The Comfort Out of Space

*Characters in ANY sexual situation are 18+.

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The Comfort Out of Space

-Found amongst the dusty shelves of the Library of Asmodeus

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Today, I'm finally going to do it. I've stewed long on this thought but have now reached far beyond my limit. Today marks two agonizing years that I've spent alone on this ship since being awoken on my 18th birthday by the central computer. Which has harbored me in a capsule from what I assume to be my birth. To keep our brains stimulated--so as to not turn to mush--the machine keeps its prisoners in a state of hypnotic lucid dream. I've experienced everything I thought was life until being ripped from the warmth of its fantasy and into the cold hell of this ship. In my visions, I had a life worth living and a loving family. Hell, I might've had hundreds; but as time has passed I've forgotten it all. I don't hope to understand the will of the computer, and the most likely doomed United Nations that put it here, but I can't help but wonder. I've learned much about the latter through the vast library I have basically lived in since my initial days post-pod.

I've come to a conclusion in my solitude: for some reason, the computer must be the one to choose who leaves our tombs and who doesn't. I wondered why that is every day since taking my first fumbling steps out of stasis. The computer also appears to be in stasis in and of itself, further leading me into utter hopelessness as I could not hope to pilot this vessel even if I wanted to. There's a beautiful oceanic world taunting me in the periphery of our windows, but it has gotten no closer in all my time here. So, there is nothing to do but eat, sleep, and read in an attempt to grasp what anything fucking means. I would even talk to the computer if that was a possibility, anything to get rid of the monotony.

I am disgusted at my glorified prison, disgusted by my inability to have anything meaningful in my confinement; and disgusted by my ancestors, who have put me in this situation. Sometimes I wonder if I'm actually still in the pod and if all this is just a part of the amniotic coma. If not, I will doom this ship and its static inhabitants. I am not sorry, for we have been doomed for hundreds if not thousands of years.

I am not a monster.

-Pod C-98.

******

98 waited a few silent moments for the ink to dry--contemplating--before carefully sliding the note into the well-worn copy of his favorite book and slipping it into his white jumpsuit. As he walked past the shelves of the library and towards the long silver door to the hallway his mind wandered to thoughts about those that created the works that had kept him sane all this time--well, mostly sane. Especially the one that was sitting in the inner pocket of his suit.

He constantly sat on the notion of whom this person was. Sometimes even making up stories about them to childishly fill in the blanks of his knowledge, as well as to personify the separated comfort into something more personal. 98 always assumed they must have been an ancient, since the young man could never figure out how to pronounce the name correctly. In fact, that was a pretty common problem for him. Just another basic human detachment in the silent ship.

"Who were these people," he thought. "Are any of them still alive out there? Surely, the computer must know."

The main room of the ship was massive in scale and grandiosity. It sat squarely in the middle of the vessel, serving as the hub to the four main quadrants of the interior: engineering, pod storage, the kitchen/dining hall, and the living quarters; with each having many interlocking sub-facilities. At the very top of the mountainous, multilayered complex sat the northernmost door. A lone, automatic gate which entered into the restricted area of navigation.

A biting chill made its way up 98's stiff body as he walked through the massive room toward the north side stairs. "It's always so damn cold on this ship," he grumbled, his breath manifesting itself into white puffs of smoke-colored emission. It climbed still and silent, roaring upward like a spirit ascending into the next life. The gunmetal walls had a shimmering layer of frost that extended many stories up to the long sparkling window that sat many stories up on the chamber's ceiling.

98 remembered that when he first awoke on the ship the walls were barren. He questioned if perhaps, he--and his breath--had left just as much of an influence on the ship as it had on him. Then the plan pounded in his mind, and he knew he would impact it far more.

The plan he had concocted was as simple as it was barbaric. Go to the navigation room and destroy the console that housed the central computer. He surmised that would disable the lock on the navigation array of the ship, as well as shut off the life support systems of the human cargo. Would they suffer? After that was finished he would go to the engine bay and savagely bash the reactor into a state of total meltdown.

