I sit starring at the broken screen. It, hanging loosely from the titanium alloyed wall, slightly tilted to the side. The reflection in it is of an unshaven engineer in his mid-thirties, pulling on his earlobes. Nervously. I stare him down, different man almost every day, certainly nothing he was 4 months ago. There were, of course, the physical changes, the long beard, the overgrown hair, the discoloration of hairs and the ridiculously pale skin, but the focus of my attention were his eyes. They no longer acknowledged his surroundings to the full extent that they once did. Their main focus now was the immense complex clockwork of plans and designs, that he….
A sharp continuous mechanical distortion from supposedly brand new speaker sliced through my eardrums, reaping me away from my delusions.
I closed my eyes, hand brushing past my beard, slightly shaking, feeling the little white hairs tingling my hand. With a sigh, I stood up, trying to ignore whatever remained of Bradley. It was pitiful to see a part of our crew, even if it was an AI, reduced to dribbling mess of sounds, unable to recognise any commands and perform any actions. I moved towards the built-in computer, the one sticking out of the wall, one of the control panels of the station. In less than a minute a line of code appeared on the screen and with the press of a key, the remains of Bradley have been silenced.
It was quiet, silent almost. Fans of the computer, breaking the serenity.
I fought the urge to go back to the bed and stare at the screen, instead moving into the opposite direction, towards the library.
The door opened when the sensors detected my presence, revealing a dark corridor, a line of dim yellow neon the only source of light. I looked over to the casing of the bay door, making a note to myself, to switch all the sensors on the station off. That way there is less chance for the door to malfunction and close itself on one of my limbs.
As I left the room I looked to the side down the corridor. 4 more rooms. Jamies’, Michael’s, Ali’s and Sam’s bedrooms. All empty.
I shook my head, turning back towards the lounge room, following the yellow path on the ceiling. I looked at the tightly sealed shutters on the windows in the hall and the patches on the hull that I’ve made, remembering what waits me outside. Action which I regretted almost instantly.
I didn’t bother cleaning the lounge room, I wasn’t spending much time there so I didn’t see the point. If anything I wouldn’t come here at all. The layout of the rooms on the station forced me to come here even if I just wanted to reach the library. Ali told me the design was such to encourage social interactions.
The lounge lighting was similar to the hallway, it was almost non-existent, with the main lights crashed on the floor, only the panels gave away the same old dim yellow. The station turned couple of times when it crashed, flipping and breaking things, leaving them in cold broken tranquillity. Looking at this mess, I smiled. It was fortunate the ship did not have any pests or insects. I recalled Jamie telling me how she used wake up with cockroaches on her face, eating her eyelashes, when she used to serve on military space vessels.
Walking past the clutter on the floor, carefully dodging the glass and other sharp objects, I finally reached the library.
The library was a complete contrast to the lounge. Not only the lights were fixed and working properly, all the books, tables and chairs were neatly organised, without a speck of dust on them.
I looked at the table, the one with a notebook lying on it, a notebook that I have been diligently documenting my 4 months into.
As I sat on the chair, I grabbed a sheet of paper under the textbook and drew another line, indicating another day passing by. I quickly checked the clock in the library then my watch. The digital library clock, showed only zeroes with number one occasionally popping up for a split second, returning back to zero. The hand of my wind-up mechanical watch, did the usual crazy spins, a complete 360 each 3 seconds. It started doing this since the day of the crash, 4 months ago, it also seemed that the watch didn’t need to be wind up anymore. With no time to know, the first thing I did, was to check whether timer on the computer or PDA worked, which it did. The magnetic waves didn’t affect them as much as the clock or watch, it would force them to shut down or wipe the memory of them occasionally. This also was one of the reasons why Bradley has turned into whatever it is now.
With a cynical smirk, I opened the notebook and started writing down what happened today.
Maybe for the last time.
After I was done, I slowly stood up, closing the notebook, placing the sheet under it.
Before I left the library I gave it a final glance, recollecting all those moments when I was distracting myself with the books, escaping from this situation, this place even. Frankly speaking, I started writing in the notebook as means of escape too. Looking at all the events that happened here, written on paper, gave me a feeling of disassociation, it made it look like something that could happen in a fantasy novel, rather than in someone else’s life.
Looking back at the lounge room in front of me, a thought visited me, that perhaps I should clean this place up, as it is the final day that I will spend here. Brushing it off, I walked past the mess towards the depressurization chamber, where my attire is. A white suit with blue stripes on hands, black opaque helmet, grey boots and a backpack with a battery and oxygen capsule attached to it, to power the ruined rocket boots and the HUD of the suit that surprisingly still stayed fairly pristine.
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Once everything was on, I double checked whether the oxygen capsule and the battery were attached tightly and whether I had enough spares to last me a week. With everything in place, I grabbed the omni-tool from its casing on the wall and looked back at the station. The thick of reinforced glass divided the chamber from the dull yellow hall, leading to the inventory room which in its place was connected to a dull yellow remains of the lounge room.
