The Last Eight Minutes of Life

CW: Cannibalism, gore, strong language

The man sat in the empty chamber. His beard reached his chest, and his hair draped below his shoulders. There were streaks of grey. His teeth were chiseled to fine points. His eyes were bloodshot, the whites yellow.

No one knew him. They only called him by a codename: Raasputin, or Raas for short.

The Veritarii entered the dark chamber. Only a desk lamp illuminated the room. He thumbed through a deck of papers.

"How long were you gone?"

The man responded without hesitation. "Seventeen years."

"That can't be right," the Veritarii replied. "Our records state the vessel departed at 1403. We recovered the vessel at 1411. Eight minutes."

Raas smiled with a shark-toothed grin. "We know. For us, it was seventeen years."

The Veritarii set the papers on the table and sat in the chair across from Raas.

"Walk me through your journey."

"You won't like it. You'll brand us a heretic of the Paradoxii."

The Veritarii looked puzzled. "Ortho-"

Raas cut him off.

"No. Not where we have been."

Raas laughed, and spittle shot from his mouth onto the Veritarii's uniform.

The Veritarii wiped it away. "It's for the greater good."

Raas laughed once more, sending more spittle from his mouth. "There is no such thing. We are damned. The Hungering Star lives to devour." He looked at the ceiling. "Praise be Or'Zherrak!"

His maniacal laughter made the Veritarii flinch.

Raas noticed.

"You are scared. Let us introduce you to real fear."

The Veritarii opened his notebook, and Raas spoke.

Day one. There were twelve of us. It was supposed to be a routine transit that required a shallow descent into the Aetheric Depths. You have been there. You start in the shallows. Smooth sailing. The aether is calm. You follow the Elder Stars around the Black Sun. At this level, a child could navigate the Spharinnen.

The job was easy at this point. We fed the fires of the reactor by day. Drank and slept by night. It was an easy job. Follow orders.

The Veritarii interrupted. "So you were a Sanctarii?"

There was a twinkle in Raas's eye.

"Stoker."

"I am familiar with the slang. The title is Sanctarii."

"Stoker."

The Veritarii sighed. "Carry on. What happened when everything did not go as planned?"

It was about two months after sailing the Luminous Surface. The Luminarch ordered an emergency descent to Sanguis Profundii. Before you ask, we do not know why. She skipped the Veiled Current and dove deeper. We underpowered the reactor and held the skin. That was our job for the next year: feed the flame and hold the skin.

"The skin?" asked the Veritarii.

"What do you mean? Do you not know the skin?" asked Raas.

"I do not know your slang."

Raas pretended to straighten his uniform and tighten an imaginary tie around his collar. "As you Imperials describe it, the Vallum Faradii. Official orders say, 'Raise the Farad.'"

"I know that much. Such preposterous language."

Raas smiled.

"Continue."

Assumptions of rescue, functioning reactors, discipline. Yadda yadda. We'll get to the good stuff. The first death. We do not know how he died. All we know is that he was burned. To a crisp.

Raas licked his lips, cutting his tongue on his teeth. Blood stained his beard.

The Veritarii closed his eyes. "Don't tell me."

Raas smiled, then laughed. "That's not until year two."

"Why is that?"

"Why do you think? Stupid bitch!" snarled Raas. "Food was scarce. People died. Sophellia, fucking whore..." Raas spat at the floor. "...tried to keep order."

"What happened to Luminarch Sophellia?"

The Veritarii marked his forehead with three fingers.

Raas spat, then vomited. "That bitch?"

The Veritarii closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. When he opened them, all he could see were black eyes and fangs.

"Listen to our story. Do not interrupt again."

She couldn't find up if it hit her in the cunt. She spent years attached to the beacon. Not eating. Not sleeping. Saying the voices were calling her below.

She began to descend. And descend she did.

We found ourselves in the black currents beyond the Nihil. We only did as we were told. Stoke the flame. Hold the skin. We performed our duties, day in and day out. The goddamned stupidity of that fucking bitch sent us to our doom.

There we stayed in the black currents for years. The food began to run out. We began to fight.

Absolutely pure fucking glorious chaos.

Raas laughed heartily at his words. The laughter seemed as though it would never end.

Then he abruptly stopped.

"The first bite tasted like pork."

The Veritarii was caught off guard. "The what?"

Raas smiled again.

