Hugh woke up screaming, which wasn't new. What was new was that he couldn't feel his face or the rest of his body. He quieted down as he gradually started to regain feeling in his extremities.

He tried standing up, but somehow his feet seemed bigger, heavier than before.

The place he was in, wherever it was, was pitch black. He closed his eyes and moved his hand, grasping at what seemed like fresh hay.

It definitively smelled like it. Where was he?

A few hours earlier

 The artificial lights were set to a low level of brightness, and soft beeping sounds provided a familiar background to Captain Hugh's stroll to the control room lift.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

He enjoyed those quiet moments before being on the bridge. The corridor was barren, washed in the amber light of artificial sunrise. He was content in daydreaming about the next shore leave. The planet they would stay on was several degrees hotter than Earth due to orbiting twin stars. He thought about how the nights would be short and how an opportunity might arise for him to get into long discussions with his communication officer. Hugh didn't so much have a crush as he had planned a long term relationship between cautious look and hands that would clasp his shoulder after a long day on the bridge. As far as he was concerned, he had been in an unsaid monogamous relationship for the better part of a year.

As he was busy cataloguing the very best of the fond look his officer would sometime throw him, he didn't register the soft footsteps behind him.

A stabbing, unbearable pain suddenly burst from his back. He tried shouting, but the pain was too great. He collapsed and lost consciousness as his head hit the floor with a thud.