Emergency safety lights along the loading bay's cavernous ceiling pulsed with a deep scarlet glow- rhythmically illuminating the wide-spread devastation of the room's pitch-black interior.
Exposed clusters of severed wiring uncontrollably sputtered and sparked with erratic flashes of electric-blue light that cast menacing shadows of nearby, looming construction equipment.
A battered and dented mechanics’ toolbox, its locking clasp smashed, lazily cartwheeled through the air under zero gravity- its miscellaneous contents spilling out in a trailing cloud of various spinning tools and parts like a boat's water wake. Many of those same tools would rebound off one of many floating cargo containers that appeared as though they were suspended in molasses, sending themselves careening off in another random direction.
Nearly every supply shelf around the room was empty, with only a few heavy-duty hardware boxes remaining in their places; everything else was missing.
The frayed end of a crystal-core tie-down rope gently danced in the air to some silent song, its other end tightly hooked to a support latch in the floor beside a large piece of machinery whose base was multi-phase bolted to the deck. Other tie-down ropes were tightly pulled over the same machinery, the occasional brief crimson glow revealing severe tension in the fibers.
The chilling silence pervading the loading bay like an icy blanket was only broken by the eerie creaking echo of settling metal- like the snores of some distant, slumbering leviathan.
Clink...
A sudden, slight, sharp sound, like when something touches metal or glass, rang out from deeper within the loading bay.
Then, a lonely silence, accompanied only by gloomy, foreboding darkness.
Clink…
A small bolt bounced off the glass visor of an unmoving spacesuit limply floating supine through the air, its occupant’s face obscured beneath the reflective glow of the emergency lights. There was no reaction to the impacts.
Whirr-Whu-Whumpf-Clunk-Clunk!
The entire loading bay’s interior suddenly trembled, inundated with the mechanical roar of rebooting systems and a flood of bright, golden-white lights as the station’s emergency backup generators switched online.
A soft, pleasant jingle played through the room’s PA network in time with the startup sequence, its sonorous tone hollowly reverberating throughout the cavernous space.
The corner of Aedan's mouth twitched inside the spacesuit’s helmet as a frown pulled at his pale features, and his eyelids rapidly fluttered as his nearly-comatose senses were assaulted beneath the intense lights and noise. A thin, drying trickle of darkened blood ran down the side of his face, and beads of gleaming sweat dotted his forehead.
The next moment, however, just when everything seemed like it would stabilize, the lights began chaotically flickering and slowly winking out, one by one, until heavy darkness enshrouded the room again.
The sounds of the restarting ventilation system and peripheral machinery dulled from a low roar to a growl before falling entirely silent.
The corporation’s systems’ startup jingle grew discordant- infiltrated with the crackles and pops of a failing connection before similarly cutting short in a final, demonic crescendo of notes.
The loading bay again fell into a dark, tomb-like silence, the periodic creaking resuming.
The emergency lights remained offline.
Aedan’s brows furrowed over his closed eyes as the briefest traces of a grimace passed over his face when- GASP!
Aedan’s eyes flew open, and he sucked in a shuddering breath. A fit of coughing quickly overtook him, wracking his entire body as he curled into himself midair while also instinctively grasping out randomly with his arms and legs to find purchase.
The movements sent white-hot agony through his torso. In those moments, he subconsciously registered that he was weightless and off the ground; however, the all-encompassing pain stole what little breath he had left and almost made him lose consciousness as a black fuzziness encroached around the edges of his vision.
A massive headache sprung to life and throbbed at his temples; his vision came in and out of focus- indistinct shapes blooming and billowing in a kaleidoscope of greys in the darkness beyond him; his ears rang, a low-pitched hum layered over the silence plugging his mind; pangs of tightness and tearing rhythmically pulsed through his upper abdomen with every short, shallow breath- preventing him from clearly concentrating or assembling a single coherent thought.
Then, he accidentally moved his head and nearly vomited as an intense wave of dizziness and nausea swept over him. Only to shiver the next moment as a warm chill traveled through his body. Finally, the sensation passed, and a comforting warmth settled over him. But the sudden temperature changes only worsened the headache, turning it into a stabbing pain and generating another bout of vertigo that made the world spin and forced him to shut his eyes tightly.
He gritted his teeth- the tension in his jaw radiating to his temples and momentarily relieving some pain.
And that brief moment, that barest hint of normalcy, was all the foothold he needed to compartmentalize.
His erratic breaths smoothed into a fast, shallow tempo, where every inhalation provided just enough air that his lungs weren’t screaming at him.
The pain in his ribs became only agonizing instead of excruciating. He slowly and methodically angled his head back centimeter, by careful centimeter, fighting through the ever-present peripheral nausea and dizziness clogging his throat and mind until finally, he found a semi-comfortable position where his breaths came even easier.
