True passengers / Chapter 45: Bitch!

Bitch! Dirty whore! Nasty beast! I mentally spew out every curse word my rage-filled brain can come up with. You decided to dump me? You think you’re so damn clever?! After fiddling around for about half an hour, I bend back the panel framing the airlock doors and use a screwdriver to connect the live casing to the internal mechanism. The lock clicks and opens the airlock in front of me. I float inside and pull out the screwdriver. I have five seconds before the doors close again, which is enough time to pull my hand away. Take that! You didn’t guess right, you bitch! Now I just have to repeat this trick with the inner door. And when I’m inside, I swear I’ll gnaw out your liver and eat it alive! I’ll rip out your guts and spread them all over the compartment while you agonize. And only then, perhaps, will I graciously crack open your skull.

Forgetting that gravity has already started to take effect below, I almost fall into the ring compartment. Struggling with my clumsy, bulky spacesuit, I stumble in the dim light over the cryocapsules and run into my “hut,” ready to tear the bitch to pieces with my bare hands, but I freeze. Friday, already without her spacesuit, lies motionless, leaning her back against the wall. Her face and hands are a lifeless blue. Next to her is an open box of painkillers and a pile of empty syringes. I notice the injection drops. She started with her feet. A very sensible decision. She managed to inject herself with everything… The last one is clutched in her hand. Clenching her numb fingers, she stabbed it into her palm.

I sink to the floor, exhausted. That is how you decided to leave me, you bitch… You decided to get off this train? To leave me alone in this hell? Feeling empty, I stare at the lifeless body without blinking. Maybe she’s right… After all, we’ll never be the same again. She understood that. And she made the decision that I should have made a year and a half ago. The only right human decision.

But since I didn’t make it then, it means it was meant to be. Nothing happens by accident. Everything has some meaning. Someone had to fix this damn ship flying through the void. And I did it. I accomplished my task. What next? What’s the point of continuing? Preserving my human life? What if you’re no longer human?

I wonder what they’ll say about us when they find us dead, find my diary, or gradually piece together everything that happened here? Will they think we’re crazy? Will they cover up this story, trying to erase everything from memory? Or will they declare us new martyrs? Some kind of new symbols of “love and fidelity”? I smile grimly at these thoughts.

Bitch… She could have at least left me half of those damn tubes. Now I can’t even die in peace. What to do? Oh, that eternal question… I feel a sardonic smile distorting my face. The ship’s electrical system is live. And the cryocapsule power units are full of voltage transformers. Yes! I’ll definitely think of something…