AFTER
—in the darkness lies deception.
senses slowly awake.
eyes flicker open.
floating. weightless. hands and feet move in small circles. body can’t move. pressure on shoulders. pressure around waist. pain bites in like a lightning strike, every part burning.
smell: metallic. bile. his nostrils fill with a stifling vegetative scent. the acrid odour crawls through his face and into his lungs, jolting his body.
sound: hiss. long. air escaping. heavy breathing. struggling breathing. someone nearby. a high-pitched but faint ringing. something knocks against his arm. unbearable pain.
sight: so much darkness. small spots of light, so far away, slowly spinning. an asteroid the size of a house grazes past, close enough to touch. then dozens more asteroids in varying sizes.
hundreds.
thousands.
more.
glass. he wears a helmet. arms and legs bend at unnatural angles inside a spacesuit.
help me echoes in his ear.
he tries to speak. ‘i’m here.’ what he utters are barely words.
another bump from the left.
please, i beg.
a choking scream. a deep, gut-wrench cry of agony. dread grips him. what will he see if he turns his head?
he turns. the pain is unbearable. the rim of his helmet restricts his view but allows his imagination to conjure horrors.
the helmet won’t move. he cranes forward, but all he sees is part of a shiny black object pulsing like an organ. shouldn’t there be another pilot?
red droplets float from the side toward the windscreen, suspended, and then splatter in a horizontal ribbon. a finishing line. more red, blotting out parts of the windscreen.
space. he’s in a spacecraft. a fighter. a defender. what happened?
a memory: behind him, the ship contains an escape pod. if he presses the eject button, the cabin will be evacuated, creating a vacuum. he and the co-pilot will be snatched into the pod and ejected free of the ship. all he needs to do is press the button.
the screams intensify into a rolling wave of agony.
his thumb hovers, stroking the top of the red button. but whatever causes the cacophony of anguish is attached to its victim. if they are drawn into the escape pod, the thing eating his co-pilot will come along.
he cannot save his co-pilot, not without compromising his own rescue.
he should not take a dead body. who knows what could be living in it.
only one escape route remains.
the red becomes a flood, everywhere, coating all surfaces with blood. it lasts for an eternity. the body next to him stills. the black shape moves, drifting, undulating; a twisting worm, splitting and reforming into stretched tendrils, then coalescing into a congealed mess of oil and devoured body parts.
now it comes for him. floating, slowed by the lack of gravity. it approaches.
smell. metallic. bile. stronger. it crawls through his suit, fills his nostrils.
a shape forms: an elongated oval. it splits down the centre and bulbous lips peel open sensually to reveal hundreds of fangs. inverted symbolism. a death canal. it wants him inside.
tendril fingers stretch towards him, questing from the edges of the oval. it touches his suit, leeching into the fabric.
he presses the button.
there is nothing but pain. then darkness.
