The Loss of Amberlie Hurst

  "What's that?" I asked. "I was so lost in those brown eyes, I failed to hear."   After sharing a laugh, the little girl asked, "Earth. What was it like?"   "Oh," I mused, "it was beautiful. The oceans, the fields of green..."   "What happened to it," she asked. "Why can't we live there?"   I stopped, the memories forming without consent. The chaos, the horrid screams, all flooding to the front of my mind from a deep, dark well. I fought back tears, looking down at her before speaking, "You're a little young for such a sad story."   The little girl was named Amberly, our daughter. By then, it had been seven years since we left earth, just a few months behind you.   "But why?" she asked.   "Even if I told you, it wouldn't matter. It's gone." I replied.   "Why here, though?" She asked, gesturing to the cramped quarters of the ship.   I smiled. "It's the only ship that would take us. I have you to thank for that."   "What did I do?"   "You weren't born yet. You were still growing. You saved my life."   She scrunched her nose, her cute face twisting in an attemot.to hide her smile, "You always say that."   I leaned in and whispered, "Of course I do, It's the truth." I reach out and take her into my arms, "One must always tell the truth."   Amberly was voidborn, sickly. She was my light, and I fought hard to keep it lit. I never told her the truth of who I was, what me and the exiles were responsible for. I honestly don't think I ever could. For who could love the woman that destroyed the world?   The days were long. I'd scavenge by day, a few hours at a time while she waited for me in the infirmary. It took all of five seconds for her to declare how much she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. Victoria loved it, and taught her quite a bit in those early years.   I'm stalling again... Okay.   A few months passed and our shift was done, we prepped for cryo, waking the next shift before going under. It was like that back then. Warp drives wouldn't be a thing until the eden came.   It's like going to sleep without a blanket. It's cold, but you can't help but close your eyes. It's eerie to think about how close cryo is to death. Everything shuts down, frozen in time. Your blood is drained, replaced with the cryonic fluid and stored until you wake up.   This blood never lasted long, about 40 days. Shifts constantly rotated on a monthly basis. Sometimes it would still go bad, and that is when the crew gets involved.   Shifts needed to be scheduled perfectly. Those on duty would donate blood regularly. Everyone on duty needed to match blood type with whoever relieved them in order to wake them up.   I was prepping my tank, excited to have myself a long nap, when I heard Amber being fussy with Victoria not far from me.   "What's up?" I called.   "She's scared." Victoria replied.   I narrowed my eyes and cocked my head. I turned my attention to amber. "Hun, you've done this a dozen times. What's wrong?"   "I don't wanna sleep again." She whined.   "Why?" I asked. You don't dream in cryo. It's not like she was having nightmares. Waking up isn't exactly pleasant, though.   "Everytime I wake up I hear tapping," she said.   I glanced at Victoria,"Tapping?"   Victoria nodded and smiled. "Waking up from cryo can cause hallucinations. It's pretty common."   "Oh," I said, drawing out the sound as I walked over. I took a knee to get on her level and looked her in the eye. "It isn't real. Even if it was, I assure you, I am the scariest damn thing on this ship. Nothing can get you while I'm here, and I'll always be here."   "You're not supposed to lie, mom." She said, glaring.   I feigned offense, dripping my jaw and covering my heart as if wounded by her words. The display was followed by a smile. "Now you take that back. I never lie."   That was enough. She laid down in her capsule and was asleep for a moment. Me and Victoria exchanged a nod, entered our own capsules, and drifted off. We were scheduled to wake up in a year's time. We made it six months.  

