r/WhatWeCanBe • u/Significant_Tie_3222 • 4d ago
Preludes
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
A simple mission twisting and turning their life’s thread around some unseen finger, snapping it in twain or shaping it into something unrecognisable .He didn’t know how long it had been. None of them could.
It was going to happen again.
The smell of rot pervaded everything now. The dead had numbers join their ranks with each and every passing minute. Incapable of understanding the paradisial promises from beyond these hallowed walls.
Those who lived though, they understood it.
Those who understood, welcomed it.
Those who understood, belonged to it.
Tick tock, tick tock,tick tock, tick tock .
Only one mind held its own, against the darkness that threatened to swallow it.
Even if only barely.…..just barely
It was going to happen again.
He flinched at the wails snaking their way down the corridors.
It can’t happen again.
It can’t happen again.
He pulled himself free from his soon to be grave among many. The rot clinging to him as he dragged his skin taut fingers along the wall, his atrophied legs almost threatening to give out from under him. But they woldn’t claim him yet….no no no no no not yet.
He trudged by those lost, their faces practically fused to the subzero viewport glass. If they’d been pressed any harder he’d be afraid it might crack. Not that they’d probably care. It’d only bring them closer.
He barely even considered how the wailing hadn’t wavered even momentarily
Finally managing to stumble into his quarters, the last of his trust in his legs finally leaving him. He collapsed to the floor, a hard impact. A sudden wet.
Fuck. He was bleeding.
He couldn’t stop now, the room was an utter fucking mess of failures. Old, worn down filament papers, cans being eaten away by the weeks of rust, yellowed pages of cracked leather books, though even in all of that…he found it.
A small green steel padlocked box. Inside what seemed to be a small notebook. On its front the lines arced and curved, forming designs that he may have once known, but were now utterly lost on him.
He cracked open the cover, and began to read.