Out of My Mind
04 Nov 2021Lily Flemmon
CW: Dissociative suicidal ideation.I was making jump, after jump, after jump… and it was all starting to blur together, and I started to become overwhelmed by how alone I was out here, and the only thing in my mind was getting back home. It took hours, alternating between the cold of space and the brightness of a star practically in my face. Bright, dark, bright, dark, bright, dark… Bright. Except this time I forgot to pitch away from the star. My hands were frozen. I was frozen. I felt numb. Done with this. Alone.
What am I doing?
I hit the exclusion zone and I was forcefully dropped into normal space, the star right in front of me. I was frozen. Hypnotized by… My own self? Suddenly I was back in that Sidewinder, back in that hangar bay, electric with fear, tingling at my first real chance to escape, I boosted out the airlock, and… the ship.. Began overheating? But I still felt like he was chasing me, like I could never fully escape.
No. No. Not out here, not right next to a star. I can’t, I’ll… I’ll die.
I heard my COVAS announce, “taking heat damage.” He’s still on me, I have to run, I have to get away.
No! NO! I needed to snap out of this, somehow. I was still frozen at full throttle, slowly approaching closer and closer to the star, thermal warning indicators flashing and buzzing. I… need… to…
*Pop.*
The bag of herbs popped open from the heat on the rear wall of the cockpit. Its contents floated around the canopy as I drifted down toward the incandescent surface of the star.
And then I smelled it, the smell of home. Suddenly I didn’t feel alone, I didn’t feel lost, I felt…
Safe. From everything inside my mind.
Suddenly I could feel the burning heat on my face, and I pitched up, instinctively slowing down to my optimal turning speed, which pulled the herbs forward to the glass of the canopy, making the smell much stronger, much more potent, and it let me clear my thoughts, and activate a heatsink as I came about and charged my frame shift drive. I had to activate a second heatsink once the first one ejected to keep from overheating while I continued charging to enter supercruise, and soon the frame shift tunnel appeared in front of me, and I throttled away from the star. I needed to see faces again. I needed to dock somewhere safe and get repairs before I lost myself like that again, because odds are that next time I won’t be so lucky.