The trial is over when my dream state vanishes into nothingness. In a matter of seconds, I will forget all that happened in it, and be judged accordingly.

A member of a clan is worth nothing at all if he does not remember his dream.

It is why I will soon be booted out and cast back into the wilderness. I am told that I was never meant to survive there, and here is the proof.

“Name?”

I reply, hoarsely, “Vivec.”

“Age?”

“32.”

A pause, and some scribbles. “Location?”

“Planet 235 Virgo. Eclipsed waning phase, 2nd day of the rising—“

“Stop, that’s enough.”

Hands begin untying me from the restraints, lifting my head from the chamber gurney. The same voice, the same trial physician, “Now, Vivec. What do you recall?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Should be my middle name. Yes. Nothing.”

“…Hm.” More scribbles, likely a scratch of my name off of their list. Murmurs from several staff. They are drawing this out so damn cruelly.

“Just give me the verdict. Or at least give me the respect of taking off the blindfolds to tell me.”

They do just so. My eyes flash into a strong light, and standing in front of it, the physician, all stoicism, flipping through his notes.

If it weren’t for the incessant buzzing in my head, I might have laughed at his humorously serious expressions.

He’s no fun. “Send me on my way,” I decide, “or kill me. I know it’s what some of you like to do.”

The physician does not look up from the papers, but raises his brow.

“So this is what you recruits perceive of us.” He tsks. “Wasted potential, you have.”

I wring my wrists thoroughly. Waste of effort, I think. Waste of a good job application.

“I could say the same about your _shitty_ organization. You think we still can’t survive out there alone? Check your facts, doctor, some of us are handling ourselves against the Voidsent just fine.”

A flash of offense crosses his features, but he remains professional.

“You will make for a fine case study, if you can succeed.”

I scoff. “I _will_. I _have_.”

“Yes, yes. Now, what is it about our dreams that make survival rates so important?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Answer me this, and I will let you go freely. Complete with your ship.”

Oh. So, they hadn’t disposed of it for parts, after all. And here I thought the trial would either give me a secure job in the clan’s safe zone, or be my jail sentence.

“Dreams are…our way of fighting against the Void. They give us the prophecy of forsight. The Voidsent are present in all things but, pardon my swears, they are _fucking_ useless pricks at predicting our human moves.”

“Dreams are but an antidote to their evil. They will serve to sustain us, not ensure survival. _Your_ chance is nill, given you do not have the gift of forsight.”

“Don’t remind me. I’ve heard it plenty of times from non-medical professionals. I don’t need to hear it from you.” I begin to shuffle my feet off of the gurney, hoisting myself back up in this god-forsaken chamber they call the Recuitement Bay. “Where are my clothes?”

“Now, now, Vivec,” the doctor holds up a swift hand. “You may leave, but only blindfolded again. You and the rest of your lot are free to roam at your own peril, but you are outlawed, under any circumstances, to know—“

“Where your _fucking_ safety zone is. Yeah, I got it.” The more he talks, the more pissed it’s making me. “Let’s get this over with. I’m done here.”

The nurses try their hand at dressing me, but I shove them aside. My hands are still shaking from the adrenaline and micro dosing of a dream-instigator, a little green syringe of liquid magic said to be their most powerful hallucinogenic.

Of _course_ it hadn’t worked on me. It only gave me the horrible side effects. The nausea I could deal with, but I’d rather be back in the comfort of my ship than around these strangers. Only the more reason to leave this organization fully behind.

My people and I were camping out on this planet full of Voidsent for ten years, and we’ve survived so far. I think we can make it a whole lifetime or more without the promise of a sterile, shitty sanctuary.

I don’t know why I even came here in the first place.

Desperation, maybe.

We were getting so hungry.

And the buzzing in my ears is growing louder and louder as of late. I felt the urge to ask this doctor if he had heard of anyone whose dreams were somehow replaced by a constant sound.

But I swallowed my voice with my pride, to be cast back out into the Voidsent.

Because fuck this doctor. He wouldn’t even crack a smile when I flipped him off on the way out.