Alone

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. The emptiness of space has a way of making even the largest things feel like a tiny grain of sand. A vast vacuum so large that we will never truly be able to grasp its mysterious depth. The concept can realistically be applied to the sound of a scream. Can we truly grasp the gravity, the pain of one single scream? Man’s curious nature has an unexplainable need to understand the universe as a whole, but can we truly accomplish such a feat?

One scream, two screams, a thousand screams repeating on an endless loop. The dreams each night woke her from a restless sleep. Complete and udder blackness consumed her, and sweat trickled down the small of her back. Breath catching in her throat she reaches above her head switching on a dim light. Slowly the room, the size of a small walk-in closet, came into view. Everything was in its place and yet nothing seemed to be right.

Her feet slowly hit the floor. A coldness rushed through her body. The cause of which was currently unclear. Possibly the cold floor, the screams, or the vast space of nothing outside her window. At this exact moment, there wasn’t an urgent need for that issue to find a swift resolution. Right now, the dryness of her mouth felt as if she had filled her mouth with cotton. Stumbling her way to the sink she filled her glass.

Not knowing the time, she thought it best to just start the day as sleep would be impossible. Adorning the only clothing essential for space exploration, her jumpsuit, a pale blue, hugged her like the hugs she missed from her family and friends. A chain around her neck, a reminder that she was seemingly worlds away from them. Maybe one day she would make her way home again. Her mission had already been unexpectedly extended twice. The joys of space travel, you must be your own everything. There was no mechanic or food delivery service a phone call away.

Her whole mission was to assist a remote space station with its own mechanical issues and much needed upgrades. Though communications had been few and far between, she stayed the course. The importance of reaching the space station was something that couldn’t be put off. The station served as a key point in the communication services for the fleet and various outposts throughout the already discovered systems.

Her current little piece of the universe was essentially a floating one bedroom one bath apartment. The tiny, cramped spaces the likes of overpriced studios in Queens. Exposed metal piping and various wires hung like valuable paintings in a gallery. They were just as expensive if not more so. Unlike the paintings of a gallery, those pipes and wires provided no mental stimulation. They only served as a reminder that you were living in a machine. The technology our forefathers couldn’t even fathom. Her own starship-pod.

The stars provided little light as she looked at the console before her. It must have been too early. The lights were on timers, the only reason she knew how long she had sped through space in the tiny metal home. It had been a year and six months. She should have been home two months ago. Back home surrounded by life, by energy other than the loudly humming mechanics of her very own starship. The logs for the two and a half hours of sleep, if you could call it sleep, were clear of any major alters and concerns.

Staring out the window she knew just how small she was in the grand scheme of things. Her thoughts but a blip on the energy read outs that traveled the universe. She made her way to the engine room descending a narrow ladder to what should have been referred to as a crawlspace big enough for two. The systems showed a prediction for a possible energy storm directly in her flight path. It was imperative that she validate that every wire was secured. The last mechanical/electrical issue was due to a single wire that had come loose from the control panel. She had spent hours in the engine room picking each component apart, painstakingly testing each thing.

A sudden jolt of pain in her temple sent shock waves through her body. Tools fell from her hands causing a loud metal on metal sound that was so high pitched it echoed upon itself. A singular scream seems to radiate from within her mind. It was so intense she questioned whether it came from her own mouth. The shock waves of pain had her muscles locked. As if in sleep paralysis, only her eyes seemed to be able to move. The only thing within reach that she could use as leverage to move into a manageable position was fractions of an inch out of her reach.

After what seemed like forever, she began to regain control of her bodily functions. These attacks always seemed to follow a bad night of scream filled dreams. Upon exiting the crawlspace, she laid on the grated metal flooring trying to understand why these dreams and attacks progressively intensified. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. After attempting to ingest the somewhat tolerable premade meals her employer provided the pain eased to a mild headache.

There wasn’t much for her to do as far as a daily routine. After being aboard for as long as she had, the daily checklist had gotten seemingly easier. A certain muscle memory had formed. One that had began to include the screams. The screams, she could feel them to the very depths of her soul. The one thing she had pieced together was that the closer she came to the space station, the worse it seemed to get, yet there were no faces to the screams. For the most part it was as pitch black as the universe that extended beyond the few windows of her pod.

After once again failing to understand the significance of the screams in correlation to the shock waves of pain, she slowly stood up. A mild vertigo had her stomach in knots. At a slow shuffle she made her way to shower and collect her thoughts. Eight hours later and nothing else occurred outside the predicted energy storm. Once again, she found herself alone in the single bed that held all her secrets that she told it through tears. No shadows of tree branches or late-night laughter of the neighbors streamed through her window. It never seemed to amaze her that the most insignificant things could bring someone such comfort.

After a good two-hour stare of the ceiling and she drifted off into the abyss of dreams. Birthdays, holidays, parties, and best friends with a shoulder to cry on passed in and out of memory. Everything went black and it began once again, screams. Something was different, amongst the screams three things flashed in between each horrifying noise. A ring adorned with Celtic symbols, the profile of a young girl with sandy blonde hair, and a toy train rolling across a metal floor. It was then that her eyes opened suddenly with a feeling in her gut that a tragedy lay ahead.