Prologue

Cold. It was the biting cold that wrested her from unconsciousness. Slowly, her eyes began to focus on the corridor that she was sprawled out in. She could see shapes in the dark, machinery jutting out from the walls and the panels of the floor, and brief sparks of light from the broken cables hanging from the ceiling.

Where am I? How did I get here? What’s going on? She drew in breath and felt the soreness in her lungs. Her head felt like it had gone through a trash compactor.

Something told her that she needed to move. She didn’t quite understand why, but deep down inside her, alarms were ringing. You’re not safe here! Get up! MOVE!

Kristi tensed her body, drew in her outstretched arms, and pushed against the floor, but the fractures in her ribcage and leg rebuked her instantly. She slumped back onto her stomach, writhing in pain.

She lay there for a moment on top of a beveled floor panel, sputtering and trying to comprehend the severity of her wounds. Aside from the burning pain in her chest and her left leg, the rest of her body was numb. She felt dizzy and disoriented. At first, the thought crossed her mind that she had hit her head on one of the metal fixtures during her fall, but seconds later, she realized that this wasn’t the case.

The small air duct that she had landed next to had been fully open since she had been awake, the result of a redundant life support fail-safe kicking into gear. Now, suddenly, with a sinister hiss, she felt the air flow next to her come to a complete stop as the oxygen tank ran dry. The air was still for only a moment before she heard another much weaker hissing noise.

She tilted her head slowly and painfully until she could see behind her. The hiss was coming from a large bulkhead and its adjoining hatch not four or five meters behind her. Her vision still blurry, she couldn’t quite make out the source of the noise, but seconds later, she felt a draft pulling over her. It’s pulling towards the door. That means…

Suddenly, Kristi realized in horror why she had lost consciousness. She strained her vision until it focused on the large, yellow lettering printed on the door. It read: “Airlock.”

~ by pansquared on April 14, 2008.