My life on Equis
Prologue
Load Full StoryHow to start this.....? How do I tell you how I got here...? I have never been good with these things. How about I start like all those cheesy stories you all seem to love:
My name is (well was) Haytham Anderson, a pretty standard name for my time. I was young when all this started, about 19 years. And I wasn't your typical man of 19. I was at the top of every class since I was young and I didn't need to study at a tertiary level apparently. At that time I was on the new star cruiser that was built. I was commissioned to work on the S.S.V. Pandora on route to Mars. I would go on space walks to check all the external equipment on the large vessel. I would collect random samples of space cloud that rarely passed our way and desolate pieces of rock that I thought irrelevant but the contain thought valuable.
We were in our 34th week at the time of the incident. I woke up like usual on the first day and deactivated the gravity belts ( I called them that to make the velcro straps sound less pathetic). I walked toward the eating ward using the usual route. When I arrived I met up with my friends. I knew them as Kalium Puceon and Dasc Crescant. They knew me as Charles Vane. We all had names we called each other so none of the crew members could never figure out our real names for the main reason of just because. So we always caused a stir with our fellow crew mates with our insults no one understood and our talks of the most random of subjects.
"Evening gents." I blurted as usual with my flattened tone approaching the table they had claimed.
"You know that it's morning for us right?"Dasc asked me not looking up from the grime they gave us to consume.
"Aye, he is right Firaevius." Kalium said finishing his mouthful.
I, in my slightly dazed, state looked at the clock on the wall to the right of us. "Only by a few minutes lads." I say getting us to giggle slightly.
I decide to grab my portion from the counter 10 meters behind them and head back to the table where I was a few seconds before. When I returned I sat down and started to eat the grey, salty mass that is supposedly called food here. "So Dasc what is the plans for the day?" I ask over the loud echoes of the crew.
"Well Kalium, you have some calibrations to do on the main oxygen converters and the engines. Charles you have to do the standard space walk that you are famous across the galaxy for. That's all for today so we all have a quiet day." He tells me adding some sarcasm to my task.
"Do just doing a normal walk and look at the random million dollar equipment. I was wondering why they didn't make me rise earlier. Well I guess we'd better eat and get to work." I happily said.
So we did just that. Kalium did his routine calibrations, I did my check ups and one quick repair and Dasc did what ever he does. We met up at kalium a room for some classic trivial pursuit and some classic movies from 1980-1999. Of course Kalium won knowing his excessive amount of strategy games he had played as a young boy constantly looking for war. Anyway it was a nice evening and ended with us passed out and enjoying the silence of no alarms the next morning.
The next day was enjoyed in silenced as I caught up with some reading and some video games. Kalium stopped by unaccounted. "Hey Carron are you okay you seem half dead, like something is off."
"Yeah. Why?"
"Well I'll put it this way; you seem as right as a flame made of water with how you've been acting."
"Don't worry 'bout me." Was what I said just before he took his leave.
The next day I was awoken by a message saying one of the sensor arrays was faulty sensing a space anomaly that isn't there. At this point we were stationary waiting for the power cores to recharge at our fuel depot halfway to Mars. I propped on my suit, put in my lucky pocket knife, put on my homemade hidden blade from a classic game I once played called assassin's creed and connected my headset to the bridge.
"Haytham, equipment engineer: 6-2 reporting at hatch whiskey, tango, alpha 4-2-1. Requesting hatch release." I said as pure the usual.
"Copy that 6-2. Pressurizing exit chamber now." As that was done he activated the pressurization process indicated by the hissing sound of escaping air. "Opening hatch now..." the steel door opened revealing the all too familiar void "...aaand the door is open. You are clear for space walk 6-2."
At that note I exited the tunnel and my magnetic boots activated and I started my 200 meter trek to the arrays. As I walked to the array cluster, I did the usual admiring of the stars. The way they seemed to move and change alway amazed me. But today it was different. I could've sworn I saw it spelt something; LUNA. I couldn't for the life of me figure it out so I decided to ignore it as a hallucination form sleep deprivation. I finally made it to array 67. The three meter spike was buzzing as usual.
I head toward the panel and opened it. All of the calibrations were spot on. "Uh...bridge this is engineer 6-2, array report is false. Everything in 67 is operating on good parameters. No faults detected." I say observing all the lights and readings.
"Roger that 6-2. Must be a build up of electrons. You may return." Say the bridge in its usual robotic demeanor.
"On route."
I started walking back to the hatch when I notice the array to beep frantically. At that note I turn to see a distortion in the light of the stars. It was something I never hoped to see from this close. The wormhole started sucking anything near into its unknown bowls which happened to be me. I started running back to the hatch as fast as I could only to find me sliding backwards with every step. My body then froze whether form fear or acceptance. My body started to be tugged toward the anomaly. "BRIDGE! WORMHOLE HERE! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
All I got was static from the other end and knowing how these worked I decide that there was no hope. As I finished that very thought I was sucked up of the ship and drifted into the rift. I started think about everything I knew. My friends, how they made jokes, the arguments we had and all the debates about the stupidest topics known. I thought of my crush. Engineer Michska rajha. Her laugh, her smile, everything. Then reality caught up with that thought.
With every thought I was pulled deeper into the rift, having every inch crushed and squeezed into this hole. I then remember the word I saw thinking if It had any relation to this. Every inch burned yet froze. After what seemed like eternity I was completely devoured into the dark void. And then the void took me. All consciousness obliterated and whipped away by the darkness. Then nothing.
