Author's Note:
I refuse to believe any movie that just lets George Clooney die that easily.
I'm surprised that there aren't too many stories in the Gravity archive that explain what happened to Matt after he detached himself from Ryan. Oh, well. I guess I'll be the first.
Honestly, I didn't care for too much for Gravity.
But I do love everything about outer space. I wanted this to realistically follow the movie's logic, thus, it's going to address a few things about space, the ISS, NASA, the ESA, and astronauts in general that Alfonso Cuarón glazed over a little bit during Gravity.
A more detailed summary, and a couple of trailers for this FanFiction are also on my Profile page.
I will try to update this story whenever I can. I have many other FanFiction projects to work on, but please let me know what you think! I appreciate the feedback. Enjoy.
The odds of becoming an astronaut are 13,200,000 to 1.
The odds of being killed in an airplane crash are 11,000,000 to 1.
The odds of being killed sometime next year in any transportation accident: 77 to 1.
The odds of being killed as an astronaut:
25 to 1.
DRIFT
August 28th, 2013
249 miles above Earth
-223° F
Psi: 0.0019
Coordinates: 24°15'14.78" N, by 63°56'58.58" E
9:16 PM, United States ET
Matthew Kowalski drifted silently in space. He was a white speck on black. It wasn't any kind of black that existed on earth. This black was strange. Endless. It was the very definition of nothing. It bored into depths unseen by human beings.
He had never beheld anything like it.
Matt looked out from within his suit. He glanced down at his watch. The face of it read 9:16.
It had been officially ten minutes since he had detached himself from Dr. Stone.
Matt stared across the Void, thinking about her.
He had just committed suicide. He had given up his own life, to save hers. It was the best thing he could have done at the moment. Yes, it was unfortunate, but he wouldn't have had it any other way. No matter how distraught it had made her, she was safe… which was all that mattered.
The soothing sounds of Hank Williams Jr. ruffled in Matt's suit. He reached for his chest-module, twisting the knob to turn him off. He didn't feel like listening to his favorite guy anymore. He was ten minutes short of... breaking Anatoly's record.
He glanced out from his helmet... stretching his gaze across the Void. Space stared back. It wasn't dark. Being inside of a room with the light off was dark… closing the insides your eyelids was dark. This was black.
No light. No sound. It sat in stoic silence… like it knew something you didn't know. Nothing looked back at you from within it... and he was heading further into it.
Mat floated, a silent dot over the earth. The planet rested below in overwhelming splendor. It was a wall of blue stucco, with green and tan patches of land, all coexisting underneath a sky of twirling, white clouds. Down there, countless people were dying. Most people think that they'll end up in a car crash, or get some terminal illness just before they die. Never do they think of the possibility of being stranded out here in space.
Matt's pupils went up to read his levels.
O2 down to 1%.
In the next sixty seconds, he was going to take this story to his icy grave.
Anatoly would be so proud.
A clink and hiss went off in Matt's suit, alerting him. A small beep emitted from his visor. Matt stole a glance up. The letters SOP blinked red.
SOP. Secondary Oxygen Pack.
Matt stared at the figures.
Ah... right.
It was only up until this very moment that he had remembered this feature. The Secondary Oxygen System system automatically kicked in when an astronaut's Primary Life Support System dropped too low. It gave an astronaut 30% more oxygen—another thoughtful token, courtesy of NASA.* However, there was no point. There was no hope of rescue, and no way to get back to the International Space Station. Hope in this situation could never thrive, nor grow... just like any other sort of life that dared to flourish out here.
Matt's eyes bore into his visor screen. They were fixed on the blinking letters in front of him: O2 down to 30%. Those numbers only signified that he had thirty minutes left to live. The readings continued to beep... the seconds he had left on his watch limped painfully onward... slowly dying before him.
Tick.
Matt exhaled. White met with his polyurethane helmet, like a frosty breath upon a window on a winter night.
Tick.
Matt released another cold breath, his visor turning white again... the white faded... came back again.
Darkness ruled over most of Matt's face. The only source of light that was strewn over him was the hazy green of his visor readings. Matt's eyes seared out of his helmet, staring at the Void.
It stared back... with nothing to offer him. Nothing to help him get back home.
Matt's gaze ventured out further... straining to see past this universe... and entered into the next world beyond this one.
The next universe made eye contact with him. It stared at Matt... unwelcomingly, for he was a foreigner in its domain.
Matt's eyes did not move. The next world smiled back at him. It spoke.
You're going to die.
Matt blinked.
He could imagine it. It was a voice so cold, so devoid of human feeling. Something moved around inside of his gut like a furry little animal, burrowing around to find a safe place to hide from a predator.
