CW: Gore, Horror
The door to the cargo bay unsealed, but something about the sound felt off to Tomas. Not in a way that registered immediate danger, but the discomfort of the unfamiliar that anyone might experience when noticing changes in their predictable environment. Cautiously, he stepped through the doorway and caught the sound of a whistle. Steady, high pitched… inorganic, certainly – this far into space, there was no risk of it the source being rodents or insects. Letting his head hang, Tomas watched the buttons on his suspenders rise and fall with a heaving sigh. The level of maintenance work on the station was unsustainable for someone of his age, but his petitions for support had gone ignored. Management was always weary of onboarding additional staff during this period of the budget cycle. It was almost certain that the arguments about the cost of the need would outlast Tomas’ career, so he had all but given up advocating for his own working conditions.
Toolbag in hand, Tomas crossed towards the center of the cargo bay, following his left ear towards the source of the sound. The whistling noise grew louder as he approached a small container on the metal paneling of the ship’s floor. He paused to assess the situation, tilting his head to try and understand why a box might be making such a sound. Could there be something inside that had turned itself on? Leaning in closer, he could make out the sound as being slightly beneath the box, which was even more confusing to him. Beneath the box should be pure hull – layers of steel and pipes to insulate the cargo bay from the vacuum of space. Tomas considered that a pipe in the hull might be leaking, and resigned himself to get a good inspection of it before he figured out which tools he would need.
With the toe of his boot, Tomas gave the box a kick to move it to the side. He was surprised at the amount of force he released, having only a moment of thought about his apparent frustration with work before he felt the sudden jolt of suction pull his foot into the hole.
His tool bag flew into the air as Tomas scrambled to grab leverage – anything that might allow him to pull himself out. But the brief vision of his flailing hands would be his last. Before Tomas could cry out for help, he was pulled through the narrow hole in the hull of the ship, his body and clothing compressing into a broken, contorted mass that caught on the jagged edges of pipes and steel leading out into the blackness.
Within minutes, the station was pulled into infinity, leaving the glittering remnants of its debris scattered across the empty sky. Days later, in a board room in another star system, the clean-up allocation was approved.
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