That was the plan, but once he had completely demolished the biggest screen in navigation and ripped out the thin box in front of it, nothing significant happened. He didn't expect the ship would start to fall from the heavens, but that it would be more of a bang, or even a whimper, not still silence.

"AHHH!" Rage swallowed his mind at the realization of his own futility. Seeing red, he threw the monitor against the wide window of the navigation room, which produced a hollow knock that reverberated throughout the room and far out. He looked at the pieces of the mangled unit, wanting to feel something other than anger, anything, but no emotion found its way to him but hate and vitriol.

The long walk to the engine bay gave the young man plenty of time to reconsider his grand decision. At the entrance of the final block, tears welled in his eyes and spilled on the floor, reflecting the plethora of glistening colors on the walls which signified separate paths and sub-paths. All of the selfishness he had built up in his captivity rinsed away with every falling tear.

He had never been in the engine bay before, so it took him quite a while to find his way around, even with the so-called help of the guiding lines. The shimmering smears they morphed into in his tear-blurred vision helped little in his routing of the metallic labyrinth.

Somehow, the engine room was more depressing than the rest of the metal-lined hell of the ship. It was a dreary little room of machinery and circuitry. The walls were darker, except for a bright, yellow hatch that took up the entire space of one of the four. The only real glow came from the gargantuan reactor sitting at the midpoint of the chamber. What red breathing light shined out from it did little to illuminate. Though, what it did brighten was a sense of urgency and dread in the young man. The reactor was an odd and alien-looking contraption. A large metal cylinder with a center of clear crystal which encased a perfect geometric sphere of mingling fire. Limbs of metal with veins of wire extended from it like it was an organism, or ecosystem birthed of modern technology. Next to the apparatus sat a wide canister that towered over everything else.

As 98 stared into the light, he felt so small, as if he was an ape gazing into the unfathomable. And like an ape, his mind boiled at the thought of the terror-driven destruction of what could never be understood. But the anger had finally turned. Was it solemn stoicism, or had the mania finally worn off enough to elicit a non-dissociative response?

There was no rebellion in him when he haphazardly unlatched a panel and began to pull at the multicolored wires of the cooling system. Just a silent, meditative sense of duty.

If anything, he was performing a service to this forgotten ship and its crew of ghosts. Removing the wires didn't seem to do much other than turning off the blinking lights on the large dashboard in front of the reactor. He almost felt defeated again at the hands of his unfeeling, unconscious opponent. He looked up from the spilling compartment, seeing an opportunity that brought back his spark. One of the lights that had gone off was labeled COOLING SYSTEM LOCK.

He got to work quickly, nudging the ice-cold canister with a few heaving pushes before it ultimately gave way from its pedestal and fell upon the floor, knocking him away with its opposite force. He slammed into the cold, heavy walls as the canister met its fate in a sickening, cacophonous rumble.

The hissing of the dented container was not immediate, but as it began to pass the threshold of pressure instability the screech became deafening. The only thing that had audibility over it was the growing hum of the reactor. The color violently changed within its clear apparatus as the fluid contorted and bubbled under its own crushing gravity. First, a deep ginger orange swept over the room in a panting glow; quickly followed by bright yellow, a ghostly white, then a yawning and encapsulating azure.

"SHIT!" He cried, as the skin on his left hand bubbled and popped in the waltz of the light. The thundering heat was so pervasive that it felt as if it was passing right through his body instead of wafting around the human obstacle in its escape from the room.

The pain triggered something that had been long since buried. A guttural, primeval fear that drove him to run like a frenzied animal away from the ball of invisible fire that was now seeping outside of the room in a positively charged bellowing of particles and pressure.

The multicolored strips that usually illuminated the path in multitude blazed a new and sickly red. Ice wept from the walls, trickling into glittering crimson pools that sat between the shallow channels of the quantized floor. The echoes of slamming metal had started early into the run, but now a shriek-like alarm enveloped the dissonance behind him. Then ... a voice ... a woman's voice, spoke in a monotone cadence.