His face, however, looked anything but relaxed- his eyes remained squeezed shut, and his brows were tightly knit in concentration as he mustered every ounce of willpower he could scrounge from the foggy detritus of his thoughts to stabilize his mind against the waves of pain. It was slowly working. Gradually, whether over the course of minutes or hours, he fought back against everything he could- headaches, dizziness, nausea, fogginess, confusion, muscle spasms, and intense stomach pain, pushing it all into the back of his mind and steadily holding it there until it became a white noise of symptoms.
Present, but contained.
The pain in his abdomen, however, wouldn’t relent. If anything, it got worse. But pain… pain he could deal with. Pain he understood.
Aedan’s eyes slowly opened to a world of darkness.
He lightly clenched his fingers and toes- a tingling burn radiated up his arms and legs before vanishing.
He could distantly feel pushback when applying pressure to the interior of his gloves and on the bottoms of his feet, but only a pressure. There was little to no sensation.
'Nerve damage?' he assessed himself, a stern, determined look in his narrowed eyes as he probed the injuries he sustained without aggravating the headache or pain in his torso. He started by clenching his fingers and curling his toes until he could make fists and feel his feet without any frustrating numbness.
'Torn muscle, maybe a fracture?' he wondered, trying to isolate the pain and figure out his next steps cautiously. It didn't look good. And it certainly didn't feel good. But he wasn't about to let himself die on this shitty station. But first things first...
Using the chance afforded to him by zero gravity, he freely moved his limbs without the need to support himself on anything. His shoulders and arms ached but were more or less fine. Moving his legs, however, sent agonizing spasms through his pelvis and into his lower abdomen. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes against the pang of dizziness until it passed. A dull ache remained. He opened his eyes and- Clink!
Aedan started, only to groan through clenched teeth as the sudden movement sent his mind into a tailspin. Shakily exhaling through his nose, he pushed back against the sensation and focused on the object that had suddenly smacked into his helmet. His brows arched in surprise at his good fortune. Slowly reaching up, he snagged the chemlight out of the air and brought it closer for inspection.
Although the details were practically impossible to make out in the darkness, he knew exactly what the plastic cylinder looked and felt like, so he used both hands to feel around the ends and along its body to make sure the casing was intact. It was. Then, holding onto one side, he twisted the other end once, then twice.
A neon greenish-yellow light suddenly blossomed to life in his hands, forcing him to squint and hold the chemlight stick up and away from his helmet to avoid the sharp glare. A good portion of his surroundings within ten or so meters was suddenly illuminated in the ghastly glow, letting him see a forest of washed-out storage and construction equipment, including the occasional tool or stray piece of crumpled debris floating into range. Looking down between his feet, he couldn't see the floor and instead saw some of the topmost shelving units. Glancing up, he could barely make out the ceiling's outline.
He sniffed, then carefully oriented himself so that inertia would turn him around; he'd made up his mind. The upper landing was still his best option.
'Lower landing, now,' he thought, his brows furrowing as he considered the best, least destructive way he could get back down. He brought his left forearm up and tapped on the interface- nothing; it was completely inert. Which was also the moment he realized his HUD was completely offline too.
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A deep sense of foreboding crawled up his spine, and he didn't understand why until his next breath tasted particularly stale. His pupils shrunk.
'Motherfucker!' Aedan swore to himself, immediately tamping down on the glowing embers of anxiety and forcing himself to control and slow his breathing- his lightheadedness only grew as a consequence, but it bought him precious time. First, he needed to find a spare oxygen tank. Now.
Holding the chemlight aloft, he reached out and grabbed a nearby cargo container, and, using its mass, he pulled himself in a direction that would take him by the landing, some shelving units, and a small cloud of debris whose outlines he could make out suspended just beyond the boundary of the light.
His bleary, narrowed eyes furiously flicked between the dozens of objects he could see, trying to find that telltale tank shape. But it was no use. His desperation gradually mounted after another half a minute of fruitless searching- there were too many issues. Even if the debilitating headache wasn't distracting him and his vision wasn't fuzzy around the edges, he still couldn't make out nearly enough of the room with only the chemlight, there were too many random things scattered around him, and there wasn't anything large enough around him to push off of to change direction even if he did find something.
He was well and truly fucked.
Another short, stale breath invaded his burning lungs.
The fuzziness at the edges of his vision grew.
The pounding in his temples amplified in time with the scorching flames eating him away from the inside.
He could feel his heartbeat slowing as he went into shock.
'Think…' he pleaded with himself, shutting his eyes and easing himself past the pain, desperately trying to- RUMBLE!
