Onward to Nowhere, My Love - A Short Story

We are in our final moments. It will be over, we will be lost. Done. The final conscious heartbeat is coming. I know I’ll never again hold your hand. Tell you I love you. Feel the touch of your fingers, the warmth of your breath. The way your arms wrap around me and pull me close. To listen to your laugh and hear your corny jokes.

And now Nothing is here. It pulls me to pieces and mashes me together. It warps us and squishes us and pushes us until we are hundreds of light years apart.

Three days prior:

“We’ll be arriving in three days,” I say, “But that’s not much time. Are you frightened?”

“I’m not.” She says, but her eyes dart around and there’s something in them that makes me want to ask her again. I hesitate. I don’t push it. I turn back to the control panels and turn a dial and tap a button. On the holo-pic above us the Neverwere system becomes three dimensional.

She stares up at it, and we both gaze at Nothing. It showed up nearly fifteen years ago. A hole of blackness, a vacant void in the Nowhere System. Nothing.

We’re so close, I think. Close to Nothing. Close to each other.

“What do you think will happen?” She asks.

I say nothing. We both know. Or at least have a faint idea.

“Do you think it is hell?” She says, “Do you think we’re going to be there for an eternity? Do you think we’ll feel things?”
I remain silent. I don’t want to say anything. Then I think of how I will never hear her voice again, how I have less than three days until we are gone. I speak.

“I don’t know. Perhaps we will be lucky. Perhaps we will die.”

I don’t know what else to say. I want to say more, but there is nothing. Nothing left to feel. Nothing left to say. Just dread. We’re both quiet for a while, watching Nothing grow closer. She twists another dial and taps another button.

The display morphs into our home station. Its twisting metal arms and forests of green send us both into a spiral. Tears spring into her eyes, and I bite down hard on my lip until I can’t bite any harder and I taste blood.

Now we’re both crying. Eventually we dry our eyes.

“At least this isn’t what they want to see,” She says.

“They probably cut the feed months ago,” I say, “This isn’t what they want anyone to see. But somewhere, this trip is being recorded. People will see it, maybe. Maybe one, maybe hundreds, maybe everyone. I know it will mean something to someone.”

“That is comforting,” She says. I think she means it.

I fall asleep at some point, and when I start awake I peer out the observation window. Nothing is close. My stomach is tied into knots and I am nauseous. I become aware of my fingers. They feel as if they are fuzzy at the edges, and made of slippery plastic. I decide it is a side-affect of Nothing.

She is sleeping on the floor, curled up, her eyes twitching and her muscles jumping. I don’t wake her. It’s probably the last sleep she’s going to have. My stomach is achy now, and I don’t want to eat or sleep or drink or talk. I sit in the metal chair facing the window. Facing Nothing.

The countdown timer in the corner of the window reads 28:42:14. Twenty eight hours, forty two minutes, and fourteen seconds. I sit and stare. I wonder if my life was worth it. If I should have been alive, or if I should have lived. I was a waste. A waste of resources, a waste of valuable oxygen and time.

I wish I could die. Death would be a fair price for my sins. Not this. I do not deserve this. She does not deserve this. My mind fades in and out, time begins to stretch as we move closer. We will be caught in Nothing, suspended outside the reaches of time. Suspended forever. A speck of light in the sky, a reminder to others of the consequences of disobedience.

The countdown timer freezes at 14:49:21. The rest of the dials and lights flare up and then freeze as well. She got up at some point, because she puts her hand on my shoulder, and we stay there for a long while. Me sitting. Her standing. Nothing drawing closer.

The sides of the ship elongate and before I realize what is happening it is too late. I want to turn to her. Talk to her. I can see her in the corner of my eye. Her face is frozen in a look of sadness, one that wrenches my insides. I can do nothing to help her, nothing to save her.

I can do nothing to save myself.

It pulls me to pieces and mashes me together. It warps us and squishes us and pushes us until we are hundreds of light years apart.

There is silence. Then there is nothing.

The ship hangs in suspended animation, caught in the outer ring of Nothing, Nowhere. Dozens of other ships hang as well, stuck in a place that is not quite reality. Hanging in an eternity of feeling, an eternity of nothing, an eternity of the cruelest punishment.

Somewhere out in space between the prison stations and Nothing, there are other ships containing sentenced prisoners. Those that have stolen and those that have murdered, and those that have lied. They are all on their way to receive their punishment. A just and dishonorable end. Sentenced to hanging in space, twinkles of light. Warnings to others of the repercussions of crime.