text: CONTENT WARNING: This piece contains descriptions of violence, gore, and some profanity. Viewer discretion is advised. A shrill wail jolts me from the quiet darkness of sleep to the glare of LED lights flooding an unfamiliar room. The ground I lay on is hard and cold-- have I rolled off my bed again? Another wail prompts me to push my upper body off the ground; the setting before me tilts and spins like I’ve just staggered out of an old rollercoaster. I squeeze my eyes shut against the bright, dizzying room and clench my teeth to fight back a wave of nausea. At the nausea’s dissipation, I force my eyes open again, blinking a few times to clear my vision. The room is white and appears to be made of metal. The walls hold pieces of advanced technology on silver shelves. This room isn’t my bedroom. I push myself up to stand, and it takes my head banging against the metal ceiling to kick my memories back into place. Ship #A17: my one-way ticket to a new life I never asked for. A third, much quieter cry finally pulls my attention to the enormous windows at the back of the ship crowded by a small group of strangers. A young woman sobs in the arms of another, silent one on the metal floor. A tall, visibly strong man stares with his head against the windows, tears falling to the ground without sound. Beside him stands a boy no older than fifteen clutching an old, tie-dyed bunny plush. My feet lead me to join them, albeit against my will. As I approach, the boy looks up at me, his tearful eyes the color of whiskey illuminated by sunlight. He steps slightly to the side to open a space for me, which I step into, finally getting a view of the window as our former home explodes. The blinding yellow and orange lights thrust debris every which way. Entire chunks of land are thrown deep into the abyss of space. Smaller explosions light up like fireworks amongst the stars. In its place is a void of nothingness. The sobbing woman has ceased any sound. Her silent comforter bows her head. The muscular man buries his face in his hands. The boy beside me trembles as tears pour from his eyes, and unconsciously, I rest my arm against his shoulders. Hot tears slip down my cheeks, and my throat burns with suppressed sobs. Our planet is gone, and the silence is deafening. ------ “My dear Evelyn, I hope you and the twins are safe. I’m so sorry we got separated-- everything became so frantic and confusing that I had no chance of getting back to you. I’m on another ship, but I’ll see you soon, okay? Tell Aniyah and Colton--” my voice breaks “--that Dad loves them and misses them every minute and promises we will all be together again on a new planet soon. I love you.” I lift my thumb off the button, and the recording ends. Two other clicks on the technologically advanced phone send the recording without issue as a fresh wave of tears warps my vision. “What are you doing?” I snap my head up to the boy standing in the doorway of the sleeping quarters-- this is the first time I have heard him speak since boarding the ship some days ago. Sighing, I answer, “Sending a recording to my family. We got separated in the chaos...I don’t want them to panic. The boy nods, enters the room, and sits beside me on the ground against my bed. “How are you holding up?” I ask him. “Well,” he mutters, “I haven’t thrown myself out of the emergency hatch yet.” I nod. “Did you get separated from your family as well?” I ask. The boy gazes at his tie-dyed bunny plush for a long moment before answering the question. “I never knew my dad, but my mom worked for NASA. Her team designed all of the ships. On the day of the escape, she was running around helping people get into ships and checking that nothing went wrong. This bunny--” he held up the old plushie “--was hers. When I got into the ship, she pushed it into my hands, hugged me, told me she loved me, and darted back outside. She knew she and her team were doomed. I guess part of me still hoped she was wrong.” “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, trying to hide my shock. “Thanks,” he shakily whispers back, tightly hugging the bunny. “Does the bunny have a name?” “Biscuit. She said it was fitting.” The two of us jump as a shriek pierces the air, and we wordlessly scramble out of the sleeping quarters and into the ship's central area. The muscular man is already there, along with the sobbing woman from the first night, whose shrieks dissolve into hysterical crying. At her feet lies the other woman, her comforter, with short auburn hair doused in blood and terrified brown eyes leaking spare tears. More blood pours from a deep gash on her neck like a river on the ground. “Dear God... ” utters the muscular man, who turns away from the scene with a hand over his mouth. “What the fuck possessed someone to do something like this?” I whisper. In my peripherals, the boy sways on his feet, staring at the scene in horror. I catch him as he collapses. “Who would do such a thing?!” The hysterical young woman questions. “Who even managed to smuggle a weapon onto this ship?!” “I’ve been in the sleeping quarters all day,” I quickly state, “and there were body scanners when we were boarding. It’s