The World Killer

Noone can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

It’s been six hours since the battle and my oxygen is running out - wasted on my desperate pleas into the dark. Those sounds of death still echo within my helmet, bouncing against the glass like a trapped animal.

The abyss around me did not accommodate such graces as sound. It did not feel kindly towards my suffering or offer any relief. No. The cold and endless dark merely wrapped around my body, embracing me, shuttling steadily on towards an unseeing end.

Around me, islands of debris bobbed like airships, each harbouring passengers of dust with no destination. My arms were a dead weight utop my chest, even as they itched to grab hold. If I could just board one, clamber elbow to knee onto the rubble, I might stand a chance. Let my heart press against the craftsmanship, even though both symbiotes are already destroyed, at least I would be close to home.

My interface flashed red. Bright exclamatory lines bordered my death clock.

“5 minutes of reserve oxygen remaining.”

Home. What did that feel like? For three years it had been that ship, the broken tick of its electric oven, that same rough blanket snagging on a broken fingernail. Petty familiarities which meant nothing once the radar alert sounded.

Could home really be destroyed so easily?

Another meteor of metal swooped over my head. Singed paint flashed green and yellow before my eyes, it read: Legacy II.

My throat burned as the words floated away, crashing into similar chunks that chipped away at its edges.

“4 minutes of reserve oxygen remaining.”

The battle was brief. There were eighteen of them, one of me. It was also exceptionally succinct. No pauses or unprepared prattles of panic.

They had been watching me, that was a given. But I had also been waiting. Years alone planning for this moment, buying myself time to avenge what was taken from me.

I’ll be there this time, I won’t be helpless again.

“3 minutes of reserve oxygen remaining”

A pair of ghostly faces floated past me, bloated and grey within their shattered glass tanks. Their mouths hung ajar like fish, gawking at the greed of the airless atmosphere. In the end all that remained was their matching red and gold badges, pinned to the itchy cotton of a Galactic Army blazer. It didn’t matter that I floated alongside them, this anonymity was what we all deserved.

My cheeks ached as I watched them press on into the darkness, ping-ponging off 16 identical figures.

“2 minutes of reserve oxygen remaining.”

I managed to drift away from the starless plain, my body reacting in equal increments to the forces I present.

Their world: a base of weapons and sandy fortresses where tides of ideas were bred. A fission and fusion of destruction. Its scorched dunes slowly fill my view, lifeless as the space I inhibit now.

They had marched for years towards me, never quite catching up. Even when I destroyed their neighbours planet by planet. And as they watched and bled, desperately seeking the weapon I possessed, I countered. Just as this whole plot has been.

Act and counter and counteract.

“1 minute of reserve oxygen remaining.”

They called me the World Killer, the vacuum who devoured space and filled it with silence. But I did not move the first piece in this game. Not when they razed my home to rubble, my family trapped within.

I will never get to go back to them, they made sure of that. They can only blame themselves for their extinction. Because the weapon they desire is me, forged from their flesh and blood.

“15 seconds of reserve oxygen remaining”

Their home planet is before me, a gruesome breeding ground of tyrants. I prepare myself. Warm the weapon within.

“3…2”

The world splinters, gurgling up flaming spittle down its naval.

“...1”

There is not a soul left in space to hear me scream. An eye for an eye. My blind witness to the destruction of this world.