This place—this incalcuable, ancient place—knew that he was going to die. Almost as if the Void itself was a highly intelligent creature all its own. It was very aware... and very pleased with Matt's sacrificial death. This place was waiting for him to expire... so that it could have his crystallized, frozen body for… God knows what.
Matt shut his eyes.
A man should never be alone with his thoughts. It was the most dangerous thing in the world.
But his sacrifical death meant something to someone. If this was the price he had to pay for Dr. Stone's life, so be it. He was fine with that... he just needed to learn to accept the fact that he was going to become just another piece of satellite debris orbiting the Earth.
Orbit.
And then, a single, solitary speck of an idea sank into Kowalski's head. His face lit up. His eyebrows joined together… his face forming into something serious.
Orbit…
Matt turned in his space suit. His eyes bared anxious curiosity—and reflected the eternal darkness of space.
The ISS would be coming back. It did every ninety minutes. Every ninety minutes, the ISS came back, along with that killer Russian satellite debris. Matt had missed his first opportunity to board the station with Ryan only a few minutes ago. But what if… what if...?
Matt closed his eyes to chalk up a quick equation.
He had already spent ten minutes floating around up here.
Alright, 90 minus 10 equalled 80.
Thus, the ISS would be coming back in eighty minutes.
If Matt had 30% oxygen left, he'd have thirty minutes left to live, since an astronaut's O2 level was the same as the amount of minutes it had before it ran out.
If he had 80%, he'd have…
Eighty minutes.
And then it hit him. Matt's eyes tore open.
He could make it. He could actually do this... if...
It was crazy... it was outrageous... it was such a simple notion, it border lined on genius.
He didn't use his oxygen.
Matt furrowed his eyebrows, letting this this germinating seed of crazy innovation grow. If he discontinued his emergency oxygen, he should have been able to add fifty spare minutes to the remaining thirty he already had. That is, if he could hold off on oxygen for two minutes—forty times.
Fifty plus thirty… made eighty percent oxygen... just enough to have for eighty minutes.
He had Harvard to thank for pounding this much arithmetic into his head. He was so clever sometimes he thought he should just date himself.
Matt looked up at his levels.
O2 down to 29%.
Matt stared at his visor. The red figures in front of him continued to blink. 29%. 29%. He had lost 1%.
Matt's eyes began to wander.
This was wishful thinking. The chances of getting out of this alive are none. Only a fool at the end of his fraying rope would consider holding your breath as a reliable alternative to save you.
Matt's eyes dropped, and he turned over his wrist to view the face of his watch. The second hand was slowly inching its way to the top of the twelve. One silent tick. Another silent tick.
It was a steel harbinger of certain death that was sure to come.
Matt's dark eyes came up. He stared.
Would this be crazy enough to work?
He didn't have time to think about the reliability of his idea. He didn't have time to contemplate the most plausible outcome. Every second he spent thinking about it, he wasted by not doing it. He had to stop breathing—now.
Matt inhaled.
He took in a deep sip, filling every crack and crevice in his lungs. He could feel them expanding to their limit, and then he held.
Everything went silent. The lonely call of space grew just a little louder. Matt then realized just how much he had taken the sound of his own breathing for granted. All throughout the STS-157 mission, it had been a constant reminder to him that something lived out here.
Matthew reached up to his chest, and flipped Hank Williams Jr. back on.
All of mankind sat below. Every soul, completely exposed. It was early morning in New Delhi, and the second half of the globe was cloaked in darkness. The earth sat and rotated in a blue glow.
Matt drifted. His first session of holding his breath was almost up, and the skin of his lungs were as tight as a drum. He closed his eyes… pried them open. It was like high school Varsity swim team all over again... amazing how something so trivial would help in his career at NASA.
Matt blinked, and then noticed his home planet before him.
It turned in silence. Matt took a moment to look down at one part of the world. The sun was coming up over Pakistan. The jagged mountainside lit up, and casted shadows over the deep valleys and gorges. Matt looked at another part of the world. In the Himalayas, the sun hit the frost-covered mountains in a light orange. If anyone was scaling Mount Everest this morning, the sunrise would have been fantastic for them.
Matt's eyes were glass. The globe turned upon his polyurethane helmet. It was mid-day in China… the busiest and most populated place in the world.
What did the people of China do at this hour?
Matt thought. Different, made-up people came into his mind. They were busy running to work... listening to traffic reports… meeting up with friends… falling in love. Maybe there was even someone who was looking up at the sky, observing the weather, or noticing a hazy moon on one of those rare occasions that it came out during the daytime. Perhaps they were taking a moment capture this strange occasion... appreciating anything else that was up there, and wondering about anything else that laid beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Matt wanted to hug that person.
He lifted his arm, checking his watch. His first session of holding his breath was almost up. The second hand hit the number twelve and marked two minutes. He could breathe again.