physically impossible for someone to bring a weapon here.” “And yet,” the muscular man chimes in with a hoarse, unsteady voice, “it seems that’s what’s happened.” I shut my eyes against the gory scene and fight to organize my thoughts-- someone on this ship has murderous intent, and this woman may not be their only target. “Let’s search the ship,” I find myself saying. “There’s a chance that, in the chaos, we gained a stowaway.” The boy makes a noise and stirs. I quickly put my hand in front of his eyes, shielding him from the bloody mess on the ground. “We should do something with her body as well,” I add, and it takes a fair amount of prompting to get the remaining three of us adults to seek out cleaning equipment. The crying woman, who reveals her name as Della, opts to manage cleaning up the gradually drying blood. I turn to the other man, Zeke, to confirm we’ll be handling the body, but he cuts me off two words in. “Can’t do bodies. I’ll stay with the kid, y’know, make sure he’s all right.” I acquiesce, and the handling of the body becomes my job. “You know, when I was a kid, I thought living on a new planet would be the coolest thing in the universe,” Della laments, turning to me as I stoop down to pick up the body. Grunting, I remark, “Not what you thought it would be, is it?” Della shakes her head. I lift the body into my arms, staggering backward as I stand back up. “There’s a hatch down the hall to the right,” Della states, pointing down a corridor without looking. “I discovered it while exploring the ship before we took off. You can put her through there,” she adds, her voice quivering slightly. “Thanks,” I mutter and step into the corridor. The blood from the young woman’s neck drips onto my hands and shirt while the blood in her hair quietly leaves a trail on the ground. Her body retains some warmth, but her dull, unseeing eyes persistently remind me of the lost life. At the end of the corridor, built into the right wall, is a small hatch with tinted windows. I unlatch the hatch, revealing a short, pristine white tube capped with another door at the end. I rest her body on the clean floor-- I hate to stain it with blood-- and shut the opening hatch with a soft click. My fingers guide themselves to a button and press down. The silence is filled with a vacuum-like sound as the ending hatch opens to suck the young woman’s body into space. A few moments pass before I release the button, and the corridor settles into silence. I breathe a sigh as tears warp my vision yet again. Once upon a time, I was the guy who rarely cried. Now, I long for the day I never have to cry again. A low hissing noise cuts through the silence. I instinctively check the tube, but its process is done. My eyes scan the corridor before finally stopping on a particularly dark corner where the wall meets the ceiling. I step closer to it; shards of white metal stand at odd angles in a distorted sort of circle, and the hissing is louder. I put my finger up to it, and nothing stops it from going through. “Della?” I call down the corridor. “What is it?” She replies. “During your exploration, did you happen to find a toolbox anywhere? I think the explosion blew out a corner down here,” I explain. “Yes, and I’ll be right there! Don’t move!” She shouts as her voice fades, and she hurries off. I wait one, two, three minutes. Della screams. Flooded with panic, I take off up the corridor. Not another murder. Not another murder. “Don’t come out!” Della cries from another room. “Where’s Zeke?!” The muffled voice of the young boy shouts. “Just stay there!” Della’s voice breaks. My hand grabs the doorway of the sleeping quarters to anchor myself, and I swing into the room as Della bursts into tears. Not another murder. Not another... “Jesus...” Zeke’s blood soaks through one of the few beds in the sleeping quarters, pouring from several wounds in his chest and one through his neck. I tentatively step closer, holding my breath as I tip my head down to look at the wounds. “Knife wounds,” I whisper, picking up my head to face Della. “Big ones, too,” I add. Della sorrowfully shakes her head. “We need to call someone.” “The ships are pre-programmed,” I remind her, “so nobody can get off-course to help us. Let the kid out of the bathroom. We’ll head to the central area.” My eyes follow Della as she walks the boy out of the room, using his plushie to shield his eyes from the gory sight. My mind whirls with questions, but one stands at the forefront: How does one woman in a small ship become the first to discover two murders in a row? ------ “There’s nobody else on the ship,” the young boy, Elias, reports. “Positive?” I ask, briefly glancing down from the step ladder in the corridor. “I’ve checked three times. Nobody else is on the ship.” “Fantastic,” I mutter. “Hand me another nail,” I request, putting out my hand. Elias rummages through the toolbox for a moment. “There are none left.” “How?” I ask in bewilderment. “That box was brand new! I’ve only used--” I mentally count the number of nails I’ve used to repair the broken corner “--five nails!” “Well, the box is empty. There are none left,” Elias repeats, matching my confusion. “Son