Alone

by Sean-Paul Thomas

  'I'm going away David.' Mark replied.

  'Away where.' I asked desperately.

  'Me and Anna! We're both going on a journey... So we can always be together.'

  I felt so confused. So scared and confused. What the hell was Mark talking about? Where could he possibly be going? Out into the darkness! There was nothing out there at all and nowhere else to go. And if there really was then why the hell couldn't he take me with him?

  'Away where Mark?' I screamed into the speaker. 'Please, tell me...please. Away to where? And why can't you take me?' I demanded.

  'I'm sorry David.' Said Mark regretfully. 'But this journey is only for two people.'

  The solid thick metal wall at the back of the sealed room from behind him started to crack open, sliding slowly apart. It was so unexpected. An seemingly impossibility just a few seconds ago, that those solid walls behind Mark, could ever prize themselves apart like that. Painfully slow the walls continued to peel and reveal the dark, mysterious, vast, never regions of black space behind them. A great ferocious wind burst in through the emerging crack. It screamed and howled it's way inside like some ghastly and hideous invisible demon. Desperately trying to grab a physical hold of both Mark and Anna to pull them out. Mark's trousers shook wildly in the wind and his hair stood on end, wavering with the ferocious windy air. Then faster than I could physically see or hear, all of the oxygen, air and life was sucked out of the sealed room by the monstrous wind. It was absolutely frightening to watch.

  'Goodbye David.' Shouted Mark. His voice booming over the deafening alarms and roaring winds inside the sealed room. Both his and Anna's bodies were beginning to shudder and rock violently back and fourth, almost off balance now. Mark closed his eyes, holding onto Anna even tighter. Gently he kissed her forehead as their hair entangled with each others in the high winds.

  'Don't leave me Mark.' I screamed into the speaker. 'Please don't leave me here. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry for everything I ever did.'

  To my horror Mark finally lifted off the ground and was sucked violently out of the sealed room, right in front of my disbelieving eyes. Just like that. In a quick blinking instance he was gone forever. I was alone here now. It was like he'd never even existed at all. Sucked out of existence he was. Right out and into the vast dark wilderness, clutching on tightly to his wife and my sister's lifeless body as he went.

  Furiously I continued to bang upon the thick glass separating me from the sealed room inside, raging in a fit of screaming agonising emotions before dropping to the floor beneath my feet in utter devastated defeat. I sobbed. It truly was the beginning of the end for me now. I was all alone here. Completely and utterly Alone.

  Chapter 23

  A great deal of time had passed. In fact it felt like a hell of a lot of time had passed to be exact. I had no idea exactly how long. I was lying down upon my back inside the cargo bay outside the sealed room that had sucked both Anna and Mark out into their new eternal home. Those sliding walls at the back of the strange room had long since closed over and everything was quiet again. It was like no one had ever really existed here at all besides me and my memories. Everything that had ever happened. All the people who had ever lived, breathed and died here. Their legacies only existed in my memories now.

  For countless hours I had been doing nothing but lying here in silence, just staring obliviously up at the metallic ceiling above. An image of Steffi smiling warmly came to my mind. Followed by another image of me holding Steffi's naked body in my arms while she pressed softly against my skin as the warm shower water ran over our bodies.

  'Steffi.' I called out. 'I'm sorry. I am so, so, sorry.'

  Then Anna came into my vision. My sweet, beautiful, pale and fragile sister. She came into my thoughts all smiley, giggling and happy. Then the image of me forcing myself upon her invaded and haunted my mind once more. I clenched my face and fists tightly at the dreadful deed. I tried to shake the disgusting image from my head. Oh Anna, what had I done? I felt more upset by the second while listening out to the deafening silence which reminded me once again just how alone I really was here.

  I struggled desperately to control my emotions. I wanted to cry, scream and roar from the bowels of my lungs. I controlled it, barely.

  I staggered to my feet using a nearby cargo container to help me. I turned towards the container and just felt so angry at it all of a sudden. I wanted to lash out, kick and punch it with all my strength and all my heart. Again I restrained myself. I couldn't hold back the sobbing though and with my hands placed over my face I began to cry in a restrained fit of sobs.

  'This was all my fault.' I couldn't help but think. The reason to why I was all alone now. It was all my own doing. I leaned over the cargo container grasping my hands tightly around its edges. It felt so cold and hard. The tighter I gripped, the harder I had to fight to hold my frustration and guilt deeper inside. Soon it was just too damn much and the emotional pain and anguish finally overcame me. I had to let out one desperate, painful roar before falling back onto my knees in a fit of uncontrollable emotion. This time there was no holding back. I let everything out. All the pain, guilt, anger, despair, remorse and internal emotional suffering. It all came flooding out.

  ***

  I entered the control room and sat myself down at one of the small computers screens. I tried to enter one of the programs by tapping away at the keyboard, but nothing happened. So in frustration I threw the computer monitor onto the floor and sat in silence for a long time. Later I went for another wander around the shuttle. I looked for anything, something to take my mind off my new doomed fate.

