Mercurial

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

But I hear his; and I feel it in my soul. It’s the sound of death.

It echoes through my body and sends a shiver along my bones with every uneven step. At the heart wrenching sound, I spin to search for his form behind mine. A wave of heat and dust slams into my front as I turn, overloading my suit’s sensors for only a moment, until a cooling rush of pressure rolls over my body. I struggle against the wind, trying to see out of the faceplate mere centimeters from my eyes. The only things I see are the shivering waves of heat in the dust behind me, getting steadily closer. I bring my wrist up to my face, but my Geo only shows the location of my assigned airlock, not his location pin. The airlock is only a few yards away, we were almost there.

“Holt!!” My scream joins his, and I desperately fight against the wind and heat toward where I last saw him. The ground is rocky and cratered beneath my boots, and I almost trip while searching for him. The horizon is hidden all around me, the ink black morning sky blocked out by another murderous Sunrise. Heat spreads over the land like an oppressive blanket, callous as only nature is. The sudden appearance of the solar storm this far into Dawn was a death sentence. We weren’t ready, and now we were paying the price. Dawn had been short this time, it seems like the heat came faster, arriving in mere days instead of weeks. The mines hadn’t been fully sealed by the time we reached critical levels, and we couldn’t leave the surface until the last of the workers had been removed. Mercury was dying, as we all were.

A motion catches the corner of my eye and I focus hard, willing it to be him. As I see a figure slowly emerge from the heat and dust, I almost sob with relief. He made it.

I take a step toward him, ready to grab him and drag him with me. But I stop, terrified by what I see. The entire back of his suit is melting, running in rivulets down his legs. The heat hasn’t hit his main seals yet but it has to be affecting his air condensers. He has seconds left until it breaches his unit. The outside air will kill him faster than the heat will. No matter how advanced our technology has become, we still can’t stop the killing heat. I struggle toward him, only to feel hands grip my arms and shoulders, pulling me backward toward the ship. There are other voices in my ear, urging and pleading voices. Voices that promise safety, at the cost of his death.

“No! Stop! He’s right there!” I yell at them. “We can get him too!” The relentless hands continue to drag me toward the air lock, the overlapping voices desperate in their intensity. I look back to him and watch in horror as he stumbles, weighed down by the suit that was supposed to keep him safe. His air condensers have become misshapen from the heat, and most likely are no longer working. He looks up as I’m dragged backward into the airlock, but he doesn’t stand up. I struggle with my saviors - his murderers, and the vision of him kneeling on that hateful rock sears itself into my soul. His hand is raised, in supplication or farewell, I’ll never know. The airlock slams closed in front of me, as the tears finally spill down my cheeks.

I sit there, numb and frozen. I know he is dead. His voice has gone silent in my communication channel. The silence extends from my heart, enveloping me. Rocking forward, I deactivate my face shield and bury my face in my hands. The shock settles over me, and all I want to do is scream. To scream at the world shattering around me, like the fracturing of my heart inside me. This planet has taken everything from me now.