Darkness. Sometimes, the mere existence of the void that grows around that which lacks light can feel close to one’s body. It closes in on you, suffocating you. Paralyzes you. It touches your skin and feeds on your blindness. You don’t know what’s there, right in front of you. Or behind you. The only way to find out is to listen and feel. You have to feel it with your fingertips to make sure. You have to listen to the breaths of nothing. Darkness... I hate it. It scares me and suffocates me. Even at this age, I’m still afraid of what I can’t see. It’s my personal stalker, my eternal phobia.
When I got assigned to the warship
Agnostia, I was unsure if I’d be able to carry out my duties. The first time I saw her, I noted how big she was. How bright she was on the inside. I had no qualms at that moment. It would be an easy job. But it couldn’t be that easy. It never is.
My fear came at night. As we drifted through space, the only thing I could hear was the soft hum of the engine reverberating through the hull. The
Agnostia was speaking to me, but its attempts to soothe my fear was for nothing. When the lights dimmed aboard the warship, the realization that I was in a metallic husk drifting through eternal darkness came to me. That first night I cried myself to sleep. I was shaking and I was trying to think of a big, bright place. I don’t know how I managed to fall asleep, but I did, eventually.
The rest of the nights aboard the
Agnostia followed the same patterns. Some nights it would take me hours to fall asleep, shaking and crying. Other nights the gentle hum would be successful in soothing my mind. But, more often than not, the darkness would conquer me, and suffocate me.
And then came the day of arrival. Planet X-5Y6 grew outside the observation deck’s windows as we approached it. It was green and blue, full of life. And light with empty spaces. A warm feeling filled my body at that moment. Redemption from the cramped iron coffin I had lived in for so many months rested down there... And it was waiting for me.
Naturally, I was one of the more enthusiastic of the crew going down to the planet. To feel the fresh air in my lungs as I pulled in a deep breath while the bright sun shone on my face was an exhilarating thought. I felt free, like the birds floating across a purple sky high up there. I could spread my arms and smile.
But I had to return to the cramped iron husk. Every day my happiness of freedom was exchanged with fear and sadness as I returned to the
Agnostia that drifted silently in orbit. I seemed to be the only one suffering among the bright smiles of bright scientists and a crew feeling special. I hid my feelings as well as I could, though. I didn’t want to ruin their spirit. They didn’t deserve it. I suffered in silence.
For me, our journey had turned into a nightmare merely exchanged, at times, with short happiness. I didn’t know what fate had planned for me, though I wished for a better place to be. I wasn’t aware what, exactly, was in storage. Neither did I know that I was to be, for the first time in my life, someone very special.
It all started when a strange disease made some of the crew members sick. They became groggy and drowsy, until they succumbed into a deep slumber. The doctors were clueless. I merely watched, happy that it wasn’t me. I had enough of my own problems. I didn’t know any of them anyway.
Then it all got worse. The start of my final nightmare, the start of the
Agnostia’s journey into hell.
******
“Natsuki, are you feeling alright?”
The grave expression on the doctor’s face told me how tired he was. Tired of deaths and paranoid patients. Tired of the whole situation. He just wanted out of there. I understood him.
“Yes. I’m OK.”
He nodded at me and scribbled something in his journal. “You can go now.”
I slipped off the examination table and left the room. Outside there was a long line of people waiting to be examined. Tired faces. Sad faces. Much like my own. I paid them no further attention and headed for my room. Even after so many months on the ship I hadn’t made many friendships. There were some I talked to, but none I could confide in. It didn’t bother me that much, though. I was used to handling my own problems.
As I walked down the bright hallway, medical personnel ran past me carrying a body between them. Another death to the unknown. I was glad it wasn’t me.
When I had reached my room and gotten inside I curled up on my bed and closed my eyes. I wanted to shut it all out, to let sleep overtake me. But this was one of those days when the soft humming did nothing. All I could hear was the screaming of the dying, the crying of the sufferers and the pleads of the survivors. The darkness returned and I started to shake. The room crept up on me, crushing me. I could feel the dampness of tears beneath my eyelids. The infinite void breached into the room and approached to consume me. Then, everything, turned into darkness.
******
I was brought up from my slumber by a soothing voice in my head. At first I thought I was still dreaming, but I felt too awake. It felt too real.
“Who are you?” I heard myself ask. How I managed to make my lips move I didn’t know.
“I am... a friend,” the voice said in a soft whisper. It multiplied as through an echo, all around me. I felt calmer now for some reason.
“Where are you?”
“You know where I am. But I need your help.”
