The Airlock

In the darkness, somebody coughed.

"Who just coughed?! Which one of you!?"

The voice was high, cutting, and hysterical. British Columbia flicked on the flashlight, illuminating the dank concrete cell with a flickering circle of light. The batteries were dying; soon, they'd be in the pitch black without any hope of respite.

"WHO?! ANSWER ME!"

There was silence. She swept the flashlight over the gaunt, dirty faces that she was forced to share this tiny space with. Matted, tangled hair. Overgrown beards. Rumpled clothes, covered in stains. The room smelled of unwashed bodies and filth; yet, nobody noticed or paid it any mind. They'd become desensitized, numb to the stench.

Québec sat in his corner, muttering. Praying. Counting the beads on his rosary in the dark as he gave himself his last rights, over and over and over again. He didn't even look up when the light passed over him, just continued his endless chanting.

The twins huddled together under a threadbare blanket, blue and green eyes shrinking back from the light. Alberta and Saskatchewan were lucky; they had each other. More than anyone else could say.

"It-What if it was just dust or something?" Nova Scotia spluttered, a dark scowl dancing across his face when the light shone in his eyes, "I mean, it's- it's filthy in here-"

BC shook her head, her gaze blank.

"You know how it works, Scottie. First the cough, then the blood, then-"

Muffled sobbing. The Northwest territories sat alone in one of the room's few chairs. In her arms she clutched a small stuffed polar bear.

It had been one of Nunavut's favorite toys.

BC took a deep breath.

"I...look. You guys...you know what happens as well as I do. We can't...if one of you's got it, then-"

The chanting stopped.

"Then you 'ave to go outside, oui?" Québec said, calmly. Too calmly. It was an emotionless monotone, without a cuss or a complaint about the language it was delivered in. There was no feeling behind the words. It was like Québec was incapable of feeling at all anymore.

BC swallowed dryly, and Québec resumed his endless recitations.

Alberta snarled when the light hit her, some of the old fire back in her blue eyes. "Well, it wasn't me. And it sure as fuck wasn't Sasky. I ain't goin' out there, not until it's...safe." The last word was softer. More fearful.

Tinged with agony and loss and regret.

BC looked over at her stone-faced twin. Saskatchewan's face was an unreadable mask, like it always was- a pokerface that had hardened almost permanently, it seemed.

Yet sometimes, in the dead of the night, she swore she could hear the twins weeping for what they had lost; perhaps it was only her imagination.

"Well, then who was it?!" BC snapped, "It's one of us or all of us. Either one of us goes outside, or we all die. End of story. You guys know how this works."

"That's what you said when you sent Manny out." Alberta's voice was suddenly flat. Emotionless. Eyes blank and hollow.

Manitoba had coughed.

And so he had to go outside.

Silence.

BC looked over at Alberta and Saskatchewan. Opened her mouth to ask. It had come from over there. The sound in the blackness was clear as a gunshot.

"I coughed."

Alberta turned to her twin, eyes wide.

"n-NO!" she yelled, grabbing her brother and slamming him into the concrete in desperation, " No, you didn't- no! No, this is ridiculous, Sasky- you can't-"

"Alberta." He said flatly, looking into her eyes, "I coughed."

Alberta let out a muffled sob.

"It-no! No, we- we can't die! We can't! Right?! RIGHT?!" her voice was frenzied, nails digging into the flesh of her brother's arms painfully.

"Allie..." he said quietly, his pokerface quavering a little.

"N-NO! No, no, there's got to be another way, you can't- you can't send him out-out THERE, you can't-"

"Sis..."

"A-a gun! T-Terrie, give- give me your gun! We'll just- one bullet- and then he'll come back, right?! RIGHT?! And we won't have to send him out and we'll be just fine and nobody has to die anymore and I don't-"

"Alberta." Saskatchewan's voice was flat, blank. "I coughed."

"I-"

"I coughed. And...minutes. We can't...every second..." he started to stammer, the stone-cold mask of hidden emotion finally, finally breaking down.

"He's right." BC said calmly. Too calmly.

"We have probably three minutes, tops. Scottie, can you...get the door?"

The Nova Scotian nodded, dumbly, robotically. He moved stiffly, taking his place by the large steel door's controls. An airlock waited on the other side.

Nothing could be allowed get in. Not even dust. Nothing.

Or so Ontario had said, before he himself had stepped into oblivion.

Saskatchewan rose to his feet, suddenly, swiftly. His face, barely illuminated by the flickering flashlight, was a grotesque mishmash of pain and fear and desperation.

He moved slowly, regretfully.

A pallbearer for his own casket.

Alberta dropped the blanket and followed her twin to the door, grabbing his shoulders and turning him around, begging, pleading, please don't leave, please don't go, I don't want to lose you, please don't leave me alone-

BC closed her eyes and turned off the flashlight. This...nobody should have to see this.

In the darkness, Alberta felt the arms of the brother she'd known all her life wrap around her and constrict, slowly, firmly, gently. His chin was resting on her shoulder, and Alberta could feel hot tears seeping into the fabric of her shirt.

"Don't cry for me, sis. I love you." His last words, nothing more than a murmur in the darkness.

"It's time." Nova Scotia's voice, somewhere in the blackness.

The shriek of protesting steel rang through the tiny room, and Alberta clung ever tighter.

And then the door swung open.

The hallway, the airlock, was short. A sickly orange bulb illuminated the short passage to the second door, the door to...to nobody knew quite what. All that had passed that door, all that had left, had never returned. Would never return.

Saskatchewan shoved his sister away and walked into the tunnel, tears trailing down his cheeks.

The door closed with a thunderous clang and a pneumatic hiss.

And then Nova Scotia hesitated. Finger on the button, eyes closed, he choked.

BC's voice was panicked. "Sc-Scottie? The door- the other door- you need to open-"

And then, from somewhere beyond the first steel door, there was a scream.

Nova Scotia's eyes flew open and he hammered on the button, the second door flying open with a sound like a thunderclap.

And then, they heard it.

A tortured, agonized wail. A single word. A name.

Muffled by the steel bulkheads, the buffers, the seals, the concrete, still they heard it.

Alberta.

The second door swung closed, and Alberta curled up and started to sob quietly.

All was absolutely silent.

And in the darkness, somebody coughed.