Here's a short little sci-fi excerpt that could one day turn into that next movie you wait in line to see ;)
"Sphinx" (working title)
It hit me again - like a nagging heartbeat just outside the edge of hearing. I scratched at the inside of my ear trying to clear out the sound.
I refocused on my task, pressing the numbers into the keypad, attempting to bypass systems.
Sphinx froze, then stated, “they’re here.”
“No… No, not yet,” I begged. I kept typing in codes, desperately working the system.
“Now,” she said, quietly - calmly.
I glanced up at the dark figure beside me, nothing but a silhouette to my eyes and back-lit by cool white wall panel lights. She was a tall, stoic and gracefully poised. Her firm shapely body seemed like a statue it was so still.
“Now,” she repeated.
“I can’t…” I blurted. I felt the sharp edges of panic plucking my nerves like stringed instruments, threatening to sever them. “It’s not…”
Suddenly the screen flashed blue then green and a quick trill of electronic noises signaled the acceptance of data. I swore in relief to myself and whispered a gentle thanks to the Uni.
“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing the silk of her palm and dragging her through the newly opened door. “We’re almost there.”
“I know,” she said again, her voice echoed strangely, almost void of thought, yet somehow completely certain.
We ran down the hallways lined with stark gray metal walls and strips of vertical paneled lighting. The only decoration were the thick bolts riveted in deep to seal in the air. These were mostly barren service ways designed for engineers and servicemen. Everything looked identical to me. I had no idea where we were.
“Right,” she stated calmly, and I stumbled briefly with a confused expression on my face. “Right,” she repeated more firmly and comprehension tickled my brain. I bolted towards the right fork in the passageway ahead.
My heart was pounding in my chest. Every possible fear was playing theatre in my head, brilliant stories of blood and gore. They would catch us, hook us in with their grappling knives, and reel us in like struggling sturgeon whipping against the current. And when they caught us, they would eat us alive. Fresh meat, moist and juicy, exceptional quality.
I choked back a sob.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Left.”
I looked at her with wide eyes. With an instantaneous trust born of necessity, I whipped left. She was so strangely certain and I found myself impressed by her impenetrable calm as we thudded down the passageways. I felt like my bile was inches away from making decorations on the wall but she seemed almost doe eyed despite the danger. Who was this woman?
“There,” she said as we approached a foot thick silicate glass partition that revealed empty space beyond.
“What?” I asked dumbfounded. We were at a dead end.
She said nothing, only stared quietly out into the Uni beyond.
I shook my head in agitation - the sound, like a heartbeat just outside the edge of hearing, was in me again. The air started to vibrate and distort in pulsing ripples, rhythmically, as if in time with a heartbeat. I placed my hands on my temples trying to control the pressure that was building there.
Behind us I could still hear shouting and the thudding of thick soled shoes against the steel floors, and I looked at Sphinx with a desperate expression. She just stood there, calmly, with her head cocked to the side as if listening to something - something else.
I began to panic. We were trapped. There was no way we were getting out of this.
The pulsing started to hurt. I mean really hurt. My hands gripped at the sides of my head, desperately trying to keep it from ripping apart. I think I was screaming.
“Good.” stated Sphinx.
“Wha...” I managed weakly before the breath was sucked from my lungs, wrenched out with titanic force.
The glass had shattered.
We were sucked into space.
At the same moment the overwhelming heartbeat and vibrations abruptly ended, the world exploded. Imploded. Exploded. I had no idea. I was sucked from the station like a seed spat out of a straw and shot into the vacuum of space. Into.. nothing. Into absolute emptiness…. Everything went silent.
****
I must have blacked out.
I awoke slowly, groggily. There was a strange beeping noise at the edge of my hearing. With indeterminate slowness my brain finally registered the persistent beeping of a heart monitor. For a moment I was still, calm, eerily comfortable.
And then I panicked.
Wrenching up in the bed I clutched at the tubes and wires connected to me, confused and blindly trying understand them and what the hell they were doing on me - oh god, in me. But they tugged painfully, beads of blood welled up at connection points.
Someone rushed towards me, making noise. I gripped at them, begging, dry heaving. They kept screaming at me. I couldn’t understand them. The room was spinning. There was strange music playing and I was going to be sick. No… I was sick. I threw up, everything in my stomach heaved upwards with surprising momentum. It felt like it would never end. I had the absurd thought that I was a fountain. And then world swirled back into black.
****
(to be continued?)
I feel I could edit until my dying breath.
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