I knew this person, the whisper in my head. Yes, how couldn’t I. “Yes, I know. I’ll come and help.”
“Quickly. Please.”
I rose from the bed and left my room. The halls were dark and tight, but I felt safe. The darkness had turned from hell into heaven. I could move freely now, free from the shackles that held me down. The people I passed in the hallway looked at me oddly. I didn’t care. I had to get to my friend. Luckily, it wasn’t that long to the engineering bay. As I arrived outside the door blocking me from entering, my friend whispered to me again.
“Help me. There isn’t much time. I need your help, Natsuki. Now. Help.”
“It’s OK. I’m just outside, I’ll help you,” I reassured my friend while I entered the access code. When I pressed the final number the door slid open and I saw the Admiral of the ship stand there, his fist raised and his face contorted into fury. Beneath him, with a bloody nose, my friend lay, crying.
“Help me!”
The Admiral said nothing and rushed towards me. I grabbed the first thing that I could reach and wrapped my head around a wrench. With all my strength I slammed it into the side of the Admiral’s skull. I could hear the bone crack and a whimper escaped from the Admiral before his eyes turned back in their sockets and his body fell limp on the hard floor.
“Help me!”
My friend’s whisper made me rush forward and hug my friend. I checked for other wounds but couldn’t find any.
“Are you OK?” I asked with a voice heavy with worry.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you, Natsuki. Without you...” My friend looked at the Admiral’s body and sneered. “Such a horrible man. He deserves worse. Don’t you agree, Natsuki? Don’t you agree?”
I stared into my friend’s eyes for a moment. I saw the void. And it told me what to do next. Its voice was strong, and I obeyed. I walked over to the fallen Admiral and knelt beside him. A pool of blood had formed beneath his head where the skull had cracked. I put my hand in the red moist and a shiver ran down my spine.
“Do it.”
I took the wrench again and raised it, gathering power. I felt the muscles in my arm tense up.
“DO IT.”
With a force I’d never used I brought the wrench down on the Admiral’s head. His skull split open and his brain became visible. Blood flooded onto the floor, but I didn’t react. I had no fear. The darkness was me. I was the darkness.
“DO IT!”
I picked up a slice of his brain and held it out in front of me. It was gray and gooey, like a slab of fresh chicken meat. It didn’t smell anything. I stuck my tongue out, drooling with desire, and the piece of brain touched my tongue.
******
As if I had awoken from a dream, I found myself in a small, dark room. On my tongue, there was something gooey. I spit it out and as I tried to stand up, my hand touched something wet and sticky. I brought my hand in front of my face and stared. I stared at the blood covering my hand. My eyes widened and my breath was stolen. Then I saw the body and shrieked. I crawled on the floor to get away from it. At the same moment I saw his cracked skull and the gray matter splattered on the floor, realizing what my tongue had tasted.
I hurled where I was standing on all four. My body was shaking and my eyes were watering. My throat burned with the disgusting taste. The darkness started to suffocate me. It was a very small room I realized. I stood up and ran, not looking back at the body with a shocked expression on its face. I opened the door and ran out into the corridor where I met no one. The noise I had made had reached no one. The ship was silent and dark. I ran to my room and locked the door behind me. I was hyperventilating and my mind was in shambles. I tried to figure out what had just happened, but they, the whispers, wouldn’t let me. They grew stronger in my head.
“No, shut up...” I pleaded but they didn’t relent. I could barely hear what they were saying anymore. It was all chaos inside my head. I lay on my side, hugging my knees, trying to shut it all out. The whispers followed me into darkness-
I woke up with a jolt to people screaming and crying. My head ached, but I couldn’t figure out why. I got up from the bed and peeked outside the door where people were running back and forth.
“Hey... Hey!” My voice caught one of them and he stumbled towards me. “What’s happened?”
“You don’t know?” he said, aghast. His face was white and his eyes had sunken in. “The Admiral, he’s dead. Someone killed him. Crushed his head.”
I was silent. In my mind an image flashed brightly, an image of a body with its head cracked open. I shut the door in the man’s face and tried to keep the barf from leaving my mouth. I forced myself to swallow it again. I realized I knew who the murder was. I was the closest to her.
Shaking, I sat down on my bed. The world started spinning again. The screaming and the dull hum of the
Agnostia mixed with the whispers in my head. It was all spinning and screaming. Echoing in the darkness that had seized my mind. Once again I succumbed to deep slumber, brought upon me by something I had started to be familiar with.
******
I think a couple of days had passed before I left my room again. As I peered out into the corridor, all I could see was writing and litter. Blood had been used as ink. And it all made sense. I could read the writing and the whispers made sense. I could hear my thoughts crisp and clear.