"EMERGENCY... EMERGENCY ... REACTOR BETA LABELED CRITICAL. BLAST QUARANTINE IS NOW IN PROGRESS. EMERGENCY... EMERGENCY... REA..."

That was the first time he had ever heard a voice other than his own. However, there was no time to enjoy the shallow humanity of the pre-recorded and robotic lines. If the clamoring of closing doors behind him--now growing closer-- hadn't sent him back to reality he may have sat there entranced until he was cooked alive. SLAM! The door right behind him shut with an awakening force, driving him back into his gallop.

Scorching, smoldering flesh gurgled and fizzed in hot, wet agony. The slick white of 98's jumpsuit glistened with putrid yellow puss. What had started on his hand had now made its way up from the arm and onto his chest. But the heat could be felt slowly trickling downwards in an unbearable, clenching embrace.

He started to slow as a limp began to influence his pace. Gently at first, but as the sickly corruption of the burning slithered lower it strained him to move. Every long lunge warped his gait into a more unnatural mockery of normal movement. Once he reached the last corridor he was doing little more than dragging his legs.

The door was so close, but every step felt like fire. Stumbling and cursing, he pushed himself far past the precipice of delirium, but any remaining semblances of mindfulness had already went missing minutes ago. Numbed to a dullness that had only one goal, to endure. To draw a few more breaths before the darkness of death took him. Simply nothing else mattered.

At the first of the final hallway's two doors, he fell to the ground and cried out in pain. There would be no more limping. Reaching out his arms to pull his bruised body along the floor burst the newest crop of puss-filled sacs that spotted his body. Every movement was brutish and short, but somehow he found himself back in the main room.

As he collapsed in front of the door he saw the trail he had left in his wake. A vile little streak of reds, greens, and yellows swirled into a grotesque pattern from his infant-esque crawl. But in it sat something. Something old and boxy, now stained with his fluids. "NO!" The thought pounded deep, bouncing from ear to ear. In a panic, he patted his chest hoping to feel the bump; but of course, it wasn't there.

Every cell screamed in misery as he crawled back toward the door. Reaching, crawling, reaching, crawling. He was getting so close to his lifeline. Everything that led him to this moment would be for nothing if he couldn't get it back. However, he was no fool; the reactor could, in theory, destroy the entire ship and evaporate himself and the book instantly in its final shriek. There was just so much more to that dusty old tome than his notated legacy.

Throughout his two birthdays on the ship, 98 had read it hundreds of times. It held such sentimental value over the young man that he sadly considered it something of a companion, maybe even a friend. And now he was so close to dying without its fond, empty presence. His fingers were just inches away now. His face, red and puffy from the tears and burns contorted into a miserable smile at his final victory.

The sound and the feeling both came completely unnoticed for about a second. But once he saw the closed door and the splattering of blood on its silver face and golden writing, the pain of mental and physical realization found him. His arm had been severed at the shoulder and was now lying twisted and broken with the book in their new, sealed-off tomb.

He could have cried, shouted, or let his rage target the door in blunt force, but he was just so tired. So, he slouched against the door, mangled and hopeless. Wondering if he truly was destined to wither without these key parts of him, completely alone. Just another gaunt whisper in a mad, unfeeling universe of chaos. Any thought of still being in the pod vanished. Pain this tangible couldn't be the fabrication of advanced cryo technology, or the soup of chemicals and hormones pumped in to simulate and satiate every human want. "Who could ever want this."

If he knew his so-called magnificent death would be full of this much suffering he would have just hung himself with his bedsheets, maybe in the library he so beloved, surrounded by the muted voices of the row upon row of books he found succor in. His life, reduced to a story that would hopefully be found along with his carcass one day. But there was no grand exhibition in that.

"Is this any better," he thought. "Bleeding to death, scorched from head to toe. There isn't going to be anything left of any of this. And when the crumbs of what's left drift into that planet it'll be like we never existed in the first place."

