Issue #140 : Adrift

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I’m dying.

Alone.

In the dark.

That’s what it feels like, and I suppose it’s pretty much what’s happening to me. It’s been thirty days since the incident, and the only way I know that, is because I know that the engine recycles once a day. I’ve heard it reset thirty times.

I don’t know what caused the collision, or even what the ship collided with. Whatever it was, or whatever caused it, there was a near total power failure shortly following the collision. I still had partial control, and was able to at least pilot the ship, when the computer screwed everything up. I can only assume that the logic circuits were convinced that the ship was crashing, and did what was needed to prepare for that, namely, activating the safety function for the command center, automated restraints that hold you in place against your seat, to help prevent whiplash type damage during a crash. The point is that whatever caused the total power failure might have been something that I could have stopped, had I not been trapped in that God dammed chair. At least when the power went out, the mechanisms holding me down gave out, and I was able to get free, otherwise I would have likely ended up starving to death.

Because it’s so much better to be where I am now.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know how far outside of the normal patrol routes I am, or if it’s even possible that anyone will be able to find me. I don’t even know if I’ve been reported as missing.

Sometimes, I think I hear voices, but the darkness is so complete that a lot of the time I’m not really sure if I’m asleep, or if I’m just hallucinating. I suppose that when you get down to it, there doesn’t seem to be that big of a difference between the two.

I wish I could figure out what to do. The ship is getting some kind of power because I’m still breathing and I can hear the engine. From up here though, the ship is just a dark, cold tomb. And I’ve run out of ideas as to what I can do from in here. I don’t even think I could open the outer hatch, and go around on the outside of the ship to try and fix whatever went wrong.

The other day I couldn’t figure out what sound I was hearing, or where it was coming from. It was bone-chilling to listen to, so much fear and despair in there. It just kept going and going until my throat started to hurt for some reason, and I finally figured out what it was.

It was the sound of my own screaming.

I go from terrified, to depressed, to angry and then despondent. Sometimes, I think I’m feeling some kind of crazy hybrid of all of them at the same time. I get so tired from all of it, and you’d think that I’d be better off sleeping. For sure, I’d use up fewer resources that way, but sleeping is worse. When I sleep, I get to go away from this place but every time, I have to wake up here, again. I have the same few seconds of confusion, before the misery rushes back in, and I realize how fucked I actually am.

Why did I volunteer for this trip? There were any number of people who could have done it instead of me. The section commander even told me that I had hit my quota for the month, so I could sit this one out. Nope, I had to be the big fucking hero, sacrificing himself for the good of everyone else.

I guess I ended up doing exactly that, after all.

And here I am, talking to the dark. I like to pretend that there’s someone in here with me, and we’ve just been floating around, managing to keep from bumping into each other. I talk out loud to try and keep the crazy out from my—

Something just tapped on the…

Something just tapped on the outside of the ship!

I’m going to the port side to look out the window, and I can see the ship up there, maneuvering in to dock with me. I don’t know how they did it but somehow they found me, they tracked me down and now I get to go home. I can finally get out of this death—

Why are my eyes opening? They weren’t closed. 

I was just over there by the port side, why am I back to floating around in the center of the cabin? Why were my eyes…

Sleeping.

This is what my life is now.

I wish I could end this.

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