Sky High Catastrophe

Nobody can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. "This wasn't supposed to be this way." Wyatt thought to himself. He gazed upon the catastrophe that was a failed space excursion. He heard the headsets of his colleagues as they gurgled for help, their cries in vain. Only one call came in clear, unfortunately Wyatt was unable to save his floating friend of 16 years due to his lack of strength, teary eyed he watched as his friend drifted out of sight among the wreckage. Wyatt continued to search his brain for answers. "Over 12 years of calculations, planning and preparation ...what went wrong?" He meticulously surveyed the carnage of mechanized parts and mangled bodies, yet nothing stood out to him. Deep in the midst of thought he was brought back to reality by a warning beep in his spacesuit. "Only one hour of air left huh?" He cycled through the suits display and saw that the built in emergency tank was still in tact despite a few dents and cosmetic damage. "Another hour of air, well that's the first positive thing to happen to me, lets see if we can keep this momentum going." Wyatt, feeling more confident about his situation despite aimlessly floating began to reassess the extensive damage. "The burns on the ship's panel looks as if they were blasted, but there isn't anyone out..." Wyatt's train of thought was interrupted again but this time by a buzzing yet faint transmission. The words were inaudible but it seemed to be coming from close by. "Richard is that you?" The transmission started to clear up but the voice wasn't that of his friend. "Can you hear me?" "Yes, who is this, this is a secure channel!" "No channel is too secure for us Mr. Wyatt Tiller." His heart sank into his chest. "You'd be wise to still your nerves, the strain on your heart even with your healthy lifestyle could send you to an early grave." "Who is this???" Before he received the answer he requested, the line fazed out and was replaced by Richards. "Wyatt can you hear me!?" Being completely overjoyed with hearing his friends voice, Wyatt briefly paused before responding. "Yes Richard I can hear you loud and clear." "What happened to you?! I've been trying to get in contact with you for the past 72 hours! I could hear a faint breath whenever I called so I didn't.." Wyatt perked up and cut his friend off "Did you say three days?" He quickly looked at the display in his helmet and saw that sure enough it had been 72 hours since the explosion occurred. Wyatt was taken aback by the discovery "This cant be real, I still have over an hour of air left and my suit.." He was interrupted mid conversation by the air warning in his suit. "I only have 1o% left..." His mental state began to shift in a negative direction. Richard kept talking, sounding as if he had good news however his words turned to static. Wyatt didn't notice, his life seemingly in shambles. "I have been floating in the void of space for three long days, I'm losing my mind!!" In a physical attempt to regain his mental composure, he adverted his gaze from his helmet and looked outside. Nothing he saw helped to ease his disquietude. The wreckage of the 16 million dollar shuttle, his comrades corpses, his best friend which not only had he witnessed being propelled in the opposite direction but was just recently having a conversation with. Gone of any traces. He closed his eyes and bowed his head towards Earth and thought about the reason he had taken on this mission in the first place. "I'll be home my love, and I'll buy our daughter the horse that she wanted for her birthday coming up too." Horror now has dual residency, his face and his heart. Any form of peace he had aspired to (no matter how small it may have been) was completely eradicated. Earth was no longer the way he or anyone remembered. The oceans were no longer crisp blue but red as a fine wine and the continents were grey like burnt coals after grilling. "Is this not to your amusement Wyatt?" He was at a loss for words by the image. "This wasn't the ending you had in mind, however it was due to your selfishness of your kind the brought upon this travesty." "This wasn't our fault! We did everything in our power to fix it!" Suddenly as if hearing a recording, Wyatt heard a speech he had given nearly two years ago. "To the citizens of this great nation for sharing in my dream, to the beautiful state of California for helping me find my calling. My top notch professors who worked with me, to my roommate who put up with my studies scattered across the dorm in times of frustration and depression. To my tutors who spent their late nights and early mornings giving me that extra push and encouragement that I required. To my lovely wife who I met in college, Mrs. Tiller and my daughter who not only put up with my long office hours in school when going for my masters but my extended hours at the office. I wholeheartedly want to thank you for being there for me, for helping me grow my faith in the scientific community and for being here to see the feats that humanity will accomplish. A team headed up by my trusted colleague Richard Selvin and I will explore more of space than ever before imagined. We will make new advances in medicine, renewable energies and find new life, creating a place of paradise out there as we have here as we push forward to give the human race more..." The speech begins to trail off. "Well Mr. Wyatt Tiller, you were definitely correct about one thing when you said it was our fault.. It was yours." The voice that had spoken to him was consumed by heavy static, leaving Wyatt alone with his thoughts. He wanted to end it all but was too weak to move his body, his brain feeling fried after taking all the information in so much so that all he could truly do was breath. He looked back at all the times his loving wife was there, pushing him forward through her sleepless nights with the baby, the miscarriage she had when all she wanted was comfort but he was too busy with his work. "This was supposed to be this way..." Wyatt closed his eyes, hoping it would all be a dream, yet when he opened them he saw something stranger than fiction."