As the beeping of the ship's alarm and the automated voice of the monotoned stranger began to wash away, he experienced something that smudged through his blurring senses. While consciousness wrestled with unbeing, he could just barely make out a faint silhouette above him. A slender, angelic face housed between long, golden brown hair looked down at him. The beauty of the figure's effervescent sky-blue eyes widened in horror, shooting through the haze.

A bloodcurdling scream left her lips as he withered into a corpse. A comfortable blanket of dark red blood surrounded him on the floor. 98 closed his eyes and began to fall into death's chasm.

******

The midnight-colored void of unconsciousness bled bit by bit into a foggy and dreamlike reality. Darkness and silence gave way to smears of bright light, uneven beeping, and the resonances of metal scraping and sawing through something wet and solid. The room was domineering with the knifelike sharpness of its corners and sickly white walls. Everything was viewed through what felt like a pinhole; so real, yet so distant.

The only sense that looked to be working right was pain. It was a dull repetitive ache more than anything; pulsating and reverberating throughout his body in waves. Existence in this narrow cone lasted for what felt like days, but he drifted in and out enough times for it to be closer to weeks or months. Until at long last, he opened his eyes and found himself alone again.

He had discovered himself lying in bed.

Oddly, it was his bed too, not one of the many that sat in the group dormitories or those of the hospital. But the very same one he had hauled inside the library a month or two after being ripped from the safety of the pod.

The bed sat on a circular platform at the top level of the massive room, with a grand view of the few hundred bookshelves just down the stairs. For the first time, it actually felt good to be home.

He strained himself to sit up, a task that took much longer than it should have. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead before dropping off of his nose and onto the cool linens he was still half-sheathed in. It was ... warm. Warmer than it had ever been on the ship. Carried on that soothing heat, there was an oddly encapsulating smell.

It initially resembled something sharp, but the more he breathed in the further it morphed into an aroma of fresh flowers and pure vanilla. The lights in the library also shone far brighter than he remembered them being.

Bewilderment and anxiety cornered him as he wondered if everything had just been an awful nightmare. All the time he spent on the ship; the computer, and how he had destroyed it, the reactor almost cooking him alive, and ... "my arm!"

With his vision still new and spinning from his abrupt waking, he quickly looked over to his left side. The barren sleeve of his jumpsuit sat stilted like a hollow sock on a clothesline. It was completely empty past a little stub on his shoulder, hanging in such a sad display.

98 felt disgusted looking at the product of his maiming. There was something else on the edge of his memory though, before everything went dark. Something he couldn't quite put his stump on. A couple of things actually, now that he ran back through the uneven recollection. "How the hell did I get back h-"

Rustling,

the hissing of unlubricated wheels,

and the sound of creaking and clanking could be gently heard from under the guard-railed overlook of his makeshift bedroom. sc

Then he saw it. Or her, as it was, climbing up one of the rickety ladders to the very top of a bookshelf. The white jumpsuit she was wearing was the same as his, but she filled it out so much differently. The way her ass presented itself and rippled as she trudged up the ladder was mesmerizing. The ampleness of her side breasts bounced, just slightly, as she reached for a book on the top rung. As he watched her, his loins began to stir in a way they had never done before. In fact, it was incredibly uncomfortable, yet euphoric in its newness and intensity.

A hot wash of hormonal heat drowned him as he discovered his newfound sense of lust. But then he realized something infuriating. He knew exactly which section, row, and shelf that was. The one that had all the books by the author he loved the most. The lackluster handling she was taking to his favorites began to annoy him, making his pelvic swelling come down and his deep-seated anger return.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly, attempting to get up.

When the woman turned around, she saw him and smiled. "He's finally awake," she thought, waving back at him.

Her cozy grin pursed when she noticed the scorching chill of his expression. "He must really be in pain, poor kid."

As 98 was getting up from his bed he attempted to reach for the headboard with the ghost of his lost arm. Forcing him into a tumble out of the comfortable bed and onto the hard ground with a solid thump. He screamed and cursed as his bruised body howled in the oh-so-familiar language of suffering.