For a while Laz laid there, just listening to the noise. It was so unusual. He hadn't heard a noise like this in - well he couldn't quite remember how long. It must have been years. The steady ping of the radar was like music to his ears, or at least it was like what music used to be. Now music irritated him, there was only so many times you could listen to the same playlist over and over and over again. The pinging was a welcome change. It sent a warm rush through his body. He almost daren't get up to look at the screen. What if it was fake? A figment of his imagination or another malfunction?
After a few more pings he couldn't bare the anticipation any longer. He clambered to his feet and crossed to the pilot's seat. He never thought he'd sit in the pilot seat, now he was fed up of sitting in it. He slid down into the worn leather and peered at the radar screen. Sure enough, a little green dot was flashing away, off to his starboard side. It wasn't moving, it just sat there pinging.
Laz checked the readings, it was closer than he had expected, in fact if there was something there, he should be able to see it if he opened the blast shields.
He gulped. Opening the blast shields was a risk. After the incident that brought him to this damned place, he'd made the decision to close them. He'd only made it too late, after the rest of the crew had gone insane.
The void did things to your head. They had been seeing things, thinking things that weren’t real. If they didn’t kill themselves, they had been killing each other. He dreaded to think what would have happened if he had been on the bridge with the rest of them. Sam had avoided it too; he’d been in the med bay. Laz cursed to himself as he thought about it. Sam, being the hero that he was, had tried to help. He’d tried to sedate Ashe. All he’d wanted was to save them, to understand what was wrong and heal them. He’d received a scalpel through his eye for the trouble.
Laz shook his head. He’d been over what had happened a thousand times, probably more. All the theories had expected that the wormhole engine would take them through a blurry grey field that would be over in a matter of seconds, creating a tunnel for them to jump from one place to another. They should have jumped from Sol to Alpha Centuri. Only that didn't happen. The wormhole engine opened the tunnel at one end but not at the other and the void wasn't grey.
The void was a maelstrom of bright lights and chaos. It drew you in, transfixing your gaze and memorising you until you couldn't look away and couldn't think of anything else. It was both beautiful and terrifying. By the time Laz and Sam had realised what was happening the crew had gone mad, killing each other and killing themselves. Laz had only stayed safe by being down in engineering trying to figure out what had gone wrong with his wormhole engine. By the time he closed the blast shields it was too late.
Now he needed to open them.
The pinging was incessant. There was no escape from it. There was something there. Something was out there in the void with him and he needed to see it. The external ship cameras weren't an option, the void corrupted the feed. So, the only option was to see it with his own eyes.
Reluctantly he turned the ship so that the object, whatever it was, would be in front of him. If he just opened it for a moment, just to see, then it would be OK. Just look at the object, nothing else, he told himself, do not look at the void.
With a trembling finger he pressed the button and the blast doors began to slide open. At the first flash of purple light Laz closed his eyes. Blood rushed in his ears. The urge to press the button, to let the darkness envelope him once again was almost impossible to resist.
Nevertheless, he knew he had to. He had to know what else was out there in the void with him. It could be a way out.
The blast shields clanked back into position. Even through his eyelids he could see the flashes of light from the void. He could feel its chaotic influence pressing in on him.
Just one look. Just one moment.
Laz took a deep breath and opened his eyes. What he saw was far worse than the void. He stared out of the window, forgetting all sense of time and self. The void taunted him with streams of infinite colour. A tear slid down his cheek.
Beyond the window was a ship, his ship. And beyond that ship's window his own face stared back at him, a tear rolling down his cheek.
I'm Katy, but go by K H Simmons officially. I write a lot of sci-fi, dark fantasy and dystopian fiction. If you're here for sparkly vampires, you're in the wrong place ;)
I frequently post short stories on my Facebook page, as well as work on full length novels. If you want more short stories like the above - check out my anthology Death, Demons & Dystopia available on Amazon/Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YN5DY98
When I'm not writing, I can usually be found cuddling dogs, reading, at the gym or playing video games.