  I took my time to study the different doors and corridor walls in much greater detail and for no particular reason other than for something to do. Something to amuse me and occupy my thoughts. Eventually I ended up in the kitchen and took out some more food packages. There seemed to be plenty left since I wouldn't be sharing them with anyone anymore. I sat down on the floor in the middle of the dining room. I laid out the packages in front of me. I played around with them, throwing them from one hand to the next. It felt nice and relaxing. It calmed me down a little too.

  Then I got bored and decided to rip open the heads of the packages, squirting them all over the dining room floor. I became even more bored and squirted the food packages all over the walls too, until I'd squirted out the words 'MY FAULT' in big, brown, sludgy wet letters.

  Later I found myself in the long windowed corridor again. I pressed my face hard, right up against the window looking out into space. After some time I pulled my face away and spat twice on the glass, inches from the other. I watched with great fascination and interest as the two trails of saliva raced their way down to the bottom. I favoured the first and was rewarded with great satisfaction as it strolled ahead at the last few seconds. I could feel the madness pulling me in. She had her fingertips pressed gently against my neck.

  A mundane boredom was growing bigger and stronger inside. I couldn't imagine how much longer I could entertain my thoughts and mind like this. I knew the thoughts of ending my life were there. Creeping away at the back of mind, slowly crawling their way to the front of my brain like little creepy, crawly, monsters. Was this what going insane felt like? Was this how the maddening sickness would come for me next?

  I thought about some of the ways in which I could end it. End this mundane suffering. If I could only figure out how to work the strange sealed room that Mark had used, then I guess that would have to be the best and easiest option. The other option of course was Anna's way. Using the pills and syringes from the medical room. I just didn't want to inject anything into me though that would only cause me more pain and physical suffering. Especially if I didn't consume enough to kill me at first. That was the thing which tormented my mind most of all. I had no way of knowing what pills and syringes did what? Unless I stuck all of them into me, all at once. There was no way to be sure.

  I spat again twice and turned my attention back to the glass and the ne
w race trail. I favoured the second this time. Even with the first spit having had a greater head start on the other, he was still handsomely beaten to the bottom of the window by the second. For some reason that second victory had given me a greater feeling of satisfaction and delight inside. With that ridiculous thought and feeling I chuckled then laughed from the bellows of my stomach. For a few priceless seconds it felt good. It felt really, really good to just laugh like that. Then as the laughter died my thoughts filled again with dread and despair of my dire situation. My cheerful and delightful laughter quickly turned into a frantic bout of sobbing. Not for the first time I fell to my knees upon the corridor floor, deflated, defeated. Still sobbing I crawled. I crawled on my hands and knees all the way over towards Anna's old bedroom. The door was still open. I crawled inside and climbed my way up onto her bed, snuggling up into her old covers. I grabbed a hold of her pillow and put it against my face. I sniffed the material hard taking in the old smells of Anna deep into my nasals. I held that pillow so close and strong against me. I cuddled right into it for dear life as I curled myself up into a snug little ball, clutching the pillow harder into me with all my strength. I imagined for a long time the pillow I was holding so dearly was in fact Anna herself wrapped snugly and tightly in my arms. In no time at all I fell into a long, deep sleep.

  Chapter 24

  I awoke. It was a gradual awakening as the faint sound of something crying and screaming from a distance crept into my ears and growing conscious state. The more awake I became the louder the screaming and crying rang through my ears. It sounded more and more like the wails of a very young child, a baby perhaps. I shook my head in disbelief at hearing the sounds. But the crying wails still came to my ears. I raised my head and listened more carefully. I felt very confused about what was happening and from where. It was definitely the faint cries of a baby. Still feeling depressed and lethargic I rolled out of bed with as little effort as possible. Down onto the floor, falling onto my hands and knees. I crawled out of the bedroom and into the first main corridor following the faint but distinctive baby cries which grew gradually louder as I approached the shower room. Still on my hands and knees I came to a sudden halt outside the doorway and gazed around the empty room. For a few eerie seconds the baby's cries stopped and I struggled to fathom just where the hell they'd came from. Or even if I'd actually in fact heard them in the first place. Then suddenly the screams came back to full life over by the toilet bowl at the far end of the room. I stared in bewildered terror at the toilet as the cries from the screaming baby grew louder and more distinct. They were coming from inside the toilet bowl and every instinct within my body told me to just get up and run the hell away from there. Run as fast and as far away as I possible could from this horror. But like a Dog to a meaty bone my curiosity overwhelmed me. I had to peer inside that toilet bowl and see what was making these damn noises. I started crawling cautiously towards the toilet. I moved closer and closer towards the sounds of the wailings. Finally I reached the edge of the bowl. My mind running wild of a hundred and one different images of all the horrific sites I might see inside. A bloodied baby swimming for it's life. A screaming tiny little infant floating face up in the water waving it's tiny arms and legs to paddle and keep itself afloat. A baby trying to scramble it's way out of the slippery sided slopes of the bowl. Surely the baby couldn't have been that big to have a full set of screaming lungs to make this kind of deafening noise. The memory of witnessing Anna standing here previously all bloodied and distressed as the remains of her bloody, pulpy offspring floated inside this very toilet came flooding back to haunt me. I took a long, hard and deep breath before gathering up the courage to peer inside. As I did the baby's cries came to an abrupt halt indefinitely this time. I found myself staring hard into an empty toilet with the air around me filled by an eerie silence. There was nothing but clear water inside.

