We Didn't Know

You begin to ponder how close to sanity you ever actually were once you've been floating in a tin can through the endless void long enough. The vast, inhospitible darkness looks so empty but is in reality full of worlds, stars, and black holes that, if it's quiet and you're close enough, you can hear screaming.

For a long time, I thought I was imagining the sounds; that it was just so quiet for so long that the sound of silence was starting to twist and distort. I realized that wasn't possible when I heard them in the background of my log recording. From then, I wasn't sure if I should be curious or afraid.

The sounds are always faint. They're always different, but they all sound like an entire population screaming out in agony simultaniously. We theoretically have never found complex life elsewhere in the universe, but maybe there were whole populations in these seemingly lifeless places. Perhaps we're too late to observe them living day-to-day. Perhaps all that's left of them are the final, feral screams they made as their world became unable to support the weight of their life and their existence came to a painful, sudden, cataclysmic end.

I always hoped that wasn't the case. I thought that was the worst-case scenario. I thought the most likely reason for these sounds was just the vibrations from the core of the planets or their storms. I thought the noises were the nuclear chain reactions or the intense pressure compacting matter into impossibly dense masses. I thought the explosions from dying stars were echoing across the meager range where there was something for the vibrations to bounce off of before the vacuum of space sucked up all the noise into its unforgiving gullet.

How foolish I had been.

I know Earth is still okay for now. I'm so far away. Earth is okay for now.

I wish I weren't alone anymore. I miss my crew. There were only five of us, to begin with. We didn't know each other well when this started, and I don't think we knew each other that well at the end either. I think, instead, we all learned the parts of each other no one usually has to learn about themselves. Terror and fear are not the same, and terror is what we learned.

The fear came when I saw Junko's face on the monitor when she opened the door on the airlock to find someone standing there. Terror came when the creature's helmet slithered up and over the top left corner of the door, capping the end of what looked like a tentacle made of wet, spongey mold. Terror escalated as I watched her wrestle this strange, flexible creature move its extremities like fluid in zero gravity while it maintained an odd balance at its center. I saw the tentacle come through her mouth and her eyes bulge out of their sockets while tears streaked down her cheeks inside of her helmet.

I don't know how the creature gets in. I don't know where it comes from. I don't know what it wants. I don't think it ate them. It looked like it was just playing with them, like it was curious and broke its new toy. I don't know if there's more than one or if this thing is somehow traveling between the shuttles. I don't know if it can survive outside of weightlessness, so maybe if I'm able to get back to Earth in one piece, I'll be okay.

I watched Jimmy and Paola spiral into Jupiter's dense atmosphere and heard their screams crescendo up to a high-pitched whistle accented by their bones cracking under the pressure. I wish their comms had been destroyed by the force before they were. I wish I had better eyes on the outside of their shuttle. At least then, I would have been able to see if that thing escaped or if it died with them. Why did we agree to this?

I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life. I wanted to make my mark on history. I don't know if anyone will ever read this. I don't even know what year it is. The clocks were broken when we woke up from the freezer. It doesn't matter, anyway. The year isn't going to change what's happening to us. We were supposed to be sharing the corners of the universe with each other.

Theo should have stayed home. I told him I didn't want him coming with me, that I wanted to come home to him. He insisted he couldn't watch me go into the Great Unknown without him. I don't want to talk about what I saw happen to him. I want the world to know that he was beautiful, from his smile to his soul, and he didn't deserve this. I love him so much. I want to be okay. I want to make it home, so they all know why he's gone. He deserves not to die in vain.

I don't know if I'm imagining the knocking I keep hearing beneath my feet. I don't know what the nearest planet to me is. I don't know if I'll wake up again after I close my eyes. I know that I always hear the screaming now. Maybe it'll never go away, but I hope I make it home to find out.