The first bite of the first to fall tasted like a pig on the spit. It was the only way we could survive. Do not look at us like that, Veritarii. You would do the same thing if you were in our situation. Believe us, we refused at first.

Then came the smell of fat dripping from the bones. The thought of sweet marrow in the joints. The bitterness of the brain.

Why ingest the cattle feed of the Empire when we can enjoy a nice treat of bone, marrow, and flesh?

"Do not strain your face. You have never experienced hunger."

Raas spat once again. The sputum struck the floor with a wet echo.

Raas laughed.

"Let us move the story forward. We ate the first. We ate the second. We ate the third. Every time someone died, we feasted. The weak were devoured. The strong survived."

He leaned forward.

"Year three, we stopped burying them. Year four, we stopped saying their names. Year six, nobody remembered why we were trying to get home. Year eight, the Luminarch showed us the star."

"What star?"

"The Hungering Star."

"I do not know that star."

"Of course you do. We look at it every day."

Raas pointed upward.

"That's the Black Sun."

"We saw the Hungering Star. Black upon black. Reality folding in on itself. The past, the present, the future. All folding in on themselves, all existing at once."

There were only a few of us left. The Luminarch had stopped sleeping weeks before. Maybe months. Time had gone soft in the black currents. We measured it by meals and sleep cycle. One day she called us to the observation deck and told us she had found the way home.

There was nothing there. Only the sweet embrace of the black. No Elder Stars, no beaconlight, no current. We laughed at her. She did not laugh back.

She forced our face against the glass. She said "Look and see, let the void enter. See the destination. We looked. Nothing. We looked harder.

"Do you see it? The Black Sun"

We did not see the Black Sun. We only saw hunger.

"What of Sophellia?"

Raas spat, coughed, and vomited again.

"Bit- Bit- Bitch. Fu- Fu- Fucking..." He retched. "Whore."

The Veritarii winced at the onslaught.

Raas looked at him over the bridge of his nose.

"Do not say her name again. It hurts us."

"Us?"

The Veritarii stood and paced the room. "You have spoken about yourself in the plural all afternoon. Why is that?"

"We are Raas."

The Veritarii fell silent beside the aethersteel door. He slowly walked toward the table and flipped through a few pages.

"There is someelse. Your body shows signs of aging. The others do not."

Raas looked at the Veritarii with a confused expression.

"The recovered crewmembers do not show the same amount of aging as you."

"She stopped speaking."

The Veritarii was looking at the documents in his hands. He looked up with an inquisitive glance, "Explain."

After a few years she stopped speaking to us when we were in the room. She constantly counted us. Then she would count again. Once before a sleep cycle she pulled us aside. She said, "Do you hear it?" We did not know what she was talking about. She continued to count, eyeing us. We could feel her gaze on us. Even taking a shit by ourselves, we could feel her presence. Once more she asked, "Do you hear it?" We said no. We were banned from the beacon.

"You know the record shows there were eleven crewmen aboard?"

Raas's eyebrow twitched.

"That's what we said."

"That's not correct. You stated twelve. There were eleven."

"Count the Luminarch."

The Veritarii smiled.

"I did."

Raas stopped smiling.

For the first time since entering the chamber, he was silent.

The Veritarii slid a photograph across the table. Eleven figures stood before the vessel.

Raas stared at it. His eyes searched the photograph while his mouth remained silent.

"Where is he?"

The Veritarii looked puzzled this time, "Who?"

Raas picked up the photograph with shaking hands.

He counted. He remembered twelve. He remembered feeling the presence of another, he could not remember the face.

One through eleven.

He counted again, saying each of their names.

His own face was nowhere among them.

He hesitated at Sophellia.

Then he turned the photograph over.

Scrawled across the back in uneven, disgusting handwriting were the words:

DO NOT LET THEM SEND US BACK.

Raas was quiet.

"This has happened before."

The Veritarii raised an eyebrow.

"How long have we been talking?"

The Veritarii checked his watch.

"Eight minutes."

Raas leaned back in his chair, laughing through a mouth of razor-sharp teeth.

Then the laughter stopped.

His head fell against the chair.

"Raas?"

Nothing.

The Veritarii reached across the table and pressed two fingers against his throat.

No pulse.

Something moved behind Raas's teeth.

From somewhere deep within his throat came a whisper.

"Stoke the flame. Hold the skin."