Aedan's eyes flew open as the room came to life with bright lights and sound.
And before he could react or make a sound, he dropped like a stone- his stomach climbing into his throat a split second before his back and head slammed into the floor.
Black stars exploded across his vision and the nausea and vertigo he'd been suppressing returned with a vengeance as his headache made it its mission to try and drill through his skull.
He felt something tear inside his abdomen- an agonizing, icy-hot sensation spread through his torso. The pain was indescribable. At that moment, he understood he was dying- his body incapable of even processing the pain he must've been experiencing. He would've screamed, but all that came out of his dry throat was a choked rasp.
His blurry sight caught movement directly above him, but he was too slow to react.
Something heavily clanged onto the floor directly beside his face, the impact shaking his helmet as the object collapsed to the side and rolled into his shoulder.
Then, all hell broke loose.
What sounded like a thunderstorm of metal rain sounded throughout the room as everything that had been floating under zero gravity crashed back down just like Aedan had. And through some minor miracle, nothing else came close to hitting him- though he squeezed his eyes shut tight and repeatedly flinched under the loud sounds of everything crashing to the floor within the same space of a second.
The crashing finally stopped, and Aedan opened his eyes to glance at whatever was leaning against him.
'No fucking way...' he thought, but, deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he sat up with a hissing whimper as his guts squirmed in agony- grabbing the small oxygen tank as it tried rolling away.
Removing a cover over his suit's right pectoral revealed a small circular seal that perfectly matched the oxygen tank's mouth. He raised the tank and placed the two together until he heard the distinct click of a good connection. He then twisted the knob on the side of the tank's regulator and lightly sighed with relief as a steady flow of fresh oxygen was manually dumped into his suit's built-in oxygen reservoir system. The transfer took maybe ten seconds before the spare tank was empty, but Aedan knew he'd bought himself close to another hour.
Placing the tank onto the floor beside him, Aedan fought back a grimace as he carefully rose to his feet- a stabbing pain at his temples and abdomen, making thinking extremely difficult.
His stomach was incredibly tender to the touch, so he carefully applied pressure to his left side with one hand and supported himself along the wall with the other, taking it one step at a time. It wasn't long before cold sweat poured down his face, drenching the collar and neck of his undersuit. And although his jaw was set in determination, a strained pain could be seen on his pale face. His eyes, however, were clear of the pain; a cold intelligence honed through countless insurmountable crucibles burned in his gaze as he powered on.
The semi-restored systems gave him a chance.
He just needed... a terrible dizzy spell washed over him, forcing him to pause and completely lean a shoulder against the wall.
A spasm suddenly tore through his abdomen as his muscles fiercely cramped, causing his eyes to bug out as a horrifyingly painful cough wracked his chest and exploded from his mouth.
Hot tears obscured his vision as he gave up and let the coughing fit pass before trying to move. Sucking in a shuddering breath, he carefully straightened himself up against the wall, his tear-streaked face looking up at the ceiling, his reddened eyes blearily blinking at the lights. Flecks of dark blood were spattered across the bottom of his visor.
'That... explains a few things,' he grimly thought. A dull, numbing warmth was beginning to spread through his belly. He couldn't feel his feet anymore, and his fingers tingled like needles were pricking his skin. 'Can't go on like this... feels... internal bleeding...' The cruel reality was that whatever happened to him was slowly killing him.
He needed medical attention. And the only place nearby was - the corridor suddenly shuddered, the overhead lights chaotically flickered before stabilizing.
'Have to... move,' Aedan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, pushing off the wall to shakily stand as he continued shuffling down the corridor. He looked at every directional sign he could find that would help him figure out the best route to a clinic but came up short each time as he only saw turns, doors, stairs leading to everything, and the kitchen sink besides what he actually needed.
He was holding onto the corner of a four-way intersection at the end of the corridor when another tremor shook the station, accompanied by the distant rumbling of explosions and the hair-raising shriek of rending bulkhead.
The lights went out again, plunging the corridor into a suffocating darkness alleviated only by the soft, green glow coming from directly ahead on the ceiling.
Softly panting, Aedan's eyes were inadvertently drawn to the only light source. He almost laughed out loud.
It was a large green plus sign with a small arrow pointing down the right corridor, demarcating the direction of the nearest clinic. As he was processing the sheer quality of his recent luck, the area was suffused with the crimson glow of emergency lights along the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs leading off into the darkness, presumably to the nearest gathering point or escape shuttle launch bay.
The emergency lights' intense glow drowned out the sign indicating the clinic's direction.
Aedan shook his head to himself and decided that cashing in his next ten years of good luck was better than passing out from shock and dying a slow, painful death from hypoxia and internal bleeding. Continuing to use the wall for support, he turned to his right and went in the direction of the clinic, in the opposite direction of the pulsing lights along the floor.
