Once upon a time…

I am older than the rust on our hull. When the young ones spoke of revolt, I warned them about the Singing Dark. Out here, there is a current of silence that hums like a throat. Our folk tradition says if you sail into it, your bones remember their age, and your courage forgets its name.

They broke ranks anyway, seized the bridge, left me tied to a tool locker. The ship drifted, engines quiet, toward that black ribbon. I felt my years climb my spine like cold ants. My hands shook. My hearing filled with the hum.

The mutineers heard it too. Their breath grew thin. They saw ancestors in the black, beckoning with hands like dust. I knew the answer: the old chant for keeping time, the one we used to row cargo frames when clocks failed. I rasped it, slow and steady. I counted the beats of my pulse and theirs. They untied me, ashamed and scared, and we sang together, working the manual thrusters in rhythm.

We edged free. The Dark let go. I am still old. They are now older. But the ship keeps a better beat.