The protein bar tasted like chalk. Maple knew what chalk tasted like, knew the suffocating way it clung to your tongue and throat when you licked it, and was grateful that the protein bar didn’t feel like chalk on the way down. She was less grateful for the way her stomach roiled after each bite, the acid that threatened to spill over into her mouth. Somehow she managed to swallow through it, imagining the nutrients spreading through her body like rain on parched soil.

As she ate, tiny bite by tiny bite, she took in the room around her. Mostly, it was green. Not painted green like the kitchen had been, sun-faded and stained wherever their hands had lingered – on cupboards and around doorways. Not even green like the garden had been before it withered – anemic and almost-yellow. Maple had never seen a green like this green. No. These greens, so full of life and health that they seemed unable to contain it, some of it spilling out as a sort of verdant glow.

Logically, she knew each of these green things was a plant, but experientially her brain refused to comprehend the vibrant diversity that faced her. Some had stems as thick as her thigh and bore leaves that reminded her of nothing more than a windmill blade, which brushed the transparent ceiling. (She was thankful to them for obscuring the black abyss that she was still unwilling to acknowledge.) Others had thin tendrils that reached out and grasped at every surface: racks and shelves stacked with boxes, crates, and tools. A few were in bloom, with crisp petals in shades Maple didn’t even have the vocabulary to describe.

From her seat on a squat metal crate, she could have reached out a hand and touched the nearest, a bundle of spears reaching up from a fat pot on the floor towards the lights that shined from between the seams in the walls and ceiling, but her fingers trembled at the thought of it. As if it might vanish with her touch. That everything might vanish.

So she ate until the bar was nothing but a flimsy wax package, and she admired from afar. More than anything, she tried not to think. About where she was. About where she’d come from. About what would happen next.

Until the door on the opposite end of the room whooshed open and a woman strode in.

The first thing Maple noticed was that everything about her seemed larger than life. She was tall, much taller than Maple was, taller even than her mother and father had been. She was broad in the shoulders and hips which were emphasized by her loose flowing dress and the layers she had piled on over top: woven sweaters and scarves. Her hair was a mass of reddish-brown curls half-pinned to the top of her head, threatening to topple over her shoulders and face at any moment. But more than anything, Maple noticed her eyes, her enormous grey eyes that met her own as she approached. She flinched before realizing that it was the woman’s glasses that were responsible for their monstrous size, the lenses almost two centimetres thick.

“I’m back!” The woman announced, handing Maple a bottle filled with clear liquid she assumed was water. “I imagine you need something to drink after eating that.”

She cringed, taking the wax package from Maple’s hand.

“Sorry, I know they taste horrible, but I wasn’t sure you’d be able to stomach too much fibre right away.”

Oh, Maple realized, she was the person in the space suit.

She recalled the enormous figure in the bulky grey suit that had stomped through the front door, taken one look at her and her brother, lifted him up and demanded Maple follow. Maple hadn’t argued, hadn’t had the strength, even when she saw the ship and knew what would happen next. Knew where the stranger would take them. She followed silently, drank water straight from a fountain that the person indicated, took the offered protein bar and sat where she was told. The stranger had taken her brother to a different room, saying he needed help.

Ash.

“Where’s my brother?”

The woman exhaled and sat down on a box across from Maple.

“I took him somewhere he can rest and did what I could for him,” she hesitated, those gigantic eyes assessing the near-skeleton that was Maple, “He isn’t well. Neither of you are, but I think you’ll be alright with some food and water. He needs a doctor.”

“We haven’t had a doctor in a long time,” Maple mumbled, knowing that it was meaningless. They weren’t even on her planet anymore. Probably, no one was.

The woman nodded anyway. “I’m taking you to one right now. A really good one. In my opinion.”

For the first time in over a year, Maple felt a burning in her chest that might have been hope. She tried to swallow it, but it burned so badly that she felt her eyes trying to produce tears. None fell.

She took a sip of water.

“It’s going to take two days, at least,” the woman said, “and I can’t promise what the doctor will say. But we’re going to try, okay?”

“Can I see him?” Maple croaked, before taking another sip of water.

Instead of answering, the woman asked, “What’s your name?”

“Maple.”

The woman smiled, and in that smile Maple felt the same burning that had woken in her chest.

“Maple,” the woman repeated, “I want him to rest for a bit, and then you can see him.”

Maple nodded, but her eyes dropped to the floor. Before she had known she was going to die. That they were both going to die. But at least then they had been home. Her thoughts flickered again to the blackness peeking through the leaves over her head.

There was a crinkly noise and she looked up to see the woman’s hand reaching out, a small packet opened between her fingers. An offering.

Maple hesitated, then reached inside. She pulled out a hard brown circle, slightly sticky. “What is it?”

“Maple,” the woman answered, like the punchline to a joke. When Maple stared in confusion she smiled and said, “It’s candy made from a maple tree. Well, the sap that comes from one. You put it in your mouth and suck on it.”

Maple lifted up the candy and inspected it, the way the light almost passed through. She smelled it, but she could think of nothing to compare it to. Still, it made her mouth water.

“Come with me and we’ll find you somewhere more comfortable than the cargo hold,” the woman said, rising to her feet and heading toward the door.

Maple popped the candy in her mouth, grabbed the bottle of water and scurried to her feet. Suddenly the woman stopped and spun around, her hands deep in the pockets of her dress.

“Oh, my name is Sunny by the way,” she said, then tilted her head back toward the door, “Let me introduce you to Ember.”

Maple followed, her mouth bursting with more sweetness than she ever thought the universe could ever hold.