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    Waking up from cryo is rough. You're nauseous, groggy, and can barely walk. No matter what the thermostat is set at, you're always freezing.   I opened my eyes to find Victoria staring back. She looked distressed. I fell to my knees, resisting the urge to vomit on the steel grating underfoot. My vision blurred. I could hear Victoria speaking but the sound was distant, like an echo. I waited for the blanket meant to warm me up, but it never came.   "There's something you need to see." She said.   I tried to understand but couldn't. I muttered, "What?" I tried to stand and noticed how wrong I was. She fidgeted with her fingers. her breathing was quick and shallow. She wasn't just distressed. She was terrified.   "What is it?" I asked, my body slowly returning to normal.   "You're needed on the bridge."     I walked, stumbling out of the infirmary and down the halls of the ship. I was able to hold myself up and walk in a straight line by the time I reached the bridge.   The captain, Jacob King, spoke as soon as I walked in "Deidre, sorry to wake you so soon, but we might need you."   "Why?" I asked. He gestured to a monitor nearby. When I saw it, I couldn't tear my eyes away.   There was a ship out there, a massive, rectangular vessel painted black. Tendrils drifted in open space from its jagged frame, each targeting a smaller ship drifting uncomfortably close.   "You found some aliens. Way to go," I joked.   "What do we do?" King asked.   "NASA had procedures for it. Have you tried to make contact, yet?"   "No."   "Okay," I said, sitting in a chair and taking over communications. I said NASA had procedures, but we always knew it wouldn't help in an actual encounter. I don't even know why I bothered.   We were supposed to send out what would be useless information, even if the recipient fully understood it. We'd send music, for example. I always fantasized about winning over some extraterrestrial hearts with Beethoven. Sadly, in this scenario, I had to settle for Mozart.   We were also supposed to send a stream of data. "Send shapes and colors," they said. "Send mathematical formulas, planck's constant, the pythagorean theorem, etc."   We didn't receive a response for quite some time. They were busy. We received our reply only when the tendrils detached from the smaller vessel.   The massive ship began to move toward ours. The reply they gave was the most interesting bit. They didn't send it through conventional means. They sent it via a short wave signal. Anyone with a HAM could pick it up.   When I broadcast it over the speakers, I immediately regretted it. They were whispering. It was nothing but hundreds of whispers overlapping. It echoed throughout the ship, and moments later, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head. I was knocked out cold.   I woke up not long after. I was laying face down on the steel floor. The captain's body was gone, but victoria and miles were still passed out on the ground. I got up and ran. I'm not even ashamed.   I didn't know what happened, who attacked me, where the captain went, nothing. All I could think about was her. I ran to the infirmary and her pod was gone. I screamed in fear, and in sorrow, but mostly out of rage.   I panicked, whimpering as I planned my next move. I heard footsteps coming from the hall, and darted out to meet whatever creature waited for me. When I did, I saw nothing.   The footsteps grew louder, rapidly approaching in a full sprint. I backed up against a shelf along the wall. The footsteps neared and I felt myself lift from the ground, a hand around my throat.   I kicked and tried to scream but couldn't get it out. I had to think fast. I used my hand to feel along the invisible force that assailed me. I punched and kicked at the body, the head, but only managed to split the skin on my knuckles.   I reached behind me for something on the shelf, anything that could be used. My hand gripped the handle on a bucket, and I swung with what little force I could muster as unconsciousness loomed over me.   The bucket was filled with chlorine dioxide, a chemical we used to clean water. It burst and sent white powder flying in all directions. The moment it touched the skin of whatever attacked, it let go, screeching in pain. I could see the blistering, invisible bubbles like looking through a drop of water on a camera lens. It ran away. I pursued, armed with a glove and my trusty bucket, as if that would actually help.   I knew how to fight, though not as well as I do now. The problem was I couldnt use my eyes. These things barely made noise at all unless they were directly attacking you.   Eventually I stumbled on what appeared to be a body floating in the air, the body of Captain King. I rushed forward and tossed a handful of powder. Same as before, the skin blistered and they ran.   I heard metal on metal, the tendrils disconnecting from our ship. I ran faster than I ever thought I could, fueled by anger and adrenaline, not to mention hopeless desperation.   I found an opening, a tendril that hadn't detached. I felt empowered, terrified, but in control. I found a way to hurt them, a way to make them run.   Inside the ship, it's dark. Bioluminescent stalks of fungi are the only thing lighting your path. Everything's black, so black or feels like the light is sucked out of the room. You have to feel for openings and walls just to make sure you know where they are.   More than that, you see things. We learned of the hallucinogenic properties of the spores. We learned that if you even break through the skin or enter their ship, you better have arespirator on.   The ship was different though. The hallucinations were less direct, and more chaotic. They started small and only get worse. To be honest I couldnt be sure if anything i saw in there was real.   When I went inside and began wandering its halls, I kept feeling like I was being wwatched.i saw shadows, things moving in the dark but never approaching. That's when I heard the screams.   They sounded human, so I searched them out. What I saw disturbed me greatly.   We called them sin eaters cause of the hallucinations. We broke into heaven, after all. It seemed right. They gathered biomass to fashion their bodies, anything would do. Humans were different. They had a specific role. The sin eaters chose to convert any humans they capture.   They extract the brain, integrate it into the complex carapace they fashion from lesser biomass. I couldnt say how conscious they are, or if they're able to think on their own. The only thing we've gathered is this: once converted, you belong to them.   Eventually I entered a vast chamber, one lit where you could see more than a foot in front your face. The light shimmered off something suspended in the air, a sphere of black fluid that danced and writhed.   I heard a voice, like the scratching of a record in the back of my mind. It dared me to approach, and I did. Below the sphere, a line was formed. Humans were forced to kneel before it, and they stared in awe as it demanded submission.   If they refused, they were gutted right there, the bodies in an ever growing pile off to the side where the next convert could see them. If they agreed, they were take away, forced to succumb to their twisted conversion.   I couldnt see my daughter in line. In fact, no one in line was even a member of our crew. That proved to be the most important detail. The ship they were attacking before us was an earth vessel.   I tried to force it to give her back. This thing, this entity laughed at me. My feeling of power vanished in an instant.   They attacked, forced me back. I couldnt fight, I couldnt see, and worse, I was running out of powder.   My daughter is gone. I failed to save her. I wasnt there and she is either dead, or wandering that ship in one of their shells.