It was a Tickling Sensation that pulled him from the murky depths of slumber.
Just a slight scratching, a tingling against the back of this throat.
Eyes still closed, he tightened the heavy muscles in his chest and cleared his throat, a wet gurgling bubbling up as he did so--hitting the back of his tongue in sticky acidic warmth.
His brow furrowed as a burning sensation quickly followed, up from his mouth as if it was gas, into his nose--forcing him to take air in deeply and exhale it back out in tiny puffs.
It only worsened though, finally encouraging him to open his sleep crusted eyes.
There was nothing worse than trying to bring yourself into consciousness after a chemically induced sleep. The fog in your brain is so thick, and your body is so sluggish and weighted, you get stuck in this lull between being hyper aware of your surrounding and still feeling like you are in a dream state. The fact that he was physically restrained in a Transportation Pod only made things worse--his head bobbing up and down and rolling around his shoulders on weakened muscles--making his blurry vision swim with flashing colors.
Another scratching within his throat had him gagging and coughing, spittle flying from his mouth before he could stop it and splattering against the glass face plate of his Space Coffin. Crinkling his nose at that same burning flare up his nostrils--to the point his eyes were tearing up--he shook his head and groaned at the sharp pain that suddenly exploded within his sinus cavities.
What the fuck was wrong with him?!
Feeling a slight dribbling of mucus starting to come out of his nose, he slowly leaned his head back and sniffed repeatedly until he felt it suck back up his nasal cavity.
By the Gods he felt miserable.
Did he pick up a virus before flight?
How was that possible?
It was procedure for all Travelers to be examined upon arrival, quarantined for forty eight hours after, and then examined again before being released onto the departing vessel.
The last thing anyone wanted was to let a parasite or bacteria have free growth in a host without interference, especially on long a journey where deep sleep bordering on a medical coma were standard.
He shook his head again, far gentler this time, but the shooting pain that had rippled through him before erupted once more, pushing on the area under his eyes, making them twitch.
And then something was different.
The hairs on his arm raised and his skin crawled...no, it couldn't have been.
No.
He imagined it.
It didn't happen.
Flexing his still somewhat sedated frame, he tried to wiggle a little in his pod, the need to be free growing increasingly with each increasing beat of his heart. But he was struggling against restraints that were programed to only release him upon verbal command. It was in this moment, as he shifted around, he realized he was positioned vertically, instead of at an incline, and he was numb from the hips down.
Oh Gods.
This was not good.
Turning his attention finally to the partially reflective glass smeared with spit in front of him, he took in his surroundings--his very heart stuttering surroundings.
The other pods, all tube shaped like his, were horrifically damaged in one way or another. Some were smoking, others had large fissures in their framework and shattered face plates, while a few looked like they had literally exploded from the inside out.
Bodies, and what he was praying were not chunks of body parts, were scattered across the grated floor, their twisted or down right cooked masses stained with streaks of red and yellow fluids. He could only imagine, by the tinting of what skin he could see, that his fellow travelers had been like this for a day or two at the very least.
The Carnage was gut wrenching and he shuddered, his body trembling and his anxiety spiking.
He tried to speak, to will his vocal chords awake but all he did was gurgle and mewl like a drowning animal. The strain of his efforts kicked a chain reaction off inside of him and he suddenly convulsed, his body arching within its confinement, his head pushing back, his mouth tearing open in a silent scream.
And as his eyes bulged and his lungs spasmed, he felt it move again.
The Touch, that irritating scratching sensation, brushing against the roof of his mouth and the outer edges of his nose. It dripped, dripped, dripped with sticky metallic sludge down his sinus cavities, down his throat and into his rolling stomach.
It was obviously trying to break free of him, wrenching it self along with spindly limbs like an octopus swimming against a raging current. The bones in his face were being pushed on with such force he could hear them cracking, echoing in a cacophony with his gagging and the hideous slurping sound it kept making as it moved.
He wasn't going to make it.
Just like the others, This Thing was going to claw its way out of his face like an insect breaking free of its former shell and there would be nothing but his tattered corpse left behind.
He had embarked on his last journey, and it had not been kind.
By all that had once been holy....what kind of creature was this?