of a bitch... ” I growl under my breath. “Della?” I call. “What?” Della yells from the other end of the ship. “Is there another box of nails up there? All of mine have vanished!” “There should be!” “I’ll get them!” Elias declares, running off. I leap off the ladder and bolt after him. With Della as my main suspect for the past two days, the last person I want alone with her is this kid. “Elias!” I shout, bursting into the empty central area of the ship. This time, Elias’ screams of terror shatter the air before Della’s. No. God, no! I fly down another corridor. The screams grow louder. Anyone but him, please, anyone but him! The screams cut to silence. I halt in front of the small storage room at the very end of the corridor. He’s just a kid. The tie-dye rabbit lies in a rapidly growing pool of blood beside its mangled owner-- torn clothing, a deep gash in his neck, stab wounds in his arms and chest, and a nearly unrecognizable face. I collapse, sobs wracking my body mercilessly. Tears stream from my eyes and burn my skin. In wiping them away, I streak blood on my cheeks. It’s too quiet. My gaze tears away from Elias and trails to Della’s silent, shaking figure curled up against the wall, splattered in blood. In a blink, my hands are curled around her neck. “You did this!” I roar. “I didn’t do anything!” Della cries, her fingers trying to pry mine away. “You were at the scene of every murder! That’s not a coincidence!” “I never hurt anybody! ” “There’s nobody else on this ship!” “ Please, I never killed anybody here! I know it looks bad, but you should have seen--!” “He’s a fucking kid!” “Something else is on this ship--!” “Nobody else is on this ship!” “Will you fucking listen to me?!” A sudden, firm crack snaps everything to silence again. Della’s head falls limply to the side as I pull away my shaking, bloody hands. I stare at them numbly for several seconds. I killed someone. A strangled cry escapes me. I killed someone. Bile burns up my throat and joins the blood on the floor. I killed someone. “That makes my job easier,” says a voice behind me. I turn around, my body heavy and slow, as if all of its energy has been sucked dry. My eyes climb upwards past the figure’s distressed jeans and oversized band t-shirt to its face. Tousled black hair falls messily over his hazel eyes. I bring a shaking hand up from my bloody distressed jeans and oversized band t-shirt and push my tousled black hair out of my hazel eyes. “Such a shame you couldn’t fix that broken corner sooner,” says the figure in my voice, “because it was a perfect entryway to your ship.” “Who are you?” I manage. My copy grins and answers, “I’m you , and just like you, I’m looking for a new place to reside.” My copy holds up a blood-covered knife in his hand. “I quite like your form. I would have just killed you, but then there’d be witnesses, and with witnesses comes... inconveniences.” The cold blade of the knife rests against my throat. “After all, there’s only room for one of us on that new planet,” he sneers. My body snaps into motion before my mind does, and I find myself sprinting up the corridor. My copy shouts at me as I swing into the control room and barricade the door. Before me is a long, white control panel covered in buttons and little screens all set up for the ship to deliver its passengers to the new planet. I frantically search the room for something, anything to use as a weapon. Finding nothing, I resort to my own fists. My bloody fists smash navigation screens and snap buttons out of place. They tear apart wires and wreck carefully installed instructions. Alarms scream in my ears as I seize the emergency steering wheel and slam down the speed pedal. In an instant, the ship shoots off through the stars and streaks through the black nothingness of space. My copy bangs on the door, demanding to know what I’m thinking, veering so wildly off course. The ship’s energy sputters out, halting it to a sudden stop and flinging me to the ground. The lights flicker out as we drift into the void. My copy stabs at the door. I pull my communicator out of my pocket-- the screen is cracked, but the screen lights up when I pick it up. A shaking finger holds down the recording button as I take one deep breath. “My dear Evelyn, Aniyah, Colton, I’m so sorry. I must break my promise to you. Something happened, and I had to veer off course. I won’t be seeing you on the new planet. Please do not call anybody for me, for the safety of humanity depends on it. I’m so sorry to leave you. Colton, don’t give up on your dreams as an artist because I know you can make it. Aniyah, keep persisting with acting, no matter how hard it gets, because I know you will one day dazzle the silver screen. Evelyn, my dearest Evelyn, don’t waste away your life. Go out and do everything you’ve ever wanted to do. I’m so sorry it has to end like this, but I am doing this for you. I love you all. I will never stop loving you. One day, we will be together again. Until then...goodbye.” The recording ends. Two clicks send it off with perfect timing. The lock snaps off the door, and my copy’s sinister smile is my final sight as his knife plunges through my heart.