Our existence hangs by a thread...
Running.
I felt useless and lost in a maze of confusion. Every corner I crept by led me farther away from everyone. The lights were on the fritz again. Sometimes the hallways would glow before shutting down to complete darkness. The temperature was changing, too. Now that the command module had shut down, the air was cooling, causing condensation to build around every inch of the ship.
I couldn’t see a way out of this. The lights would flicker on for moments, and I’d run forward, grabbing onto the nearest pole or handle I could find. Then, I’d be shut out again. My ears would pick up on footsteps. I could hear faint murmurs, but I had no idea where they were coming from.
Lost and afraid, I glanced out of one of the windows. We had been floating for days without any power to the ship’s engine. I looked into that dark abyss and then down at my belly. I was changing so fast, it was remarkable.
If I lost Talis, I’d lose everything. My child. Our child.
I needed a place to rest. I could feel it within me, growing at such a rapid rate it worried me. I needed him to guide me through this, but I couldn’t find him,
no matter how hard I tried.
I kept running until I reached the familiar control center. Half expecting to see Cade, I stopped and carefully lowered to the floor. A sharp pain ricocheted throughout my belly, and I seized, but it slowly eased up. Regaining some strength and balance, I crawled toward the system lock. I initiated the retinae scan and waited for the appropriate green light to flash and issue a positive-sounding beep. Instead, the red light shut off, and the computer locked down. “No, no, no.” I hunched to type in the override password.
A green screen appeared with red font in the center: Override Denied. Please try again.
With haste, I reentered the password. Again, the warning popped up. I tried one more time, but when it failed, the lights turned off around me. One by one, the computer’s fans slowed to a halt. There was no longer any technological hum. The room was silent and still, except for the liquid sound of the overrun condensation dripping from above.
I was fucked. I wanted to scream for Juliana, for Talis, for... well, the rest were dead. Butchered by a bastard we should have quarantined long ago. With all the systems down, the cryo-chamber must have been terminated. Their vitals would be unresponsive.
As fast as I could without sight, I ran back toward the ship’s interior, where the cryo-chamber were. The door was open. The cold and foggy mist was evaporating near the edge of the door. There was the harsh glow of red flashing lights. There were blaring alarms, one for each sector of the ship. I walked into that room, but I already knew they were dead.
I found them in their bags. Lifeless. Their expressions were stiff and pained like some of them had been trying to escape from the inside.
Tears stung my eyes. A cold chill ran through me before I fell against the wall, gasping and choking with an aching melancholy. I turned away and covered my mouth, breathing to center myself once more, but it was so hard. I was alone now. Cade had Talis, and I hadn’t a clue how to fix this.
I nearly broke down, but there was a job to be done, and I was the only one left to do it. One by one, I dragged the bodies toward the hatch to the outside. I geared up slowly, clasping my mask over my face, breathing in the stale oxygen supply. And crying. Because nothing was going to be fixed. Because we were all going to die here.
I secured myself in and opened the hatch door. I felt the heaviness of space, so empty and hollow, yet full of something evil. “We were never supposed to come here,” I said as the bodies floated down into the space below the ship. I closed the hatch and watched their bodies slip away, already frozen in time.
I needed to get back to the control center, but I didn’t run. I simply took my suit off and walked back. It felt like I had nothing left to gain. And that meant I had nothing left to lose.
“Starship T1-95 Pandorum to mission control. We have an emergency. Do you copy?”
It was the first real call home in years. I waited for the sound of a voice, but I couldn’t hear anything over the alarm systems. Not that I expected them to answer. “T1-95 Pandorum to mission control. We have an emergency. Do you read me?”
This was it, my breaking point. I thought coming here would change things. I thought I could change the course of humanity. But out here, I’d only learned one thing. Fear, violence, and sex were the three guiding forces of life. I faced two out of three. Now, it was time to face my fears.
“Cade!” I screamed against the sirens of emergency, running down the steel corridor.
I slipped against the growing wetness of the interior. Another sharp pain stabbed against my stomach, so severe I screamed out of necessity. Something was happening to me. Changes. The seed. It was so powerful...
I writhed on the floor, hands hovering over my stomach. I didn’t want to know, didn’t want to feel it, but I lowered my palm and felt something swell and push against my flesh.
Vomit projected from my throat and guts, leaving me wet and breathless, a weakened woman sprawled out on the floor. I closed my eyes and listened to the humming of the outside, the near-perfect silence we existed inside of.
It was feeding off me. My baby. It was a girl. Somehow, I could already tell.
I shifted onto my side and let out a guttural scream. Whatever was happening would kill me.
Talis had warned me. An alpha should never breed a non-omega. Apparently, our bodies just weren’t made for it. The knotting was a bit unnerving, but every time I thought about the suction, the true care of his cock, I wanted it again. How was that alpha not made to fuck me?
I managed to push back onto my legs before using the wall to stand again. Slowly, but surely, I made my way toward the end of the hallway. I wasn’t going fucking anywhere. If I did, it would be after I took care of the asshole who destroyed everything.
I knew it was Cade before I saw his gangly body cut through the brief-and-flickering light. He paused and focused on me.