At Comet's End

The darkness nearly consumed the rear end of the space shuttle that was traveling at a snail's pace above a distant ring of asteroids. The Hunter Gratzner was a long, slim ship with many different parts to it, as any ship would have. But this ship was much more unique. It was a cargo/passenger vessel, and held 40 some passengers headed for New Mecca and other places. There were at least twenty eight in the main passenger deck—the other twelve had to be placed elsewhere. Then there was the cargo hold.

They were both connected very closely—the main passenger hold being directly next to the stock deck—and nearly everything was stored in the cargo hold. There were weapons, for settlers that were moving to New Mecca, water and packed and dried food, clothes and blankets and pillows, the luggage of the sleeping passengers—nearly everything you could think of. And everything had been packed tightly together, so that it was all in one place and not scattered when the passengers woke. But there was one thing being held in its own place of honor, so to speak, directly on the weld mark between the two holds—as a sort of protection. Not for it, but for everything else—and it was in a stasis pod.

It was a man, mid to late twenties maybe. He had the skin of light Caramel—the color covering the entirety of his brawny arms and his partly shielded face. There was a gag between his teeth, and a tattered cloth over his eyes as a makeshift blindfold. On the front of his stasis pod, running across from the bottom left to the top right, read 'Lockout Protocol: No Early Release.' The stasis pods that kept the individuals standing upright held a kind of chemical to keep the people under—they were in cryo-sleep. When they left the dock at the boarding station in the space port, they were given a sedative to make them go under for the trip past distant planets and galaxies—it was a seemingly endless journey to the port at New Mecca and Vyrox [1]. But the sedative was useless for the Lockdown passenger. There had been rumors that when given the sedative to start the Cryo process, only your primitive side remained conscious when the process was complete—your animal side. He was fully awake.

The ship was travelling in complete silence—every living being on the craft deep in their sea of dreams; the only noise being the breathing of the man in the Lockdown pod as he peered through a tiny rip in the material that shielded his eyes.

He could smell the passengers around him. Leather clothing and the still familiar scent of grease and oil from machines that were welded and built—the earthy, pine-like smell—possibly from old pieces of wooden things that were collected or sold. And then a sweet smell permeated the confined cell and filled his nose. He nearly groaned in approval, 'Arousal,' he thought. The sickly nectar-like odor that graced him in his tightly packed pod was ecstasy inducing. He could almost swear it was a mixture of strawberries and a little sweat-slickened sugar. Normally, it would make him bare his teeth in annoyance from its intensity—but the way it drifted in with him in his cell, and the certain aroma it gave off almost made his eyes shut tight in concentration—wanting to preserve the air around him as long as he could.

He stayed like that for the longest time before a monstrous lurch shook him from the serenity of the smell around him. He growled in irritation, baring his teeth as best he could past the gag. Oh, if only his teeth could rip through the restrictive piece of shit...

His anger was replaced by a short-lived wave of panic as the craft began to fall from its orbit. He cocked his head to the side in wonder. He hadn't felt that emotion since he was just a cub on his home planet. But as soon as it came, it went. And even as contact between the ship and the unknown planet's atmosphere created turbulence, he remained still—not one trace of fear nor panic nor hysteria in his blood.

After the short few minutes it took for the craft to fall, he could feel the weight of the ship becoming lighter. There were sections of the machine coming apart. He smirked. Maybe after the hunk of metal landed, he'd be able to free himself from the makeshift prison he'd been placed in.

It wasn't long before he'd find out.


I woke up face down and tasted sand and blood on my lips. Hadn't I been in a stasis pod? I tried pushing myself up a bit and slowly opened my eyes to look around, and was instantly met with a vicious pounding in my head. My eyes squeezed shut and my mouth opened in a silent groan as I brought a hand up to shield my face from the intense, burning light that invaded my senses. Through the low, drum-like pounding in my ears I heard distant voices, and my heart dropped. Am I going insane? I was panicking. Is the heat making my mind deteriorate? Or is it the loss of blood getting the job done? Just when I was certain I'd fall into hysteria I heard the voices get closer, and then I felt two strong arms around me—lifting me up and carrying me to God knows where. I tried to protest and ask what exactly happened, but my body refused to let my mind take control. My vision began to fade, and soon enough, all that remained was black.

He could smell it again, but this time the honey-sweet scent he smelled before was clouded with blood and hysterics. And that made his head swim with a great deal of things. Confusion, disappointment, worry, protective instinct—but anger was the superior of all. He didn't know why he was angry, but then again he didn't really care to know. All that he did know was he had to follow that scent as closely as possible without tipping off a certain blue-eyed devil.