The grip on the omni-tool tightened, the numbers for the heart rate on the HUD of helmet were increasing, I was scared. The shakes were back, with the thoughts and the images I tried to shut off in a door in my mind, that now was slowly peering open. The beginning of expedition… and its inevitable failure.
I didn’t want to do this, but I knew I had to. I knew I had a choice to make and this was… a better option.
Without bothering to take off the helmet and wipe the tears, with blurred vision I turned around and pressed the red button on the side of the wall.
A moment passed and the room, changed its colour from warm dull yellow, to bright red, a quiet siren accompanying the change. A loud sound, muffled by the helmet indicated the change of pressure and removal of oxygen. I quickly looked over to the small computer built in the suit on my wrist and adjusted the oxygen levels. I was done just about when the door started to lift, revealing a bright green light.
I clenched my teeth, hand gripping the omni-tool lifted, pointing towards new opening, while other resting on the red button. Seeing no silhouettes in the green light, I took a step forward, moving slowly towards the outside.
As I placed my foot on the moving blue sand, off the metallic pad, I once again realised that this place changed, in fact it was still changing. The sand slowly changing its colour from blue to more purple colours, as its feel under my boot was changing from sand to more of that of plain ground, the wind too while strong, was also inconsistent blowing from the front, then from right, then strangely from back. The sky, too was changing, a mix of different colours in the air, though green mainly, yet it too was slowly changing into blue, only the giant white scar with a black dot remained the same, as if replacing the sun. In distance, a piece of the station - food storage facility half buried in this storm, further on, broken hydroponics lab, now loosely connected to an engine room, with the remains of the bridge. Further than that a blur of dark green and bright yellow, mixing in with each other until they both disappear into now cyan sky, seemingly like the edge of horizon but moving slightly up and occasionally slightly down.
I looked to the side, spying a small rectangle lid on the side of the ship, emergency exit control. I opened it quickly, pressing the button.
I watched the doors close. Thick sheet of metal, closing off my other two options, starvation and suicide.
Shaking, I took a step towards the food supplies, ground under my feet now feeling like a pulsating and breathing sludge, carefully avoiding a spot where his corpse used to lie.
Suddenly, everything felt ten times heavier even my bones and the blood in my veins, the pressure of this new weight causing intense pain to my back. Then, a fraction of a moment, and it was gone, replaced with a feeling of lightness, as if I was a feather slowly carried by the wind. Awe turned to fear when I realised my feet were touching nothing but the wind.
As soon as fear hit me, the gravity pulled me down.
Gripped by the panic, I quickly stood up, rushing towards the edge, my final option, ignoring all sentimentalities I held for my previous companions, stepping on the ground where Michael’s body used to lie.
It was painful to see the food storage, pass me by, but by that point I was too high on adrenalin to care about any food. It was reckless, yet I followed a line of thought, that I would not need any food even if I die or if I can reach it then I can maybe return. It was a foolish thought, yet that was all I was clinging on.
With each breath, the green-yellow blur was getting bigger, percentage of oxygen was decreasing and the area around me was getting more unstable. Temperature switching between cold and hot, moisture dropping and increasing, driving the sensors insane. I didn’t care, I simply ran.
When my own body started to change, I simply closed my eyes and kept on running.
It was like that last time too, my body felt no different yet looked strange and when I returned back to the station, it looked like my body lost pigmentation, skin colour turning pale, form yellowish tan, hair and beard turned white from brown and eyes from brown to blue.
Fear was holding tight in its grip not letting curiosity to open my eyes, while adrenaline was pushing my body run even further.
Until the sounds HUD going crazy and of my footsteps disappeared. I stopped, moving my hand and legs slowly. My brain recognised their movement, fingers worked properly. I took a step. No sound. No feeling of weight. I moved but it felt like I was standing.
In panic, I opened my eyes.
Nothing. Everything was pitch black.
The omni-tool showed no light, the inside of my helmet was dark, there was no HUD. I lifted my arm, reaching for the torch, on top of my helmet. I felt nothing. I tried again. But there was nothing.
Terror was starting to creep upon me, I dropped omni-tool and reached for my helmet, then for my body then for my hands. There was nothing. I did not feel anything. There was nothing.
I screamed in fear, but there was no voice.
I looked around or thought I did, then seeing nothing I simply started to dash.
The dash turned into a strange flow. I did not feel like I was running anymore, it was more akin to me flowing down the river by its massive current, increasing in velocity every fleeting millisecond.
A dot. White dot. Slowly increasing, until everything suddenly became white.
Lines of colour appeared, twisting, spinning around me in different shapes, connecting to me, creating more colours, creating patterns, triangles, circles, octagons, creating a picture of intricate space of colours and shapes, with me in the centre of it all, until I was no more…
“Hey, Brad(ley). Wake up! We’re almost near the anomaly. 3 more hours and we’ll be there. We have to prepare. Let’s go.”