Station-117

Station-117

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. I can promise you that is far from the truth. When all you have to look at for years, even decades, are shimmering dots and metal walls decorated with only what you can place using various forms of tape. The screams start to come from a far different place. However, on the night of the Sector-9 breach, they could be heard beyond the station walls.

As well as within them.

In the summer of 2017, Mr.Kruek - only 19 - decided to get high in an attempt not to enjoy the annual Kruek Clan camping trip. His family’s campfire singalongs, fishing excursions, and watching campfire flames nip at the edges of a marshmallow until golden brown. It was all beneath him, or so he wanted them to think. It was him that was tasked with cleaning up the crumbs and gooey bits leftover from the smores they had eaten that night. Be it forgetfulness, ignorance, or rebellion influencing him that night. Once his parents zipped up their tent, he ducked into his to share a smoke with his sister Cara. Around 4:27 that morning, making his way back from behind the tree he used to relieve himself, he came face-to-face with his mistake.

Sifting through the mess Mr. Kruek had left were three grizzly bears, rifling around only 5-feet away from his parents' tent. As he snuck around the edge of the campsite to grab the air horn he kept stashed in his tent, he saw his father emerging from his. Just as one of the cubs accompanying its mother stumbled off the picnic table, landing inches away from the tent opening. “Dad no!” he wailed, but it was too late. His father shooed him away as he sprinted over, “Get your sister and get to the car!” his father shouted; as the mother's claw ripped through his shoulder. However, that’s not what Mr. Kruek did at all. He charged the bear from behind, disrupting it enough for his mother to crawl out of the tent. Now it was the three of them that were cornered. He felt a hard yank as the bear turned on him, his father pulled him just out of the way enough to turn what would have been his death sentence into a constant reminder of that night. “Get to the car! NOW Henry!”

This time he knew better than to question his father’s demands. He made his way to Cara, clutching the side of his neck in one hand; using the other to unzip the tent. He found Cara fast asleep; for a moment, he didn’t want to wake her. Pulling her from such a tranquil place into this seemed unfair of him: then he remembered the severity of the situation. Neither of them looked back until they made it to the car. He waited another ten minutes before going back to the campsite, carrying the first-aid kit his father kept in the truck of their S.UV. Unfortunately, what he returned to couldn’t be fixed - or even halted - with gauze and non-stick dressings.

That was the night he lost his parents.

He began designing a day after the issuing of his inheritance.

***

At first, he created seemingly random materials and miscellaneous products. Any idea he had, he saw it through to the end; and now he had the resources to share them with more than just his sister over lunch and drinks. He started with a lightweight material. One that could line the exterior of a tent, protecting it from damage of any kind, storm, avalanche, animal attack; you name it. Then eco-friendly camping trailers, that could be used as above-ground bomb shelters if necessary. The more he worked on his projects, the more fixated he became on making sure nothing else would catch him by surprise. Ensuring he and his sister Cara would be safe. Whether or not he went overboard isn’t for me to decide.

Especially not now.

He became obsessed, and it was that obsession that led us all here. In the years between 2020 and 2026, Station-117 was Mr. Kruek’s reason for existence. He spent months holed up inside his work room without so much as even looking out the window. Great way to socially distance and stay virus free for sure. But that wasn’t his intention at all.

The design: a 3-story, multi-chamber space station with the intention of becoming a permanent home. Complete with 953 rooms, bacteria-killing UV lighting wired through every room and corridor, and a viewing dome the size of a football field settled below the station. Even a sub-station devoted to converting solar radiation to power for the entire facility. A stem lab to synthesize and distribute fresh meat to the residents. Two separate grow houses; one producing the necessary fruits and vegetables for the community, another focused on growing any herbs he or the on-site holistic practitioner saw fit. You name it, and Mr. Kruek had already thought of it, planned for it, and set that plan into motion. Finally came the selection process, carefully deciding who would be invited to participate in his attempt at preserving life. That’s where we came in.

***

It’s been 23 years since the launch.

