- Mr Evil 37
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Hello, my friends.
I originally wrote this story as a piece of coursework for my English class about a year ago, under the title "Samui Shinu" and it was to be honest rather mediocre. I have been given an opportunity to rework it before I hand it in properly, and this is the result.
It has a more conventional structure and writing style than some of my other short stories (I will post them if you like them). It again deals with death, like my previous two stories, but also deals with the idea of the universe, what created it and how it is the most powerful force in existence. Another prominent theme is social decay, metaphorically shown by the dirty, grimy ship and other little things mentioned in the story.
It isn't perfect, and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Especially regarding the end, that took me a long time to write and I'm still not quite sure if it's right. As Bungie say while making a game, this story was like assembling a cathedral out of a hurricane, so I hope its worth it and please tell me if there are any problems with it.
Enjoy.
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Space
By Mr Evil 37
"Lucas!?"
Jack Lucas jumped out of his bed, banging his head on the low metal ceiling above him. Swearing and rubbing his throbbing head, he looked around his cabin, trying to see through the murky darkness.
He dragged himself out of the bed and over to the intercom on the wall.
"Lucas, you awake?" the Captain said, his voice gritty and robotic through the intercom.
Jack pressed the "transmit" button.
"Yes, sir," Jack said, releasing the button, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
"Finally. We have a situation."
Brilliant.
"Engine two has cut out again. We are behind schedule enough as it is and have no hope in heaven of making up for lost time until it is back up and running. You had better fix it properly this time, or you're off the crew next time we land," the Captain said matter-of-factly. "I'm not kidding this time."
Oh God.
"Understood, sir. I'll head down now." Jack replied, trying to mask the fear in his voice. He needn't have bothered. You would have to really pay attention to pick up even a hint of emotion through an intercom.
Jack almost felt sorry for the Captain. He hated the man, but with only a skeleton crew, he had to do a lot more work than usual, and that meant even more sleep lost. After a rough divorce a few years back, the Captains short fuse had been cut even shorter. Now he took all of his problems out on his crew. Jack had decided long ago that he would never be a Captain. Too much responsibility.
After hurriedly getting dressed into his grey, albeit stained, engineer's jump suit, he crossed his small cabin in two steps and gripped the rusty iron valve next to the door. He twisted it hard, hearing metal scrape on metal, before pushing his hand against the door to force it open, the metal joints groaning. The first thing to hit him was the smell. The horrible smell of rusted metal, rotting food, engine fuel and who knows what else mixed in. The stench overwhelmed his nostrils, forcing him to pinch his nose. The strange thing was that he had to put up with this smell every miserable day, and anyone would have thought that after five years he would have gotten used to it.
The second thing to hit him was the cold. The heating systems had been faulty for months, and independent maintenance crews believed it was only essential to fix the crew cabin heaters. There had been an incident the year before of someone getting locked out of his cabin, and actually getting frostbite on his hand. It had to be amputated.
Jack walked out into the misty corridor, staring blankly at the grimy sign opposite his cabin, which said: LEFT - CABIN'S 11 THROUGH 20, MESS HALL. RIGHT - CABIN'S 1 THROUGH 10, ELEVATOR (INFIRMARY, BRIDGE, CARGO BAY, ENGINE ROOM). He turned right, and began walking.
The corridor he walked was long, with dirty, rusty cabin doors to the right of him, with different names on the plaques; some he knew, some he didn't, none he liked. All Jack could hear was his hard boots clanging on the metal grating floor, and the low hum of the engines reverberating off the walls.
The dark corridor seemed to go on and on and on forever, when a window appeared out of the mist on the left like some supernatural apparition. It was covered in grease and condensation, so Jack rolled up his sleeve and after several minutes of trying managed to wipe off enough grime to be able to see out of the window.
For a moment, all he saw was black. Black, everywhere, with a huge, brilliant white light far off in the distance.
