Drabble Wednesday: It’s Lonely in Space

Today Drabble Wednesday travels the spaceways, the great void between worlds where anything can happen...

Lost

Can you remember?

The planetary existence, the warmth of a sun?

There is no warmth out here, the stars are cold, distant. Dangerous. Like most everything. Even the smallest thing can kill you. Yet they send us out, and we go. Sometimes I wonder why. What appeals to us about black void of space? Wouldn’t we be safer huddled beneath the gentle stars, oblivious of the fate that awaits?

I wish I didn’t know. About the alien armada.

I wish I wasn’t surrounded by outlying stars, floating in an escape pod.

And most of all, I wish I didn’t remember.

~*~

Skitters

Can you hear it in the walls?

The scratches and the chittering between the bulkheads. Something’s in there, poking around. My lieutenant thinks I’m imaging it, says it’s just the older electronics on the station acting up. What does he know? He’s a newbie off fresh Earth Station, no real deep space experience.

Just listen. Down there by the open vent shaft. You’ll hear it good there. That’s it, right there.

You can hear them now, can’t you. All up close.

Please stop screaming. Someone will notice.

I’m sorry., but they said if I feed them, they’ll leave me alone.

~*~

Stasis

I wonder what day it is? Or what year?

It’s hard to keep track in this metal prison.

I can hear the hum and whir of the machinery, even feel the ship’s vibrations. I think. That might be my imagination.

Most people dream in these stasis pods, blissfully unconscious and unaware. But one percent stay awake. Unable to move, open their eyes, or scream. Trapped in their own bodies, marking time as they go insane, a perfectly preserved physical specimen until the pods opens.

Guess which category I fall into?

Stuck for fifty years as a living corpse.

Lucky me.

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