The hiss of machinery, deafeningly loud, was what woke me up.

Slowly, my senses returned to me, even though my mind was clouded. Like someone had stuffed my head full of cotton. It was disorienting, extremely so.

Then the hatch opened, and my body flopped to the ground, gravity resuming its hold on me. The sudden movement was far too much for me, and I threw up onto the cold floor.

I gasped, resting my forehead against the ground. I twisted around so that I was laying on my back instead of my face.

Something had clearly gone wrong, a thought that pierced my addled mind. David and Maria should have been here. After all, they were the only ones who could open these things. Without their say-so, the pods were to stay closed. But the hatch had opened on its own, for whatever reason.

The realization was like a bucket of cold water being thrown on my face. I jerked up, eyes darting around. The ship was damaged. That much was clear, with items strewn around haphazardly. A fire was visible, acrid smoke starting to fill up the area.

I shot to my feet and stumbled to a fire extinguisher in panic. But the more I moved, the more I could see, and this part wasn’t the only part aflame. The ship was damaged, perhaps irreparably.

The ship was filled with advanced appliances and gadgets. Many of them weren’t meant to be set alight. I had to get out before the fire spread even more. The limited supply of oxygen might run out, too.

My feet began guiding me to the exit, but a stray thought stopped me in my tracks.

What about the others?

David. Maria. The five others. I didn’t know any of the five, but I knew David and Maria. They were friends. What if they needed help? What if they were trapped, burning, or suffocating?

The ship had a strange design. The six pods that required absurd amounts of technology to run. If one failed, it would have effects on the surrounding area. Decades ago, the leaders of this project had designed the ship so that the six pods were all apart from each other.

I moved over the fire extinguisher. It was possible I would need this. Testing the handle showed that it was jammed. I took a step back, then elbowed the glass casing of the container, shattering it into dozens of pieces. With a new tool in hand, I started running.

I knew the layout of this place by heart. And although many things had changed or broken, the corridors and pathways were still the same. I reached the first pod within minutes, huffing, and out of breath.

The glass of the pod was still frozen, but more importantly, it wasn’t open yet. I furiously knocked on the glass, hoping to maybe receive a response from the person inside. When that didn’t work, I tried fiddling with the buttons and switches next to it. Nothing.

I was afraid of this. I couldn’t operate the pod- David and Maria could, but they were nowhere to be found. My grip tightened around the handle of the fire extinguisher.

Shit.

Stolen novel; please report.

Before I could come to have second thoughts, I gritted my teeth, brought up the metal tool, and slammed it down onto the glass. It bounced back with hardly any visible effect. Then I did it again and again.

Around the fifth hit, a crack appeared. Around the thirteenth, a spiderweb of cracks was visible. At the sixteenth, a loud beep had me jumping back in surprise. The lights around the pod turned red. I had damaged it and triggered something. I wasn’t certain what.

Then the hatch of the pod released, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. A body fell forward, and I scrambled to catch them on time. Their flesh and clothes were cold, and I shook away some of the frost on them.

It was a guy, I realized, with dark skin. His eyes were firmly shut, and he didn’t respond no matter what I did. I had to carry him out. With a grunt of effort, I placed him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry and started running again.

The next pod wasn’t too far. But the area around it was full of fire and smoke, making me unable to see anything. I took out the fire extinguisher and began using it for its intended purpose rather than using it as a battering tool. It sprayed a liquid-like substance that quelled the fire, even though it was still hot.

This time, the pod was already open. My heart dropped when I saw the body on the ground, badly burnt. Her hair was almost completely burned away, and the left side of her body was red and black with burns.

But there were two other people already there. One was kneeling by the burned girl’s side. She was carrying a boy on her back and attempting to carry two of them at the same time. She looked up, and her tearstained face lit up with hope.

“Hey! H-help me. I can’t carry them all. Please!” She pleaded, trying again to hoist the unconscious forms. But they were too heavy. She tumbled to the ground, banging her chin against the metal floor. Then she was up, trying again.

We didn’t have the strength to carry them out.

“Stop.” She looked up again. I didn’t want to do this, damnit. Steeling my heart, I spoke.

“We can’t carry them both.” She recoiled. And at that moment, I knew that she had known. She had just been denying it all this time. The despair at the pit of my stomach was replaced by anger.

“What- no, we can carry-”

I punched her.

I wished I could have been more gentle, but the fire was spreading and it was getting harder to breathe. Smoke inhalation was something I needed to avoid, and burning chemicals could fill the air with things that didn’t belong in the human lungs. She looked at me with a face frozen in shock.

“Can you run with two of them on your back, I wonder? I certainly can’t. Leave one behind, or die here.” Her head lowered, and a curtain of hair fell over her face, obscuring her expression. I waited silently.

Moments later, she stood, shaking legs looking like they would fold any moment. On the ground, the form of a boy remained.

It was unbearably hot, and every lungful of air half smoke. Just carrying one was already a stretch. I bit my lips until they bled, looking at the boy. I never knew him. And I hated myself for it.

I’m sorry.

I turned and froze, as my eyes caught sight of something.

It was a skeleton. Burning up, hollow eyes looking directly at me. It had something in its palms. Two silver rings, identical except for the gem adorning it. One was black, the other white. I knew those rings.

The skeleton was small. Somehow, I knew exactly who that was.

I couldn’t help myself. I ran over, scooping up the two rings. By her feet was a bag of biogel. I picked that up too and adjusted the person I was carrying. We would need the miraculous substance if we wanted the girl to survive.

I looked at her one last time.

Thank you, Maria. For everything.

Then I ran.

By the time I reached the exit, I could barely think. I was off balance and barely stumbling along. Greedly sucking up air did nothing, and my eyes were watering. But I had made it. Behind me, the girl was in a similar shape.

Trembling hands flipped a switch. The door creaked open, the sharp screech of old gears almost unnoticed by me. Blinding light poured out from the outside, and I stepped out.

Purple, dotted by white clouds, colored the sky. Grass-like plants covered the ground and the hills that I could see from here. Leaves of trees waved gently in the light breeze.

I didn’t stop running, getting far and far away from the damaged spaceship. The girl followed, even as her knees buckled.

When I absolutely could not continue anymore, I fell to my knees. The unconscious bodies of my crewmates fall down onto the ground.

Behind us, a large explosion rocked the earth. Force unrooted nearby trees and sent flaming debris into the air. A rush of wind almost knocked me over from my kneeled position.

In the midst of it all, Three words echoed in my head.

We made it.