The Wolf

Solitude is a desire for some, for some an obsession.

                 Robert Lands woke with a start, quickly sitting upright and slamming his head against the low ceiling.  He shouted in pain, rubbing his head in his hands, sharply inhaling.  He sat there thinking for several seconds before sighing and rising from his bed.  He crossed the room slowly, still getting his bearings.  He started the shower, rinsing off the grime of sleep, his mind still wandering.  He couldn’t get the image out of his head.  A dream, a horrible, horrible dream still haunted him.  There was a wolf, and a hunter… the details were unclear, Robert couldn’t quite remember them.  A sense of foreboding filled him as he exited the shower and slipped into his uniform.  He took a moment to look around; he was trying not to take his surroundings for granted as often.  His room was the same as it had always been, simply a gray cube with a locker and a small rectangle cut into the wall for his bed.  Sparse, but functional, much like the man himself.

                Lands exited his room, following the same path he had for the last three years of his life.  Through the gray corridor, up the gray cubic elevator, and through the other gray corridor.  Always though, he relished the first moment when he walked into the bridge.  It was truly the moment he woke up every day, exhilarated by the flurry of activity around him.  Lands lived for his work, the rest of his life a gray blur to him.  He stepped onto the bridge, greeted by the other members of the crew, grinning through clenched teeth.  If there was one thing he could get rid of, it would be the crew.  He hated other people, wishing instead for solitude, endlessly sailing through space, the ultimate peace.  He walked to the front of the ship, anticipating the sense of awe he always felt when he beheld the heavens.  There it was, that endless sea of black, dotted by a seemingly infinite sea of points.  There never was a more beautiful landscape than that.

                He sighed, turning away from that awe inspiring sight and settling into his chair at the front of the room.  They badgered him, got him to sign forms, asked him questions, tried to make small talk, and distracted him.  Why couldn’t they understand that all he wanted was peace?  He wanted to do his job with no interruptions.  He wore a mask so that they wouldn’t question his authority, but underneath it, he couldn’t stand them.  The truth was, if not for the menial tasks they completed, he would kill them all in a heartbeat to have the ship for himself.  The only object in the universe he felt connected to was the ship, his vessel which protected him from the harsh conditions of space.  He considered it an extension of his body, a shell which enabled him to be one with space.

                A blinking light suddenly appeared on his console, a message from the fleet commander, warning him about disappearing vessels in his vicinity.  Lands wasn’t worried; with him at the helm, his ship was invincible.  Then Lands thought again about his dream.  Bits and pieces were getting through.  There was a wolf…and a hunter…the wolf was being chased.  He couldn’t remember carrying a weapon.  That now familiar sense of foreboding overtook him again, and he shivered.  Lands broke out of his reverie, responding with a brief affirmation of the commander’s warning.  He looked around, and many uneasy glances met his eyes.  Did they sense his hatred of them?  He didn’t care either way, but he wasn’t sure of the answer.

                He exited the bridge, retiring to his “safe spot” as he called it, the underbelly of the ship, with a window he had personally commissioned, completely secluded from the rest of the ship.  The only way in was via a space walk.  It was here that he ate all his meals, and spent all the time he wasn’t working or sleeping.  His refuge from the monotony of the crew, here he could take in the magnitude of space for hours at a time.  Finishing his meal, he lay on his back, peering into space, letting his mind wander.  His thoughts returned once again to his dream.  He tried to piece together more details.  He was running through the woods, darting around trees, chasing down his prey.  He was able to feel the wolf’s emotions: panic, fear, surprise, hatred, anger, and, a feeling he knew all too well, the desire for solitude.

                He returned to the bridge to find a blinking red message on his console warning him of an impending attack from a pirated vessel.  He was the only one on the ship who received these sorts of messages.  A sharp fear rose inside of him, and he rushed for the alert button which would send his crew to their battle stations.  He pressed the button, and the blaring siren overtook the ship, and the crew frantically ran to their weapons.  On the radar, he saw the oncoming ship.  It was approaching fast, with an ETA of less than five minutes.  He looked at his communicator, which should have given this message as soon as it was received.  A broken communicator, not discovered because he never communicated with anyone.

                The alien ship rapidly approached, and Lands began to realize his ship would not be armed in time.  He ordered the retreat, flying at full speed, hurtling through space.  The alien ship was impossibly fast, and little by little, it gained on him.  Soon it would be in attack range.  The crew dropped mines behind the ship, but the chances of them hitting anything with any force were nil.  After what seemed like an eternity, the alien ship was in range, and Lands’s hallowed vessel was destroyed with two quick laser pulses.  The instant before Lands was dragged out of the ship by the vacuum of space, a single thought passed through his head.  I am the wolf.  Lands had received his wish: his bloated corpse would travel through space for all eternity, utterly alone.

Reviews

[deeps]

I guess the underbelly of the ship would be known as the bottom?
I like this, your writes so far are very informtive.
I like that. Can learn from your writes.
Very well written and put together.
You are very talented.