The Airlock

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

Maybe I was the one who could not hear. I was isolated in this experience. I was alone. I can see the other woman screaming through the window, attempting to get my help. My attention. I put her there.

Why was she screaming, and why could I not hear her?

My colleagues were rushing to the sound.

I could hear them, but why not her?

The "why" and how" shouts echoed in my ears as Colin and Jimmy attempted to reopen the airlock. She still had time before the second door opened.

Not much time.

Colin turned and gripped my shoulders, shaking me. It all felt so distant. She needed to be gone, and they needed to let her go.

He screamed in my face, "What did you do?!"

I short-circuited the lock.

"I short-circuited the lock."

He cursed and went off to another room. To find his tools, maybe.

She continued to bang on the window, screaming, tears staining her face as she shook with fear.

I still could not hear her.

I was not meant to hear such a thing.

Jimmy was still trying to pull open the door with pure force. Such a man. His face was getting redder and redder. He was there when the Captain explained how the tech worked and should know that this is something the tech prevents. If he were to damage the door any further, everyone in the base would die when the airlock opens. He knows this. I know this. Colin knows this.

The Captain. She knows it.

If I could read her lips through the window, I would guess she was pleading for her life. There was no use. There was no getting in or out of the base now.

Her desperate breath steamed up the glass, smearing wet droplets of condensation.

Disgusting.

She deserved this.

Her silence in my mind was her punishment.

Colin came back and rushed to the window once again. The look on his face as he turned back to me should have broken my heart. I shoved his tools out with the Captain. No one could take back what I did. It needed to happen. We were not supposed to be here. She brought us here, and now we were all fucked. She KNEW that we were not supposed to be on this planet.

She knew we would not be able to get home after the mission. It was suicide.

The Captain set us up to get a job done and perish while we did it.

Fuck that.

She fucking knew that there was something on this planet.

I kept seeing it in the darkness. Flashes or red. The bumps and knocks on the metal walls when I was alone. It is out there, and she left us to it.

Now, she could face her own monster.

"We will die here, slowly but surely. The Captain has to face her consequences."

"What the fuck are you talking about, Cara? She did nothing wrong! We were going home next week!"

"No."

Jimmy stayed silent the whole time.

"Jimmy, you knew."

He nodded. He stopped trying to open the door as the Captain frantically clawed at the window, blood dripping from her fingers.

Colin looked between the three of us. Betrayal was written on his face.

Colin looked down at his feet. "What the fuck is out there?"

The red warning light outside the window started flashing, signaling the doors were opening. As the metal door slid open, the Captain gasped for breath, choking on her silence.

Past the metal door, a shadow was growing bigger.

"We need to go before it sees us."

The three of us ducked to the floor before we heard the chittering and clicking as it entered the airlock.