Countdown
Collision. Impending impact.
40.
Lowering altitudes; stomach churns.
38.
Violent outbursts of lights, blaring sounds of fate.
32.
The uncertainty filled all and encompassed everything that it touched - they knew that life will never be as it was; as they remembered it.
29.
Everything was jostled severely, and what was, was not. What was not, was.
24.
They embraced each other, they held hands, they prayed; no one was listening.
19.
Faster and faster it hurdled through a void; through stress, through tension, through fear, anxiety.
17.
Gravity.
13.
Damned gravity.
10.
Lost - they were lost. They were more lost than anyone who had ever lived; who ever will live.
9.
8.
7.
6.
5.
4. Time slowed.
3. Even slower now.
2. Life. Only Life. Survival.
1….
Silence. Axel opened his eyes to a smoke-filled chamber. He began to choke and knew that he had to start moving. The deceased; so many people did not survive impact - maybe they were the lucky ones because for them it was quick, it was insipid. As he stepped over bodies he shook with perpetual fear and hopelessness. They were the end; they were the ultimate destination. He lifelessly reached the airlock. He grasped the lever and withdrew it quickly; burning his hand. What was really half a second felt like five. He screamed in agony.
Still suffocating and longing for oxygen, he kept his maimed hand to his chest. Upon looking down, he saw a man lying dead on the floor. Using his only free hand, he removed the man's belt and flung it over the lever. He pulled on the belt as it caught fire and just before it snapped, the door was released. The loud wheezing sound of the depressurization of the chamber filled his ears. Immediately oxygen filled his lungs. He felt safe and he felt free, but only for several seconds, before his mind was filled with hundreds of unanswered questions and uncertainties.
Before he had time to think he heard someone shouting from within the ship, "Help me! Anyone, please!"
Instinctually, he turned around and blindly re-entered the enclosed space that had nearly killed him. All the while knowing that he could be killing himself by helping another; but, regardless, he did not want to be alone. Nobody does.
Upon entering sector 3, Axel laid eyes on the many hypersleep chambers; many of which were set ablaze and he could almost make out the charred figures of the passengers within. He then discovered the source of the calling voice. Hunched over was a man - a crew member similar to himself, wearing the Alabaster-513 uniform. He was trying desperately to remove an iron beam from another man's chest. He noticed Axel standing behind him and abruptly pleaded, "What are you doing just standing there?! Help me, please!"
Axel hastily grabbed the other end of the iron beam and proceeded to shout, "Lift on three. 1, 2, 3."
They both lifted and, their arms shaking, managed to move the beam just enough for the man underneath to get loose. Immediately, the three men jumped up and, gasping for air, reached the airlock previously opened by Axel. They ran outside to safety.
After they had minimally recovered from the noxious smoke they had inhaled, they all began to laugh nervously. The man who was trapped under the iron beam only minutes ago began to speak saying, "Thanks for the help in there, I don't know how much longer we would've lasted had you not been able to help..."
"No problem," Axel replied.
Before they could continue their conversation, they were interrupted by a blaring countdown that signaled a possible explosion. All three of the men, familiar with this protocol, knew the gravity of the current situation. All thinking the same exact thing, they began to run as fast as they possibly could in the opposite direction as the wreckage.
8.
7.
They had no way of knowing if they would make it far enough out of the blast radius to survive.
6.
5.
4.
3.
Axel's heart pounded out of his chest and at this moment he thought only of himself; survival.
2.
1.
The ground trembled beneath his feet and he was hit from behind with waves of impact. His eyes shut.
The three men lay upon the ground. What was silent for them was so unbelievably harsh for the others. There were indeed survivors of the initial impact. Their screams ever-present, filled space. This time however, no one would escape the fiery ship.
On the surface of an unknown planet, the once marvelous spacecraft Alabaster-513 was reduced to molten metal and ash. Billows of smoke towered high and filled the atmosphere of Horizon-5.