28NOV3025

I haven’t used that name in a long time.

I didn’t think Echo knew it.
I didn’t think the Rat could.

But I heard it in my dream.
Not shouted.
Just spoken.
Calm.

“Calder.”

That was before.
Before Dex.
Before the crew.
Before I started calling myself Scootch like a joke no one else was in on.

It’s not who I am now.
But it was.

Survival Rule #36: Your Old Name Isn’t a Ghost Until You Try to Bury It

I was Calder.
A mechanic.
A crewman on a privateer freighter running escort for colony haulers.

We weren’t heroes.
We weren’t bandits.

We were in the middle.
Keeping ships moving. Keeping people alive.
Doing our jobs.

Until one day, a ship didn’t answer a call.
We found it drifting.

Ripped open.
No signs of impact.
No distress signal.

Just static.

And in the static:
a voice.

Not words.
Emotion.
Need.

We pulled a crate from that ship.
I opened it.
And that’s the last day I was Calder.

I Don’t Talk About That Day

Because I don’t remember it right.
Or maybe I remember it too well.

The logs were scrubbed.
The crew scattered.
The crate vanished.

I ran.
Took a name I’d heard from a drunk with a dislocated jaw.
Changed my ID.
Hid in noise.

Dex found me later.
Didn’t ask questions.
Didn’t need to.
We were both trying to forget things.
Different ones.
Same weight.

I Think Echo Found the Shape of That Day

And I think the Rat remembers the crate.
Or one like it.

Because the hum’s changed again.
And the dreams are different.

I saw a ship in one—a mirror of the Rat, but cleaner. Brighter.
And in the distance, something screaming through the structure of time.

Something that knew my name.
The old one.

• Scootch

Quote of the Day:
"You don’t escape your past. You just change the name on the airlock and hope it doesn’t knock."