Rats!
10 Feb 2016Terra Sheer
Desperation makes people stupid. It makes me stupid, anyway, to the point that I'm now huddled up against a freezing canopy, pounding on the glass and yelling as though I don't realize sound doesn't carry in a vacuum."Hey! Hey! I'm alive in here! No, don't turn around! No, no, no!"
I get my feet into it, punching and kicking, trying to make enough ruckus that the laws of thermodynamics take pity on me, I suppose. My voice doesn't even sound like my own anymore. Panic makes it unfamiliar. Hoarse. Pouring out of my throat in an unsettling, primal howl. I pound the glass with clenched fists until my arms go numb. That idiot part of me in the back of my mind warns me, "Be careful. You might break it."
I give it one more good kick as my voice finally gives out. The other ship rolls away. The puffs of its thrusters stir glittering vortices of ice flecks -- my own exhaust, settled into a thin atmosphere around my ship as it drifts dead.
He couldn't see you through the canopy.
"No! You son of a bitch!"
He thinks you're dead.
"Come back!"
There's too much ice.
"Oh, god, please!"
He's pulling away, the cold light of his drive flickering through the darkness. My palms are cold against the glass, melting prints onto it. The water gathers in a film between my fingers, thick like honey in the freefall.
A shivering bead of moisture breaks against the back of my hand. I sniff, shake off a well of tears and bite my lip with a growing rage.
You're not going to die like this, Terra. You're better than this.
There's that idiot voice again.
You just need to find a signal. Something to show them ... you're not just another tag and bag.
I wonder how many tag and bags have thought the same thing?
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