I walked in the cold and dark corridors for a long time. During my walk I met no one. The ship was void with life. The loneliness and darkness crept up on me. I kept looking over my shoulder because I felt someone was watching me. It was breathing down my neck, but I couldn’t see it. I turned around again and again, but there was nothing.
I started to run. I could hear footsteps behind me and heavy breathing. It was right behind me.
“Get away from me!” I shouted, but received no response. I rounded another corner and slipped into a dark room to hide. I held my breath and waited. Waited for a long time. But from the darkness came nothing.
I stayed there for a while, trying to steady myself. There wasn’t anything following me, but I had to be careful- No. There was something. I could hear it now, coming closer. Footsteps and breathing. Soft sobbing. I pressed myself deeper into the room and peered out the barely open door. The weak light from the hallway was the only source of light I saw, but it soon was obstructed by the shape of a woman. She stood just outside the door. I could see blood on her hands and I made sure I kept my breathing silent.
She turned her head, slowly. Towards me. Her mouth was smiling lightly. Her eyes were wide and white. Her pupils were small dots in the middle of the white. She tilted her head and stared right at me. I didn’t dare move. My body was frozen. I just stared back.
We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Then she broke eye contact and continued her shuffling onwards.
“Follow her.”
The whispers came back. I didn’t want to follow her, but my body acted on its now. My mind screamed at it to stop, but it wouldn’t. I left the safety of the room and silently walked behind the girl. She turned a corner and so did I. We both kept on walking through the hallways where the lights went on and off with rapid speed. My body was moving on its own, disconnected from my mind.
The girl in front of me stopped and looked at me again. She knew I was there, but said nothing. Her eerie smile was still painting her lips. That’s when I remembered her name. Natalie... Something. I hadn’t talked to her before, but I had seen her around. I tried to call her name, but my mouth still wouldn’t move. Yet, she nodded as if understanding. Slowly she opened the door and went inside. As it shut behind her, I regained control of my body and slumped to the floor, just staring at the door she had gone through.
“Hello?” I sneaked on all four towards the door and put my ear on it. I could hear sobbing and mumbling. “Hello, Natalie? It’s Natsuki. You don’t know me, but... Please come out. Let’s help each other. Please.”
I received no response, but her voice had become hysterical. At first I couldn’t make out what she said. I had to listen hard to recognize the words.
“... Natalie, is that my name? No, wrong. Can’t wait. No more. DEATHWITHIN. They came...”
“Natalie,” I said, unsure of what to do, ”who came? Who are you talking about?”
“... Not coming. Suicide. Can’t wait any longer. The crying, the laughter...”
“What? I don’t understand.” I banged on the door to try and get her attention. “Natalie!”
“...They... The demons... The monsters...”
“Demons? Monsters? What are you talking about!”
“They came from within.”
I fell silent as she stopped talking after those words. I kept my ear on the door, but I heard nothing for several minutes. Sweat was slowly running down my face. Then I heard something rustle. A metallic noise.
“Natalie? What are you doing?”
At first I heard nothing. but the silence didn’t last long. A scream I had never heard before reverberated through the hull. I was so shocked I sprang away from the door. The scream was filled with intense pain and insanity. A banshee’s cry from hell.
“Natalie! Natalie!” I kept banging on the door as the woman screamed. It was the only thing occupying my mind for minutes. Eventually, she fell silent. I stopped banging. Somehow I knew she was dead inside the room. I was all alone. The light in the hallway blinked together with my mind. I cried.
******
I sat down on the observation deck’s floor. The orbit of the
Agnostia was now wrong. The only thing I could see was distant stars in the ocean of blackness. A darkness in a cramped space that was crushing me. I stared at the stars, the weak light they gave. One after one, the lights within the
Agnostia died, leaving its hallways and rooms, that had once been filled with life, empty and dark. The observation deck became secluded in darkness until a single, blinking light remained.
I stared at it, praying for it to remain alive. “I’m all alone. In the darkness, in uncharted space. I’m alone in this iron husk floating in the void. I don’t want to be here. I can’t breathe. I need to get out. Away from this darkness. No, please. Please, someone help me.”
As the whispers returned, digging into my skull, I knew from where they came. The darkness, the fear, the demons, the monsters. As the final light aboard the
Agnostia died, and as I was thrown into infinite darkness, I knew.
All of them, they came from within.
2011-07-24, 01:18
). But since I'm writing a collaboration for the Files, it's only fair of me to behave myself 
Author
.
