Writing Challenge Day 7
Happy Halloween!
THIS IS IT! The last day of my October writing challenge! Seven days of seven stories based on your prompts, dear reader!
If you haven’t read the last six stories, you can find them here:
Today’s prompt: Someone is celebrating Halloween alone... in space! On a space station overlooking Earth (or Earthlike planet), or perhaps a colony ship where everyone else is in cryo-sleep. Then they begin to see/hear things. Something tragic from their past? Or something more overtly scary and pulpy? You decide!
Dedicated to a mysterious prompt provider.
Happy Halloween in Space!
The 3D printer chimed as it finished another jack-o-lantern complete with real candle. Tanya picked it up, smiling, and placed it with the other five on the tiny table in the tiny space that served as the mess room. Technically the Company wouldn’t approve of using the limited resources on the long haul recon ship for something like Halloween decorations, but she doubted they would actually do anything once the audits came back. Even if they did, it wouldn’t matter.
After all, not many people were willing to volunteer on a mission like this.
A one way trip. A sacrifice for the greater good.
Tanya’s mother had always emphasized the value of the greater good over one’s individual life. If one could make a big difference, what did it matter if they lived or died if their death served to benefit all.
For her, her death would benefit her sister and her sister’s family, their sick children. The pay that went to the family of an SD pilot was astronomical.
Still, Tanya planned to make her one way trip as fun as possible. For her own greater good. Using the box of matches she’d 3D printed, Tanya lit the candles.
Picking up all but one of the pumpkin lanterns again, cradled in her arms, Tanya ducked through the hatch into the narrow hall that connected the five rooms of the Far Reach Recon Ship (also known to most as a Suicide Dart or SD for short) and she went to the other four rooms (her bunk, the sanitary room, the core room, and the bridge, placing a lantern in each room to accompany the small decorative skeletons she’d printed off earlier. Paper streamers positively choked the walls and ceiling, taped like vines throughout the SD.
In the bridge, she took a moment and looked at the holoscreen which displayed her progress. She’d been sealed into the SD two years ago and since then had come many light years. The SD had stopped twice in that time and she had observed a dark star and a strange rotating structure that glimmered wetly in the starlight. Each time, she had made her notes as per Company standards and sent back a comms. Each time, she had only received a curt response back to acknowledge receipt.
The SD shuddered and whined as the FTL powered down. Tanya lurched, reaching out to brace herself as the SD jumped out of warp speed and the protective shield across the front viewing port slid up. Her next assignment, one of endless depending on how long the SD kept it and herself alive.
Tanya sat in the bridge chair and peered into the dark of space.
The SD carried her forward and there, rising to view was…
…herself.
Tanya recoiled in shock, pulling her knees up to her chest and dropping the digipad she had picked up.
The other her was gigantic, easily ten times the size of her ship. The Not-Tanya was naked and curled in a fetal position spinning slowly in place, her skin gray and shiny like a pearl. As Tanya watched, the Not-Tanya lifted her head and stared back at Tanya.
Tanya tried to scream but only a hoarse whine rose from her throat after so many months of disuse.
Not-Tanya’s lips moved, frantically, as the giant reached out a hand and pointed at Tanya. Tanya couldn’t hear anything, she didn’t want to hear anything. Not-Tanya’s eyes were wide with fear, their black depths catching the pinpoints of starlights like tears. The giant pointed again and again, her mouth opening to scream.
Tanya lunged forward, hitting the button sequence to pull down the protection shield and initiate the SD to take her to her next destination.
The core hummed to life as the FTL warmed up. Tanya curled up into a fetal position in the chair, clutching her head, expecting at any moment the Not-Tanya would reach out and crush the ship like a pest.
But it didn’t.
The FTL roared and took her away.
Tanya sighed and relaxed, sinking in her chair. The console in front of her beeped, prompting her to fill in her obligatory Company report on her findings. What could she say? A space giant—a horrible star-born doppelganger had appeared and had tried to—what?
What had Not-Tanya been doing? Pointing at Tanya.
No.
Not pointing directly at her.
Just to the left.
Pointing behind her.
The hair on Tanya’s neck rose and she went still, holding her breath.
Not-Tanya had been pointing behind her and been saying something. Been shouting something in the void of space with fear in her eyes.
Was that a noise? The faint exhale, like that of a beast or man waiting just behind her?
Tanya shook her head, she was alone on the SD. She’d always been alone. SDs were only built for one.
Still she shivered.
Was that a crackle? The sound of bones crunching or grinding of teeth?
Impossible, the SD never docked anywhere, never landed anywhere.
Tanya slid in her seat, hands gripping the sides of the chair, and her heart thundering up into her throat. There was no one there, there could be no one else.
She peeked over the top of the chair.
The ship was engulfed in brilliant orange flames. The lanterns had melted to bubbling toxic mush as the candles ate through them before moving on to the excessively cheerful streamers.
Tanya stared, fear numbing her whole body as her mind scrambled to come up with a plan to save herself, the core hiccuped. The SD shuddered and an alarm blared as the ship fell out of FTL.
The flames made their way into an exposed access panel—a panel Tanya had removed weeks ago and not bothered to replace—and began to eat their way through the wires, the life support tubes. Oxygen hissed out and the flames rejoiced as Tanya screamed.
Thank you so much for joining me for this year’s writing challenge! I hope you enjoyed all the stories! Make sure to let me know what you thought of them and don’t forget to blow out your candles before you go to bed today, dearest reader!
x PLM