"….ake u…. Love, you….ave to wa…up…" I could hear a soft but firm voice in my head, and immediately my mind went back to hysterics. But as soon as I remembered the arms that carried me before, my eyes flew open and I shot up from where I laid. Regret came in the instant form of excruciating pain. I groaned as I caught myself on the table beneath me with one hand—the other coming up to console my aching head. Again, my eyes closed tightly to keep any invasive energy from swarming my senses. A soothing accented voice accompanied the soft hand that met my shoulder.

"You have to be careful, love—you can't just shoot up like a pine sprout at the moment," I slowly took my hand away from my face and let my eyes adjust enough to dull the pounding agony in my frontal lobe. When they settled, they met a pair of the most calming green eyes that I could remember. "Wha….." I groaned in pain, "…What hap-pened?" I stuttered. The woman that stood before me gave a soft smile—the kind that prefaced bad news. "The ship we were on….. It crashed, love. Flew through a comet's tail, we did," my eyes blew up to the size of platters for a split second, and then remembered how I had been laying in the desert. I had landed in the sand. My eyes immediately returned to their exaggerated size when I looked down and saw my leg.

Bloody. Aching. Broken.

Before I knew it, I began to breathe heavily—almost hyperventilating. I could tell that the woman with green eyes was worried and tried to calm me, but it didn't do much good. It got worse and worse, until a strong and reassuring hand rested on my back. My head turned so fast my neck almost snapped. There was a man, somewhat short and scruffy—his beard almost matching the color of his russet eyes.

"Sweetheart, you've got to calm yourself. All this excessive breathin's got your heart pumping, and that excessive blood flow's not gonna help your leg here," he motioned to my pitiful appendage. I swallowed audibly and nodded, trying to control my ramped breathing—all without moving my eyes from my leg. But with all the hard work I was doing trying to keep from screaming, the words that came to my ears nearly made me faint then and there.

"Sorry to say this, sweetheart, but we're gonna have to set that," he nodded towards my leg. My eyes shot towards him in a begging sort of way—please don't rip my leg off, or something to that effect. I received my second smile that day—the same one the woman had given me—and I groaned internally. He was going to do it with or without my approval. I gulped again, sure the whole world could hear it, and started to look around for something to bite down on. He seemed to have beaten to it.

Handing me a small wooden rod, he waited for me to put it between my teeth and close my eyes—he told me that if I was skittish about blood or broken bones or anything of the sort that it would probably be in my best interest to. He gently put one hand at my knee, and the other just below the long gash that ran towards my ankle. I winced, not expecting the dull pain of contact around my wound. When his palms softly tightened around my leg, I held my breath.

Three….Tw—

My mental countdown hadn't reached its end before he twisted and I heard and felt my bones touch once again. My eyes flew open and my face distorted into a look that portrayed the worst pain someone has ever endured in the history of life itself. The wooden dowel rolled from my lips as I opened my mouth and stray tears fled from my eyes as I screwed them shut in agony—screaming out the loudest shriek I had ever heard myself produce. I could again feel the hand at my back, soothing me. Or at least trying to. I could hear the woman sigh before she spoke again.

"Zeke, I'll go on and once over the others. Stay with her for a while, and then help her out so she can recoup," she said softly. 'Zeke' only grunted gently as he continued to rub soothing circles between my shoulder blades. I tried hard to control my breathing, and held onto the edges of the metal table until I thought my knuckles would bleed.


It was stronger now. The sweet, addicting scent. Still shrouded by blood and hysterics, but now he could smell the scent of rust and oil, next to agonizing pain. Worse than a slow death, or so the person emitted. He growled lowly, his white teeth showing from beneath full lips and his nose wrinkling up in aggression. Whoever was altering such a saccharine smell was going to have their intestines for a belt.

It had been maybe two hours or so, I suppose, but the swelling or aching didn't die at all. Zeke insisted I go out and get something to drink, if for nothing else. I tried to protest, but my voice came out hoarse and my throat felt like it was lined with razors—to which he softly smirked. He came over to the side of the table and helped me get down after a while. He wrapped a supportive arm around my waist and took my arm around his shoulder. I felt foolish as I hopped and hobbled along next to him in his full stride, and soon the silly feeling was accompanied by uneasiness as we ambled out of the room and down a ragged hall towards another. Only I somehow knew that this one would be filled with unrivaled anger and panic.

A broken neck would have been better.