Matt released a rush of air, causing his helmet to flare white. His heart beat a little faster, blood rushing through his veins to warm them up. As Matt took a minute to recover, he stole a glance up at his readings.
O2: 29%.
His O2 supply had held on for an extra two minutes.
Excellent.
Matt turned his wrist, checking his watch again. The second hand had reached the next whole number. He inhaled. He filled his lungs with fresh oxygen until they were about ready to tear apart, and then held. And waited.
Matt lifted his eyes away from the Earth, letting them trek across the solar system. His pupils roved around in the darkness, peering into the depths of nothing. The frightful black eye of space stared back.
The Void watched him... waiting... waiting for something...
Matt's radio whined in and out. Hank Williams Jr.'s voice coiled and recoiled, becoming choppy.
"…Onder where you arr…"
Static crackled.
Matt blinked, visibly vexed. Now what?
"…Copy…"
Matt's face softened.
Something moved inside of him. It was the primitive drive of survival.
Was that…?
"Matt, this is Ryan, copy?"
It was.
Matt's eyes glistened; the reflection of earth lay thin on his helmet. They had reestablished contact.
Matt started to open his mouth... but he caught himself.
No.
Matt's expression tightened in dismay. He gave up his view of the Earth, and surrendered his eyes once more to the darkness surrounding him.
No, please... not now...
Ryan's voice popped and fizzed over the whining transmission.
"…I made it… I'm here…" Ryan said over the static,"…On the station… do you copy?"
Something pounded against Matt's chest, hindering his speech. He heisitated... unsure what to do. He couldn't figure out if this rush of adrenaline was the sudden hope of a potential rescue, or just hearing the sound of Ryan's voice again.
Matt's mouth closed, tightening up. In order to copy, he needed to speak… which released oxygen.
"Come on, Matt, talk to me..." Ryan said over the radio. "Tell me where you are, give me your position. Where are you? Give me a visual, just tell me what you see."
Matt's gaze was fixed on nothing in particular. His eyes sat dead. He came out of it, beginning to turn inside of his suit... gazing down below.
The Earth turned. Seven billion below went about their day... oblivious to the situation that was just above their heads.
"Oh, come on," Ryan said. "You've been yammering since we left Cape Canaveral, now you decide to shut up?"
Silence.
Matt closed his eyes. She probably thought that the worst, comprehensible thing had happened to him. His gut twisted. There were no words to describe just how guilty he felt for helping Ryan to believe that...
"Talk to me," Ryan said. "Just say something, say anything, I don't care!"
It could have been the faulty transmission... but something in her voice was cracking. It caught Matt's attention. It almost tempted him to give in. He paused, wanting to listen to more of it.
It made him feel... like he mattered.
His glance rolled away.
He wanted to say something to calm her down. He wanted to tell her to keep it together, to keep her head on... not to worry about him... to tell her that she was going to be alright. But that would have its own consequences. If he breathed a single word back to her, Ryan would immediately jump at the first opportunity to come back for him... and her one shot at survival would have gone right down the drain. That was not about to happen on Matt's watch. They both didn't have the time—or the resources to do this together anymore.
Matt blinked, pained. He reached upward...
And flicked his radio off.
The purest of all silences came in between them. Matt looked up, and gave Ryan a gaze across the Void. He copied back to her in his head.
Can't. Wish I could.
There was an undiluted, crystal-clear silence. In that moment, Matt began to understand the lonely ache that reigned within the universe just a little bit better. His radio crackled. Hank Williams Jr.'s guitar whined back in.
"That lonesome whippoorwill… he sounds too blue to fly… I'm so lonesome I could cry."
Even though his country music had come back on, the Void remained ever silent. It was a deathly silence. It was a silence that could be deeply treasured, for those who truly sought it... or deeply feared.
This type of silence could make a man wonder just how much of it should be taken in. If he wasn't careful, he would soon want to hear something… anything else other than this silent roar. And when the Void would not grant his request, he would slowly start to unwind, and beg for the darkness to communicate with him… plead for the Void to send him a noise… even if it wasn't from a human being. A rock, a piece of satellite debris, something. Something to reassure him that he wasn't alone in this universe. But the horrible, sad truth was—he was.
Matt then looked up, realizing the full scope of what he had just done. Hank Williams Jr. yodeled in his ears, but he couldn't hear it.
He had just said no to help. His country music gradually became noise to him. It grew colder, and colder. The Void bore unspeakable darkness into his body, and Matt could feel it grinning all around him.
He was all alone, now.
*The Secondary Oxygen Pack (SOP) is a real feature used by NASA to give an astronaut 30 more minutes of oxygen when the Primary Life Support System drops too low.
Feel free to look up "Secondary Oxygen Pack" on a search engine to read more about it. Please leave a Review!
