down to the reclined pilot seat. She wears nothing but an old shirt, naked from the bottom down apart for some grimy socks.
Tucked against her chest, a wrinkled baby rests: Laila, still covered in milky discharge and mucus. She begins squirming against the nook of her mother’s neck, crying out.
FARA (tentatively) Easy, shhh...
She tries her best to soothe. Her hands move in automatic gestures, wiping feet, then small limbs, back, neck. Arriving at the crown of her head, she grazes wisps of black hair, like her own
- it scares her, her arms slip, losing hold of the crying Laila, as she drifts away.
For a moment, Fara lets her.
FLASHBACK END:
INT. THE SMALL SPACECRAFT - CONTINUOUS
Red warning lights flash: sirens fill the room. Cursing, Fara throws the towel in frustration, and takes off.
She slips into the holding chamber, slamming shut the internal hatch. She suits up quickly: twisting on her helmet, fastens a tether. She reaches for the lock, but spies the floating shell, having drifted down the hall.
Against her better judgement, she shoves it into her suit's chest pocket, before cranking open the external hatch and forcing her way out.
EXT. OUTSIDE THE SPACECRAFT - CONTINUOUS
Fara crawls her way along the metal body, the exertion fogging up her visor. She twists the gauge to try and clear it out, but her breath comes faster, so she climbs faster, more clumsy, more desperate. Searching for the problem, her eyes land on a leak coming from the stabilizers at the end of the ship.
Eyes wide, she quickens her pace, lunging, almost animal-like across the metal body.
It begins to tilt - then roll. Her feet lose hold, hand grasping tighter. She clings as the ship lurches and wrenches her around.
Her eyes spot the leak again - a few feet away. Next to it, a steel rung, a small target, but enough to get close. Gritting her teeth, she launches for it as a hail mary, arms reaching
- and she misses, hits the ship hard, and goes hurtling into space.
It’s all ragged breath and white noise.
Under this daze, we see flashes of a younger Fara:
A bag at her hip, she shuffles forward, shoulder to shoulder in a sea of other restless bodies. She trudges towards shore, clamming bucket hoisted above her, her mother’s call echoing.
She stands in shallow water, waist deep, waves lapping at her swollen belly, before it washes over her as...
The tether yanks her, violently - it’s enough to halt her momentum for a brief second, while she watches the shell drift further away into this starlit space.
Her fingers ghost over the tether’s clasp: the tide reflected in her visor.
INT. THE SPACECRAFT - MOMENTS LATER
It’s still, a lingering silence. The controls glow. The bags drift mid-air. The skylight illuminates the space with a soft warmth. An empty, dustless patch rests amidst the sea of magnets.
Around the corner, we see Fara floating, like in our opening episode, but half-asleep now. Her daughter curls into her side, body twisting to get closer, head tucked into the crook of her neck.
Fingers bruised from her fight back, she gingerly brushes aside a lock of hair, the SOUND of a distant shore fading away as we...
FADE TO BLACK.
