Brain

Science Fiction story dealing with a man tormented by both his mind and an unknown outside force.

The man drifted in the void wishing for death to come swiftly. Pain no longer existed within his heart as the darkness that surrounded him was too great for him to know the difference. Voices stretched out as echoes of longing attempted to reach him, but they only reverberated against the black void. Out of the shadows of space, it began to shift and contort its face with no trace of recognition to anything that he knew from his memories. The man did remember one thing in that moment. Fear.

His eyes opened without a sense of urgency. He laid there in bed with the covers wrapped over half of his face, not wanting to get up. As he twisted in bed, the man gazed at the floor of his quarters within the space station. A mess of clothes cluttered the carpeted floor from his time spent up there. The man looked at the ceiling and mapped the four corners of his room for minutes. Undoing the covers, he got up and walked over to a large wall panel. Shifting the metal sheet upward into the ceiling revealed a glass window that peered into the white landscape of SCUL-7734-01-1507. He stared long into the dunes as well as the black sky. The DT-30 alarm clock rang at 6:00am starting the day and he thought to himself, breakfast.

The man walked over to the living quarters of the station. The space was wide with tall white walls like the moon he was living on. Just before heading to the kitchen he wandered over to the floor where there were two latches separated by an El-7 cassette player module. Twisting one of the latches counterclockwise and pulling on it, a large collection of Elcasets came up from the floor. He pulled out a tape labeled Memories and placed it into the player. The tape motor spun by itself, playing the music through the station’s programming. While in the kitchen, he opened up metal cabinets that had food capsules suspended in stasis. All the man had to do was heat the food up, add some flavor and enjoy it, but how could he? Hello darkness my old friend, rang through the air as his face hung over breakfast. Eating to him felt like a chore, even if it meant he was hungry. After some time had passed, he listened to the music as he ate the fake meal he served himself to keep his body pumping to do his job there at the station.

The thought of work ran to his muddled mind. Isolation did a good job of getting in the way most of the time. A beep from one of the computers linked to the AHAB space station sent a message. “FATHER, open message,” he said. The man looked at the thirteen by thirteen-inch screen, command prompts coming from FATHER, the A.I. of the station, stated that he had received a message from TERRA-3407. An image of his wife and daughter appeared. After opening the image, the man glared at his computer. “FATHER, print image to size using film." The photo printed from a slot near the screen. It was black at first but as he shook the photograph the image became clear in color. The man felt nothing. He wanted to, but he couldn’t.

He held the photograph in his hand and left the kitchen off to another room, connected to the living quarters. The room was pitch black. Before taking any more steps into the room, he turned a dial by the door. The dial only lit one wall in the room. To the man, he knew the room as the Shrine. Photos of his family from TERRA-3407 were pinned to the wall to remind him of what was. Adding another one to the collection, the man thought. In front of the Shrine across from it, a leather reading chair had been fixed to the ground. Walking over, he sat there. Alone. Audio transmission broke the seal of quiet.

“SCUL-1507 this is Alpha, what’s your status on the completion of the terra-former?” the man waited there to see if the people down at AHAB would leave him be. “SCUL-1507 what is your status?” Frustrated, the man got up from his chair, reached for his glasses that were on a nearby desk and typed on a computer module. He opened command prompts containing data recorded for the progression of the terra-former. “SCUL-1507 what is�" “

“85 percent,” the man said, “ETOC 50 hours including installation.” Silence grew between the two of them. The man pulled off his glasses and placed them on the desk.

“Continue keeping us updated SCUL…” the audio transmission hushed. When he had finished with his conversation with AHAB, the man put on his engineering uniform and headed to the development station where the terra-former was being completed. The corridors before making it into the main lab were long and tightly compact. In the main hull of the domed work space right in the center of the lab was the machine itself. Large at two paces high, the cylindrical device laid dormant until the final work within the day had begun. The man saw his mech fully charged and docked waiting to be used to complete its task. He climbed into the mech and turned it on. When he walked over to the terra-former, the man monitored the different levels of things needed to make the moon, SCUL, function properly as a new planet. The levels showed the gravitational pull, atmosphere, and heat emanating from the device. With the mech’s arms he twisted the terra-former open revealing its core. Light burst from the container, heating the temperatures of the lab making the environment near unstable. Weight in the room became dense. The mech was a hassle to control but not impossible. The light was bright for the man to look directly into it. He fought as he used the built-in technology to filter out the flash burn coming from the core attempting to see. Once veiled from the light he enclosed the core and returned the lab to its balanced state.

The man jacked into the terra-former, searching for any anomalies that may cause any issues when installing it into the center of SCUL. Some of the data in regard to the atmosphere came up needing adjustment. “FATHER, recalibrate the amount of ammonia within the settings.” Through command prompts, FATHER made the changes that required fixing. The man felt as if his head were going to explode from the pressure created from the core. Sweat slid down his face as the metal around him felt hot to the touch. The interior smelt like burnt leather. “FATHER, cool mech’s temperature down 45 percent.” After FATHER did so, he walked over and docked the mech back into place.

Work for the day had been finished, but depression is what kept the man from enjoying his time there. Time. Time made it even harder up there for him. To him there was no difference between morning, evening and night. Alarms set within FATHER’s memory helped with that. The man, ready for bed, gazed outside his window, counting the days until he wasn’t alone. Until he could feel the warmth of the sun trapping its rays on a new planet. To him, time never felt like it was moving. He looked outside the window toward the stars against the black sky. Before closing the shutter for the window, the man noticed someone standing far in the dunes of the moon shrouded in black. The person outside had no protection from the coldness of space. What the hell. White pale eyes gleaned for his attention as he drifted in the void, having felt the same fear from before as if it were the first time. Its mouth opened while the unknown gripped the man at his core sucking him in closer. Fear.

