She wasn’t saving the station today. She was just washing her hands

The comms unit on the wall buzzed—a sharp, demanding frequency she hadn’t heard in days. It was the specific chime for a priority override, the kind used by the station’s engineering guild.

Elara was standing at the sink, rinsing the charcoal dust from her hands. The water was cool and gray as it swirled down the drain.

She stared at the blinking red light. Her heart didn’t just jump; it assumed a tactical rhythm. Priority override. Hull breach? Ventilation failure? Her body leaned toward the panel, her feet shifting into a bracing stance, ready to sprint to the closet and grab the tool belt that wasn’t there.

The tug. It was physical. It was a magnetic pull to be useful, to be the one who answers the distress call.

She pressed the accept button. “This is Elara.”

Static hissed. Then, a familiar voice—Brix, the shift supervisor for Sector 4.

“Elara,” Brix said. He sounded harried, the background noise a symphony of clanging pipes and shouting voices. “We’ve got a pressure variance in the hydro-deck. The seals are holding, but the readout is… it’s doing that thing. You know the thing.”

He stopped. He waited.

In the silence, Elara felt the recruitment. It wasn’t a formal order; it was an invitation to step back into the armor. Brix was leaving the sentence open, a void that only Elara the Fixer could fill. He wanted her to say, “I know exactly what it is. I’m on my way. Don’t touch the regulator.”

She could feel the words stacking up in her throat, ready to deploy. She knew the variance he was talking about. She knew she could fix it in ten minutes while the current crew spent three hours reading the manual. The urge to comfort him, to take the anxiety out of his voice, was an ache in her chest.

But she looked down at her hands. They were wet and clean. She looked at the charcoal drawing on the table—a clumsy, smudged sketch of a leaf.

If she spoke the words, she would be back in the suit. Maybe not physically, but the tether would be reattached. She would be the woman who fixes the hydro-deck, just temporarily in civilian clothes.

The silence on the line stretched, heavy and expectant. Brix was waiting for the savior.

Elara took a breath. She didn’t offer a solution. She didn’t ask for the pressure readings.

“I’m washing my hands, Brix,” she said. Her voice was steady, unheroic. “Do you need a referral to the guild manuals?”

The pause on the other end was thicker now. Confusion. “Oh. I… no. We have the manuals.”

“Okay,” Elara said.

“Right,” Brix said, the urgency draining out of him, replaced by an awkward deflation. “I just thought… never mind. Sorry to bother you. Out.”

The connection clicked off. The red light died.

Elara stood in the quiet kitchen.

The “aftershock” hit her immediately. A wave of guilt washed over her, hot and prickling. He sounded stressed. They might mess it up. I should just call back and tell him to check the secondary valve. It would take two seconds. It’s cruel not to help.

Her hand hovered over the callback button. It would be so easy. It would make the uncomfortable feeling go away. It would make her feel “good” again—validated, needed, competent.

But she realized that the “good” feeling was just the comfort of the old armor.

She pulled her hand back.

The conversation had ended. And in that ending, something valuable had happened.

Brix would have to figure it out, or he would call someone else. He would learn that Elara was not an extension of the station’s machinery.

And Elara? She had survived the silence. She had refused the recruitment.

She looked at the blank console. That abrupt, unsatisfying “click” of the line going dead was the sound of a boundary snapping into place. It wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t warm. It felt jagged and unfinished, like a sentence cut off halfway through.

But it was real.

She turned back to the sink and turned the water on again. She wasn’t saving the station today. She was just washing her hands. And as the water ran, the guilt began to recede, leaving behind a strange, quiet solidity. She hadn’t fixed anything, and the world was still spinning.

Her job was over.

WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.