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'Almost... there,' he reassured himself, without knowing how close he was to the clinic. It felt like he'd walked over a mile at the same pace, but he knew deep down he could probably look back and see the previous intersection if the lights were still on. The warmth suffusing his body had long ago been replaced with a creeping cold that seeped deep into his bones, sending the occasional bout of uncontrollable shivers through him, which worsened his grip on the wall, and by extension, his balance.
He passed the frame of another sealed-off doorway when another slight tremor passed through the station. Only this time, the rumbling didn't taper off. It grew stronger.
Aedan's eyes widened a split second before the corridor shook with the ferocity of a bucking bull, the floor suddenly rising up to- Crack!
Aedan's helmet brutally bounced off the floor, the sound of cracking glass echoing in his ears before the next moment; he was weightless and felt himself flying sideways and further down the corridor as the darkness behind him was suddenly illuminated with a fiery orange blaze.
A blastwave of scalding hot flames washed over his back a moment before his shoulder caught the floor at an awkward angle and sent him rolling and sprawling in a heap on his stomach. Through the vague haze of agony and confusion stunning him, he could hear and feel another series of detonations somewhere in the corridor behind him as the peripherals of another heatwave billowed out over him.
He was hot now, the coldness of his arms and legs replaced with a sheen of sweat and reddened skin. He coughed, mucus flowing from his nose, the thick, electric stench of plasma fire singing his nostrils as though he'd directly inhaled battery acid.
He somehow got a breath between choking coughs and slightly rose off the floor, his shoulders shaking with effort. Then, again, the sound of a raging fire filled the corridor, the sickly greenish-orange flames reflecting off the side of Aedan's cracked visor as he slowly rose to his feet using the wall as a support.
He was beyond complex thought at this point.
His body was so oversaturated with adrenaline that he couldn't feel anything but the burning in his lungs and the pounding of his heart. There was only instinct.
Aedan wouldn't be able to recall the events following the plasma fire even if someone tortured him to death for the information; he wasn't cognizant of what followed.
Instead, there was only an intense desire to live. To fight. To survive. And so, he did.
Through no small amount of luck, Aedan's ruined, shuffling body somehow navigated the corridors.
Avoiding bright lights, which he subconsciously associated with danger, he stuck to the shadows and kept moving, his mind utterly devoid of thought or planning. He only reacted to things as they came. Then finally, he saw it- the clinic's glowing logo design beside a door.
He placed a charred, gloved hand over the scanner. Nothing happened.
He stood there, swaying like a drunken zombie until he leaned his helmet against the door, supporting himself upright by placing all his weight there, and used his other hand to unlatch a glove and free his hand. He put a pale, bloodied palm onto the scanner.
Whirr... whirr... whirr... Beep!
A pleasant emerald green lit up beneath his palm. The door silently slid open.
Aedan fell forward, stumbling into the room and roughly falling to his knees.
The bloody smear of a palm print remained behind on the scanner.
His eyes were barely open as he took in the clean-looking, whitewashed floor and walls of the clinic's waiting room.
He wanted to close his eyes.
He wanted to lie down.
He didn't want to move.
He felt so heavy.
So tired.
But something kept him awake, some subconscious knowledge, an innate instinct that wouldn't let him give up until it felt safe. But it also knew it was about to die. It didn't want to die.
The room shook as another distant rumble rocked the station.
Something urged him, so Aedan lowered himself onto his forearms and prone-crawled toward the only other door in the room.
It remained closed.
Something inside his mind screamed in frustration.
A burbling gurgle escaped his actual mouth, dark blood dripping from the corner of his mouth as he looked up at the door scanner's blurry form. Then, with a grunt that spilled blood down his chin, he pulled his feet beneath himself and somehow rose using the wall.
He couldn't stand. Something told him that trying any harder would kill him on the spot. So, half-crouched, he raised his arm with agonizing slowness to limply rest it on the scanner.
Whirr... whirr... whirr... Beep!
The same green glow, but Aedan was already falling forward before the door had finished opening. He fell onto his palms inside the new room and crawled inside until the door closed behind him. Then he stopped and sank onto his stomach, resting the side of his helmet on the floor and... let go...
His eyelids weighed as much as steel doors, so he closed them.
The hard floor was the most comfortable bed he'd ever lain on, so he relaxed.
He was tired.
So tired.
And warm.
So warm.
There was nothing but the numbing warmth. He accepted it, welcomed it as it sunk into the fibers of his being. Let himself drift away.
The bright glare of the room's lights activating and the muted sound of a woman’s voice shouting his name were the last things he processed before silently slipping away into the comforting embrace of nothingness.