Where had it come from?
Why, oh why, him?
Just a slight scratching, a tingling against the back of this throat.
Eyes still closed, he tightened the heavy muscles in his chest and cleared his throat, a wet gurgling bubbling up as he did so--hitting the back of his tongue in sticky acidic warmth.
His brow furrowed as a burning sensation quickly followed, up from his mouth as if it was gas, into his nose--forcing him to take air in deeply and exhale it back out in tiny puffs.
It only worsened though, finally encouraging him to open his sleep crusted eyes.
There was nothing worse than trying to bring yourself into consciousness after a chemically induced sleep. The fog in your brain is so thick, and your body is so sluggish and weighted, you get stuck in this lull between being hyper aware of your surrounding and still feeling like you are in a dream state. The fact that he was physically restrained in a Transportation Pod only made things worse--his head bobbing up and down and rolling around his shoulders on weakened muscles--making his blurry vision swim with flashing colors.
Another scratching within his throat had him gagging and coughing, spittle flying from his mouth before he could stop it and splattering against the glass face plate of his Space Coffin. Crinkling his nose at that same burning flare up his nostrils--to the point his eyes were tearing up--he shook his head and groaned at the sharp pain that suddenly exploded within his sinus cavities.
What the fuck was wrong with him?!
Feeling a slight dribbling of mucus starting to come out of his nose, he slowly leaned his head back and sniffed repeatedly until he felt it suck back up his nasal cavity.
By the Gods he felt miserable.
Did he pick up a virus before flight?
How was that possible?
It was procedure for all Travelers to be examined upon arrival, quarantined for forty eight hours after, and then examined again before being released onto the departing vessel.
The last thing anyone wanted was to let a parasite or bacteria have free growth in a host without interference, especially on long a journey where deep sleep bordering on a medical coma were standard.
He shook his head again, far gentler this time, but the shooting pain that had rippled through him before erupted once more, pushing on the area under his eyes, making them twitch.
And then something was different.
The hairs on his arm raised and his skin crawled...no, it couldn't have been.
No.
He imagined it.
It didn't happen.
Flexing his still somewhat sedated frame, he tried to wiggle a little in his pod, the need to be free growing increasingly with each increasing beat of his heart. But he was struggling against restraints that were programed to only release him upon verbal command. It was in this moment, as he shifted around, he realized he was positioned vertically, instead of at an incline, and he was numb from the hips down.
Oh Gods.
This was not good.
Turning his attention finally to the partially reflective glass smeared with spit in front of him, he took in his surroundings--his very heart stuttering surroundings.
The other pods, all tube shaped like his, were horrifically damaged in one way or another. Some were smoking, others had large fissures in their framework and shattered face plates, while a few looked like they had literally exploded from the inside out.
Bodies, and what he was praying were not chunks of body parts, were scattered across the grated floor, their twisted or down right cooked masses stained with streaks of red and yellow fluids. He could only imagine, by the tinting of what skin he could see, that his fellow travelers had been like this for a day or two at the very least.
The Carnage was gut wrenching and he shuddered, his body trembling and his anxiety spiking.
He tried to speak, to will his vocal chords awake but all he did was gurgle and mewl like a drowning animal. The strain of his efforts kicked a chain reaction off inside of him and he suddenly convulsed, his body arching within its confinement, his head pushing back, his mouth tearing open in a silent scream.
And as his eyes bulged and his lungs spasmed, he felt it move again.
The Touch, that irritating scratching sensation, brushing against the roof of his mouth and the outer edges of his nose. It dripped, dripped, dripped with sticky metallic sludge down his sinus cavities, down his throat and into his rolling stomach.
It was obviously trying to break free of him, wrenching it self along with spindly limbs like an octopus swimming against a raging current. The bones in his face were being pushed on with such force he could hear them cracking, echoing in a cacophony with his gagging and the hideous slurping sound it kept making as it moved.
He wasn't going to make it.
Just like the others, This Thing was going to claw its way out of his face like an insect breaking free of its former shell and there would be nothing but his tattered corpse left behind.
He had embarked on his last journey, and it had not been kind.
By all that had once been holy....what kind of creature was this?
Where had it come from?
Why, oh why, him?
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