In the fall of 2026, 1249 of us packed enough of our lives to fit in one 250 sqft chamber apiece. It was never my idea to go in the beginning, but the alternative would have been much worse. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had a press release stating that the Earth's climate conditions had become “critical”, in 2025. By this time, 23% of the ozone layer had been depleted. It became clear the only way to stay safe - to stay alive - was to isolate underground. Sewers became our new neighborhoods. Sure there was some semblance of the society we left; we worked the usual 9-5 if the weather permitted. Lockdown came around 7:00 pm, forcing us all back under the city. Be it heat stroke, dehydration, or some new vaccine-resistant virus. The population of the human race began to decline drastically.

Our first loss was Amelia, an 11-year-old girl who came to live with us after her mother - one of my patients - left town and her at my practice. Before then, I never had to deal with the aftermath of death firsthand; it was my job to comfort others through it. My wife Sam and I had never explicitly wanted kids. We were happy, comfortable, slightly monotonous people until Amelia came along. Work, research, home, dinner, more research, then sleep; that was our daily routine. I ran a small - but lucrative - psychiatry practice in New Orleans. Four offices, one for each of the on-staff psychiatrists and a fourth for the sleep research lab. Not too shabby if you ask me. My wife Sam, had been working as an immunologist for the CDC. Before we went belowground she traveled, studying the various viruses and diseases occurring around the world. She took the job with the CDC when Amelia came into our lives.

Six months.

Six months was all we had before her mother came and took her from us. While taking her chances in the world left above ground, her mother contracted a form of tuberculosis no one had heard of before. The day she came to say her goodbyes, Sam and I got a call. Mrs. Simmons, the overseer of the town's underground middle school, had reached out to us. She informed us that she saw a strange woman talking to Amelia in the tunnel after class let out for the day. An exchange that only lasted a few seconds and ended with a hug. That was all it took. A week later, Amelia followed in her mother's footsteps. Given the danger of close contact or even breathing the same air, we weren’t allowed to be with her when it happened; she spent her last days quarantined and alone.

Sam and I resumed our usual routine. After the funeral, neither one of us spoke a word about Amelia. A kiss as we went our separate ways every morning, only to do it again 13 hours later after we arrived home. Dinner was spent discussing the miscellaneous questions our occupations had handed us for the day. To our offices until we saw fit to go to bed, another kiss, then done. Only now, something was holding us in place. Keeping us from having the courage to hope for the future.

The few friends we had back home went back to calling us the “The Perfect Do Nothing Couple.” Neither of us was searching for more. Not from ourselves, not from each other. Until Mr. Kruek found us and made us an offer. Sam was the one he was after, I was just icing on the cake. Mr. Kruek had already been searching for psychiatrists to work on the station and monitor the health and wellness of its residents; the convenience of me being married to Sam delighted him. Two necessary practitioners housed in one single unit.

Within a month, we were preparing our belongings.

***

We arrived first, 3 weeks before the launch. A group composed of horticulturalists, physicians, chemists, professors, herbalists, and engineers; the works. The 25 of us gathered daily with Mr. Kruek, running through and rechecking every aspect of his plan for life on the station. We rallied more people, going through the process one time after another. The others thought it tedious; I, however, had no issue. Each time we repeated the process allowed me more time to research new ways to elevate my practice. As well as more time to confer with Mr. Kruek on any new challenges he thought up surrounding station living.

Months before the launch, after the first gathering of necessary members, Mr. Kruek sent out an announcement. Informing the public - the ones who still had internet - of his plans to launch Station-117. After selecting another 427 others to work directly with us, we were ready to give up the remaining 633 spaces on board. Approximately 500 were filled by people who contacted him directly, making their case for why they either needed or deserved to be selected. He made sure to reserve spaces for family friends, even a few people Mr. Kruek had heard of one way or another and thought would be a good fit. The other 133 were either sold off or kept open for reasons known to only Mr. Kreuk himself. He wanted to be sure there were just as many conventional people as necessary personnel.

We set off for launch on October 14th, 2026.

