Saturday - October 27th, 2121:

I opened my eyes, but there was nothing for me to see. Were it not for my ears, I would have thought I was floating in the afterlife.

But, no. I could hear it. Crawling and writhing atop my flesh. No, it wasn't my flesh. It was my suit, but it felt like it was my very flesh that festered with its foul stench. No, it wasn't a stench I could sense, but a foulness that pierced into my very subconscious mind.

I screamed and thrashed and pulled myself off the ground as black specks, minuscule and numerous, washed away from my body.

They were but ants, countless and homeless, and I had become their anthill. As they littered the floor, they burrowed into the depths of the soil, vanishing before my eyes. They reformed into a face that blinked innocently at me— Vlad's.

I jolted, waving at the air maddeningly as my body lurched backward, and I hit the cavern's uneven surface. The noise stopped, and the face disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.

My breaths scraped against my throat, each one pained my lungs, unlike anything I had felt before. I struck my fist against the back of the wall in anger as I shook my head to clear my mind, but my fist recoiled off the soft lining. It struck me— why was it so pliable? Where was I?

Everything seemed so fuzzy— both the surface and my mind.

Then, Vlad's face appeared again, smiling at me. He blinked with an innocence never seen before on his gruff and chiseled face. It was like specks of starlight drifted in his eyes. "Why did you do it?" His lips parted to ask in that rough accent that he could never get rid of.

"I— " The words started to come out, and then I blinked, and there was only me and the emptiness of the narrow cavern accompanying me. My hands clasped around my helmet— I wanted to rip it off and howl— but the walls wiggled behind my back, pulsating with their slimy glands dripping onto my visor.

Stolen story; please report.

You're acting like a coward again.

I rushed in a direction, begging the celestial bodies above that it would lead me to the exit.

"Why did you survive? It was my spacewalk you took over. I should've been the one to live, not a coward like you."

Catherine's sweet voice lulled in my ears as I jolted back to a pitch-black space that constricted behind me. There was no Vlad, Catherine, or anyone else.

I turned back with my eyes shut, running with only my hand, feeling the soft, wriggling wall of flesh surrounding me.

Suddenly, my foot struck nothing but air, and my body tilted forward, rolling for what felt like thousands of miles, but it only spanned mere moments. Then, finally, I crashed onto a hard surface. The sound of shattering thundered in my mind as I saw the fragments of my visor scatter across the floor. The reflection struck me as a skeletal figure stared back at me with budding eyes of green that gleamed with newborn naivety.

I grasped toward my face with my glove rubbing against the helmet and intact visor. My blood flowed cold as the hastened breaths heaved against my chest.

Then, a soft croak awakened me to the world as I lifted my head to see the white raven perched atop a tree. Behind me, a sloped edge led up a cavernous path into the unknown darkness. It was like the raven was the only light at the end of a neverending tunnel. With its white body shimmering against the backdrop of nighttime and the rubied eyes that burned with warm intentions, I found myself comforted and walking toward it. As I neared, it croaked and flew, guiding me away.

I focused on its outstretched wings, ignoring the forest whose branches slithered toward me, ignoring the cloudy sky that swirled above, shielding the land from the sun and moon, and ignoring the whispered howls and moans of bestial predators that crept in the vicinity. In the depths of my racing heart, I knew if I followed it— I would survive.

With each ragged breath of mine, the bird would croak again, pushing the wilderness away from itself. I lost track of the time that passed. It was dark and chilling outside, no matter how much sweat drenched my back. Finally, the surroundings numbed to my presence, quieting down as the raven perched atop a tall fence about as tall as six of me stacked atop one another.

It croaked and nudged its head toward a part of the fencing that lay in disrepair. Someone had left a doghole barely wide enough for a man to fit through. "Do you want me to go in?"

I asked as if the bird could understand me, and it croaked back as if it could.