Tumble
Author: Da'iel Zehn
Original post: https://eveclone.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/tumble/
Entry for the YC120 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden category.
Location: Unknown
Groggy and on the edge of euphoria, the woman opened her eyes. Her nose and mouth felt covered, but she could take expanding, deep breaths. The small window of her confined space revealed the unexpected. She could barely move in the tiny, coffin sized tube, but at least she could look out.
The stars greeted her in their twinkling voices. They may only be burning points in the black canvas of space, but she found the sweetness of their light glorious. A deep need for compassion ached within her heart, and she found it anywhere she could in her trauma.
Outside, to her right, ships of all sizes appeared to be fighting one another. Some invoked a deep hatred, the ones with extensions like wings and their rusty colored surfaces. The others made her feel afraid with their bulbous bodies and sharp spikes. Threat and hate all merged together inside her.
Multicolored beams of light coming from the spiked ships, made her feel comforted. When they burned into the others she felt a dripping joy. The bright flashes and explosions, they made her head hurt, and when her tiny capsule slowly rotated away from the scene she felt relieved.
Sunlight sparkled off of debris floating along with her, pieces of metal, chunks of hull, sparking electrical lines still attached to damaged power distribution nodes, fiber optics in broken network conduit, a damaged scout drone torn asunder, and numerous storage crates. None of it mattered to her as she felt a wave of drowsiness touch her partially aware mind.
How long she drifted in space, she did not know. Sleep, the most lovely dreamless commodity, but her eyes would open on their own from time-to-time. Flashes from the solar horizon perhaps woke her as she slowly drifted away. Maybe the burning, broken hulls in the distance sending explosive geysers of oxygen and other gases into the void. None of it mattered to the despair that she felt in her spirit, she only wanted to close her eyes forever.
“I felt invincible,” she whispered into her life giving oxygen mask. “No one could stand against me. I was the fiery star that lit the heavens.” Falling into the darkness behind her eyelids felt right, tumbling away among the ash and burning coals.
“Leave me alone,” she tried to whisper as a bright light shone on her face. Words would not form on her freezing lips. A deep cold felt pierced within the center of her being. An unrelenting, nagging chill embracing her, but she did not shiver or tremble. She wept and the tears felt attached to her cheeks.
Her eyes opened slightly one more time, light wrapped around her, pulsing and inescapable. She felt lifted by it, being drawn along by the river of illumination. The beauty was humbling as the cold gripped her thoughts, she felt tiny and insignificant as she floated. Closing her eyes she passed beyond understanding.
Far away, voices talked with concern. She could not understand, but the warmth she felt covered her entire body. What a welcome full body touch, it felt so good for some reason to float inside of it. The darkness was pressed back by the dim illumination. Her eyes felt covered, and she did not want to open them. She wanted to stay in this place forever, and she wrapped her arms around her, tucking her knees into her abdomen.
Time was in flux and she felt she crossed into forever filled with a loving peace, sourced from that which dwelled at the center of her being. A presence dwelled with her. “Stay with me forever,” she begged. A rhythmic sound, beat around her, comforting her.
She suddenly became aware of the familiar warm support beneath her, the softness of a heavy blanket over her. Her eyes fluttered open, looking up at a metallic ceiling. The sound of a medical sensor mimicked her heart beat, and the mask over her nose and mouth provided humidified, warm oxygen to her lungs.
A pretty Caldari woman appeared with light brown hair and bright blue eyes, looking down at her, concerned. She was dressed in a blue shirt. “Glad to see you awake, sweety,” she said with a smile and caring, gentle features. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Seltaria,” she answered in a weak whisper, her voice muffled by the mask.
“Very good,” the woman said. “I’m chief medic… well, just call me Imeera. Your safe, and we are taking care of you.”
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