The fear woke him up violently as he held his chest tight with nothing else attached. The man panted and looked at the clock. The digits read 3:33am. He knew that sleep wouldn’t do anything. There was only one place that would keep him busy until the terra-former was installed. The Shrine. While on his way there, he had taken out another one of his Elcasets from the collection in the floor and placed it into the player. The light was low, and the man sat there, thinking about the family he would never see again. I’m too far in, he thought to himself as lyrics spoke from the monitors within the ceiling,

You used to beg me to take care of things

And smile at the thoughts of me failing.

But long before having hurt,

I’ll send the pain below,

Much like suffocating.

Suffocation. Those words stung his heart because they were true. That’s what it felt like being up there. The wall where the Shrine existed is where he passed time. It was the only thing that made the white walls of the station feel like home, but he remembered that it wasn’t. “FATHER, send a message to Alpha through text,” the man stated, not really wanting to talk to them. “Finished the build for the terra-former. Preparing installation at mid-day.” FATHER made a beep to let the man know that the message was sent. A notification indicated by a double beep told him that he needed to get up and walk over to his computer module. He walked to his desk and put on his glasses.

Communicate over radio when ready to sync, SCUL-1507, FATHER reported from Alpha on the small screen. At mid-day, the man had gone to his room to grab his MD player and a mini disk to insert into his mech. Music helped him get through the things that he was obligated to do. He felt like the weight of responsibility raised off his shoulders when the sounds reached his ears. The man went to the lab to finish preparing for installation. Before everything began, the man put on his suit over his clothes and made sure that oxygen levels were full. After he climbed into his mech, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the MD player with the music. The mech had a compartment that he could place the player into. He placed and let go of the device and FATHER, using sensors lined in the drive of the mech, received integrated it.

The man went over to the terra-former and carried it to the launching bay door next to the docking station. The lab separated by two blast shield doors kept death outside. “FATHER, open bay door one,” the man said, “after I’m in, close it behind me.” When he walked through, FATHER closed it. It asked through his monitored screen, Open bay door two? The man typed into his controls Y and the second bay door opened. A prompt from FATHER stated, entering vacuum. The second bay door slid open and air was sucked past through the man in his mech. His heart started to beat to the rhythm of anxiety, knowing he’s been outside before. The man asked FATHER to play track seven on the mini disk to help calm him. As FATHER played the track, the man clicked on the thrusters of his mech flew toward the landing zone where the terra-former was going to be inserted. He traveled about a mile south from the station which insured that the ammonia wouldn’t affect him or the lab once it was released. Light the way and let me go, I will end where I began, the music played.

The man took the right arm of the machine and transformed it into a drill that could reach deep beneath the surface of SCUL. The fingers split apart and folded in half. A winding blade jetted from its forearm and started to rev like a buzz saw. I will find the enemy within ‘cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin, the music continued as he plunged deep into the solid white rock. He didn’t have to dig much. Traveling about 5 miles would be enough for Alpha to sync up with the terra-former to allow the device to drill further down to the center without risking the safety of the man. Deeper and deeper he went into the depths of SCUL. Fear.

Giant white eyes shifted and moved across its face. The man fumbled from shock. He attempted to stab at it with the drill until its contorting ceased. The man could see that creature pulled back from the struggle. While the Fear was in pain, the man took the opportunity by thrusting back toward the surface. FATHER warned him that fuel in the engine became low. He made it to the surface, but where was it, he thought.

He looked around in circles. Its white eyes stared at him and caused him to stiffen. Its shrouded form attacked from all sides. During the struggle, the man let go of the terra-former. The device drifted in space down the drilled hole made in the moon. The Fear stopped the man’s drill in place with the unknown coming from its mouth. The shrouded form broke the mech and sent him drifting in the real void of space. As the man spun, he felt that his final moments were at hand. He saw the Fear shifting, making its way up towards him.

Deep in the recess of his memories the man remembered the colors found back home. There, the color ran wild with hope for tomorrow. There he saw his family. The family he loved and thoughts of the families to come made his mind clear for the first time.

The man touched the button on his suit opening the core of the terra-former. The Fear and the man both fell against the surface of the moon. Dazed from the pressure of gravity, he laid across the rocky dusted ground. The drill was within reachable distance from him. The man stumbled to his feet, picked up and revved the drill. He turned and saw the Fear take form of the figure he saw the night before. “Come on. Come on and fight me!” It stood there static. The man wondered why it hadn’t made a move to come attack him. He thought the gravity might have made the creature adapt to its new environment before confronting him. The man dashed not wasting time. As he approached in front of the Fear, its eyes peered at him. He froze in place while his mind slipped into an unwavering amount of numbness.

After the numbness, anger with pain rose from his lungs as he screamed loud enough to make his ears bleed. The man’s fists hit the ground as if they actually made a dent. He looked up to see the Fear standing over him. He grabbed onto the Fear and it onto him until they became one of the same. The man knelt there. The pain continued until he couldn’t scream any more. He fell to the ground lying on his stomach and with the little energy left in him, he typed a command prompt on his wrist to have FATHER send a message to AHAB to initiate the terra-former and commence with project TERRA-34174. Seismic waves of energy from the terra-former began to shape the SCUL as death came swiftly in the void. A new world.

Author's Note

I am a complete novice when it comes to the craft of writing a story. With that being said I've always loved to tell and write stories ever since I was little. I feel like I have the ideas and the themes I want to tell but the structure of my writing needs the most work. If you can narrow it down to the prose, that would be much appreciated. I would also like to note, that this is the first story I came up with a long time ago and decided to force myself to finish it no matter how bad it came out. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and review my story.