Then, his vision adjusted and he saw the tiny, tiny white dots covering the black sky. Millions, no, billions of them, in all directions. The huge white light was a nearby sun, the light many colours from the burning of many gases blended together to give the appearance of white. It looked so wondrous, so serene, and so peaceful. And Jack knew that space wasn't peaceful, wasn't serene, wasn't beautiful. It was a dark, cold expanse of nothing, more dangerous than anything man had ever faced before in its long history.
Ha, long history. Nothing compared to space's history.
Space wasn't full of possibilities and mysteries and exotic life. It was the complete opposite.
It was dead space. Just cold, lifeless, dead space.
Seeing all those stars made him think, where the hell did all this come from? How is it possible that the universe is infinite? Something, or someone, must have made it. Lucas was open to the idea of a God who created everything, but who created God? And who created the entity who created God? Jack was no philosophy expert, but after travelling in space for so long, he wanted, needed answers. And yet he knew he would never get them.
Space travel had been advertised as "the Next Great Chapter of the Human Race." Not quite. All Jack had wanted to do was get away from it all, his life of one tragedy after another, get his own ship and a crew, like you heard about on the news; pirates living exciting lives of crime and gunfights on the fringes of known space, constantly on the move and being chased by the authorities. The reality was completely different. It had taken him six months to find an engineering job on this piece of junk.
This cargo ship was a hell hole; everything onboard was out of date and filthy, constantly breaking down, which required Jack to work sometimes for twenty four hours straight before the ship could get moving again. And his pay was shockingly bad. The Captain didn't make enough profit with the cargo to hire a professional repair crew. In fact, he hardly made any profit at all, what with the current economic crisis.
There was no concept of day and night onboard. One caught sleep when one could, whenever there wasn't work to be done, which for Jack meant often being sleep deprived.
He slowly moved his eyes away from the window, and continued walking down the corridor, leading to blackness. Most of the halogen lights on the ceiling had died long ago, leaving dark shadows across everything, making it increasingly difficult to see without a flash light.
Even though Jack made this trip often, he was always very wary. He didn't really have any reason to be, but when you are all alone in a dark corridor on an out of date ship in the far reaches of space, it is extremely scary and depressing, giving a sense of helplessness which is impossible to experience anywhere else. People who hadn't experienced that kind of loneliness didn't understand. Couldn't understand.
He stepped over the bulkhead in front of him into the corridor beyond. To is left, a sign said: STRAIGHT AHEAD ELEVATOR. The engineer walked down the corridor quickly, stepping over a fuel spillage which had been there for months. To his right was another greasy window, and Jack stopped again to look out. It wasn't like the Captain would be any less pissed off if he fixed the engine quickly.
Outside were more shiny white dots, stars, and unending blackness. Jack stared out at the huge expanse of nothing for a few more seconds, but just before he continued down the corridor, something caught his eye. It was a bright light, almost blinding him, and he couldn't identify what it was. Then it spun round, no longer reflecting the nearby sun, and he saw it was a large piece of metal.
Debris, he said to himself. What the hell is debris doing all the way out-
His train of thoughts was suddenly interrupted by an ear-splitting crash, the incredible vibrations throwing him to the floor, followed by the screeching sound of metal against metal. Disoriented, he tried to get to his feet, but the reverberations though the hull of the ship kept him from doing so. His hands clutched his ears instinctively, trying to drown out the scraping metal noise. He couldn't collect his thoughts; he didn't know what was happening. Were they being fired upon? Had they crashed into another ship? Had there been an explosion? Was he imagining this whole thing?
He managed to scramble to his feet at last, but was thrown against the wall hard, pain shooting him his arm. He supported himself on the wall, and began to move forward slowly, fighting to keep his balance. A loud siren began wailing, adding to the din.
Must... reach... the intercom.
Before he, a helpless engineer, was anywhere near an intercom, his salvation, there was another huge crash. This one was a lot closer, and much louder. For a split second he heard glass shattering, before suddenly a huge wind grabbed hold of him and threw him to the ground. He forced himself onto his back, and saw the wind, a huge cloud of white mass, moving all around him.
Then he saw it.
[Edited on 02.20.2010 7:24 AM PST]