  ***

  I was lying down upon my back yet fully awake in the main corridor when I heard a faint beeping sound from somewhere further down the corridor. I raised my head a little from the floor and turned my attention towards it. Gradually I stood up onto my feet. I made my way along the main corridor. I followed the beeping noise all the way to the control room and entered. The computer which Mark was last working upon was making the curious noises as the screen flashed wildly. I sat down at the main computer and read the message which flashed upon the screen.

  - CO-ORDINATES FOUND: LOCATION FOUND: SHUTTLE ON ROUTE -

  I turned towards the large viewing window and saw that the shuttle was moving at a much faster rate through the twinkling darkness. This was most unexpected. We were finally going somewhere and I felt a slight twinge of excitement. I also felt a little, just a tiny little sense of hope. Something I hadn't felt since waking up here.

  Final chapter

  It felt like a whole new entire eternity had passed and we were still moving through space. The views were just the same, always the damn same. Just stars and blackness, blackness and goddamn stars. My excitement had long since died and at this rate I would die an old man before we ever reached wherever the hell it was the shuttle was taking me. The last time I'd looked at my reflection in the corridor window I was looking painfully thin with my beard overgrown by at least half a dozen inches. Back in the kitchen I ripped open the last empty food package and as soon as I'd devoured every single last drop of it I began licking the entire inside contents of the bag clean. I then threw the empty package into the far corner of the dining room where hundreds of other empty packages were quickly mounting up They stank too.

  There were no water packages left either, so I entered into the shower room and made my way towards the first shower. I hit the button but no water came out. I hit the second and third and still no water. I glanced dourly down at the toilet bowl and moved towards it. At the bowl I crouched down and cupped my hands together. I dipped them into the depths of the bowl. The coolness of the water felt good against my skin as I raised the water to my lips and drank.

  ***

  I was fast asleep in the shower cubicle when I was suddenly awoken by a shuffling sound out in the corridor, right outside the open doorway. I glanced out but all I could see was the hint of a slight shadow, which quickly disappeared from the doorway. Eventually I stood to my feet and cautiously made my way towards the next corridor where the control room was situated. I turned into the dark control room and proceeded to double tap the light switches. Suddenly a voice called to me from further inside the room.

  'Leave the lights off David'

  I recognised the voice instantly to be that of Ian. He stood in the darkness beside the large front window on the left side.

  'Ian.' I said in shock. 'Where the hell have you been?'

  'Come over here?' He replied still glancing out of the window.

  'What is it?' I said, gradually making my way towards him. 'What's out there?'

  'Come and see for yourself.' He replied. I approached his dark figure standing quietly and calmly beside the large viewing window.

  'How long were we in those sleeping pods for, you never told me?'

  Ian raised his fingers to his lips and shushed me.

  'Shush! It's a surprise. Now come and see.'

  I stood side by side with Ian at the huge window and stared out with a gaze of sheer and utter disbelief. I was absolutely baffled by this new, but frighteningly huge and awesome image right in front of me.

  'Well David! I suppose congratulations are in order. It looks like you finally made it home. I suppose now you have an answer to that ongoing, burning question of yours.' Said Ian with a sinister chuckle. I ignored him and continued to stare out of the window in intense wonderment.

  'What is this?' I asked mesmerised.

  'This is home David. This is your home.'

  I turned to face Ian who was grinning smugly right back at me. I was completely lost for words.

  'You know you don't look so good David. In fact you look like shit. Is that how you feel? How d
o you feel David?'

  I turned back to the window and continued to stare out in disbelief. I raised my hands to my head as I fully took in what I saw. Almost one third of the entire window was filled by what looked to be my home planet Earth. But not the planet Earth I thought I remembered, knew and loved. Where there was once a gorgeous array of dominant blue and white followed by the lesser colours of green and sandy brown. Now only colours of grey, darker and grimmer grey and a murky brown, covered its surface. The wonderful, colourful blue oceans and white pearl clouds that sprung to my mind whenever I thought of this place had long, long ago since dried up and evaporated. In their place lay miles upon miles of large, long and deep canyons and craters of ugly, hideously grey and grim brown. Continents of old could still be made out, but barely. They were a dark brown and grey colour and full of large cracks and craters all over their rough exterior. The colours of blue, white and green, no longer existed on this dead world anymore. They were as familiar to her landscape as they were to her smaller and younger neighbouring brother, the moon, which still resembled it's old, dull and miserable grey self. The beautiful white clouds, the sea, the grass, the trees and the great ice lands of the North and South had long since disappeared into nothing. And a long, long time ago at that. Old satellites, broken space stations and drifting abandoned shuttles cluttered and orbited around the dead world. As far as any kind of life was concerned I wasn't to look any further than this very shuttle.

  I continued to stare through the window in a complete and utter speechless shock and awe. I couldn't stop myself even if I wanted too.