The first 21 years on Station-117 went off without any major pitfalls. Stabilization was rough on us all in the beginning, but we quickly established ourselves. The residents assimilated surprisingly well for having changed their whole lives in a matter of months. The society we created soon became far better than the one we had left. Children went to school nine months out of the year, while others worked - insanely - remotely for jobs they had back home, communicating by satellite or working on board. Gatherings were held in the viewing dome; birthdays, theme parties, and the yearly Station-117 launch remembrance. Life at the station was more delightful than even Mr. K had imagined. As sickness was never brought into the station, the loss of a resident was rare. Only a few residents left us due to old age; the rest were a combination of maintenance accidents, anaphylactic episodes, and other random occurrences.

Never anything like this.

***

It was Mr. K that was the first to show signs, although for too long of a time, not one among us could read them. They started just weeks after his 49th birthday. By now, the scar was barely noticeable in the creases of his neck. The once full head of hair he possessed had become an ever-thinning, salt and pepper mess atop his head. Over time, he and I had become thick as thieves. From the start of my time working for the station, we shared two things. How quick we were to obsession and how lost we got chasing a solution. That connection alone sparked a decades-long bond between the two of us. I learned he saved a whole room for it months after the station stabilized. We'd stay locked in his office for hours on end, slowly going through his stash of whiskey, trying to solve one unsolvable problem to the next. He would always say, “You can’t make a 90-year-old single malt on a space station Jimmy..at least not yet.” after I jabbed at him for being so entitled as to have a whole room just to store liquor.

I should have realized sooner, even if Cara hadn’t.

At first, we thought he was only sleep-deprived. Here and there, he began to lose things. Sometimes it was a set of keycards; other times, a conversation happening only hours or days before. Nowadays, the minute someone starts forgetting things around here, we rush them into containment. Weeks went by, and the routine was the same. A kiss from my wife to start the day, and so on. Only now, dinner was different; now, I ate it cold and pre-plated. Pulled from the oven where my wife had left it for me hours before. Research with Mr. K in his office, sorting out one thing or another. Go home, kiss my wife good morning as she kissed me goodnight. Then repeat.

The rash appeared a month and a half later. It was like something out of a malpractice suit, ranging from his tailbone to just beneath his T12 vertebrate. Scaly, jaundiced, and pulsating. The veins underneath lit up like Christmas lights visualizing every drop of blood trailing through them. It took only a few days of high-dose IV antibiotics to start clearing up; by the time Mr. Kruek left the Med-Wing, it was nothing more than a dry patch on his back. When he returned, we thought we were past it all. The forgetfulness ceased; he was brighter, happier; his hair even started to fill out again. Everything was well within working order.

Then the night terrors started.

Complaints flooded in from neighboring units of Mr. K’s daily, getting more frequent as time went on. Prescriptions, herbal remedies, counseling, hypnosis; nothing seemed to shake them. Reports of screaming as if someone was being tortured for hours, banging on the walls, and glass shattering became commonplace in section B-17. From then on, Mr. K was so unlike himself he might as well have been a new person. His usual determined, yet light-hearted demeanor had warped. He became a short-fused, checked-out, hollow version of his former self. He began lashing out at residents, pitching ideas with no practical applications, he even attacked his sister Cara after she tried to get him to commit himself. It wasn’t until he started hearing voices wide awake that we intervened.

The 40 of us assigned to oversee life on the station called a meeting. While for the better part of the day he was lucid and responsive, we weren’t sure what a meeting of this nature could do to him. Though we made the right decision, we made an even bigger mistake in the process. We forgot to seal off the back hallway, connecting the conference room to the lounge between it and the cafeteria. A hallway containing only two things; a restroom, and a utility closet.

He heard us.

Every word we said about his incompetence, the complaints coming in from units in the 9th wing, the violent tendencies he was beginning to exhibit. Then he heard me. The “Expert Psychiatrist”. I’m not sure what I would have said had I known then he was listening all I know is, I wouldn't have said what I did. “Honestly? I don’t think he’s even trying anymore, at least not with himself,” I said, staring blankly at the patient file in front of me. “He can’t seem to go so much as thirty minutes without losing a piece of his mind. If it’s not conversing with a lamp or poster in the corridor; it's becoming violent at the drop of a hat.” As I looked up from the table I locked eyes with Cara, I could tell she felt just as guilty as I did speaking today. Though both of us knew every word we spoke was the truth. “He’s unstable and becoming more unsafe by the hour. I vote we remove him from the council effective immediately. And commit him to the Med-Wings' secure area for observation. All in favor?”

A collective “I.” echoed through the room.

***

We all scattered in different directions as the meeting ended. By the nervousness a few council members displayed as they arrived for the conference, I could tell I wasn’t the only one who saw him milling about the corridor that morning. I believed their worry to be unfounded, certainly, Mr. K had been distracted by a portrait or a new inanimate object to parle with. Even if he was lucid, it made more sense to assume he was waiting for the elevator to bring him back down to level 17 for his morning walk through our various nurseries. At least that’s what I told myself; that was until I saw a flash of ornate fabric vanish into the utility closet after we concluded our meeting. The same pattern Mr. K had custom picked for his robes, the pattern of his father's favorite tie. The rest of the day, Mr. K was avoidant of all of us. When lunch rolled around, he wasn’t waiting for me under the pothos arch in the nursery. Mr. Simmons didn’t see him for their weekly chess match; he was nowhere to be found. I was stunned when I received a message from him wanting to meet in his office for drinks, something we hadn’t done for months.

As I was heading down the south corridor to meet with him that evening, I got an alert from Ana Dowd. The co-head of the stations' mental health facility, it was rare for her to contact me after 5:00 pm, let alone after we’d left the practice for the day.‘Maybe she’s gone back to analyze the day’s findings and simply misplaced her keycard.’ or ‘Perhaps she needs an emergent consult on one of her patients ’. Either way, I had to explain the situation to Mr. K and head over to Ana soon.

As we sat down with our first drink of the evening he attempted to talk about the discussion he witnessed that morning. Thankful that I had a genuine reason for leaving - and hating myself for the thought - I began to excuse myself. “You know I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t important, I mean you know me,” I said, setting the crystal glass on the caddy table to my right. “I’m sorry about today, I’ll explain everything just as soon as I get back.” “Get back?” he said leaning forward in his chair. “It’s Ana, she says we’ve got an emergency down in unit 1527. I have to go… I’ll be back as quickly as I can. I swear it.” He looked up at me from where he sat. Eyebrow raised, accompanying an expression I’d never seen before. Worry? Embarrassment? Guilt? I couldn’t say for sure. “This hasty escape doesn’t have anything to do wit-”, I cut him off. “Oh come on now, you know I wouldn’t do that. Especially not to you. I-I won’t be long, swear it.” Then I was out the door.

Those were the last words I spoke to Mr. K.

When I got to Ana, she looked as though she had seen a ghost; her hands trembled as she handed me the patient file. Sarah Highlander, 16. One of the first-born residents of Station-117. "Another one," she said. “We’ve got another person having night terrors and... episodes.” she trailed off, gesturing to the unit Sarah shared with her parents. Her father Arthur sat on the couch, clutching his face in his hand. He got up to comfort his wife, revealing a deep gash on his left cheek. Sarah had attacked him. “They started two weeks ago,” she muttered to me. The panic on her face was so palpable I could almost smell it in the air. “I assure you that doesn’t mea-” Ana grabbed my arm. “She has the same rash o-on her back…Just like Mr. Kruek.” After examining the patient, I called Mr. K's cell, no answer.

What is this thing? How did it get Sarah Highlander? Mr. Kruek never interacted with the people aside from his sister, me, and the council, aside from station events. None of this made any sense. Hoping Mr. K could shed some light on the matter, maybe establish some sort of connection or just help me run through the possibilities; I tried the rotary phone he kept in his office.

Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring……

I tried him again.

Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.Brrrrrrrring.

Nothing.

Then the Sector-9 EVAC chamber alarm went off.