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Novelo Rectangle

"She answered a phone call from her own number" The dull hum of canned laughter fills the air around me, yet another radio comedy being blasted over the stars. It had been exactly three weeks since I last made contact with an actual living creature and not just the same broadcast over and over again. I knew the words like I knew my own mind, the dull laughter becomes drilling after a while as I find myself saying the next line. "Well of course she did wouldn't you?" Frank the ever-sarcastic man, oh how'd I've come to loathe his very voice. My hands move over the dials, scanning every frequency I can find. Hoping against ever-expanding odds that I may find an actual live broadcast, some genuine and real human interactions. Something anything other than these damm repeats, but alas I have no luck. The same things are on the same channels, like always. Was this hell? Did we have the fire and brimstone all wrong? Is it not eternal flames that mire damnation but never-ending night? I chuckle as the ads begin to play, every fifteen minutes like clockwork. Voices in the void selling products and services from a world away. "Come on down to Crazy's Eight's Feed Plates deals so good you know savings are in your cards." My mind wanders to food, actual real food, not the paste this suit supplies. Bananas, apples, bacon and tea, all those little luxuries that have been stolen away from me. A few more hours pass as I recite line after line, as if hearing them in my voice will somehow make it seem more human, more real as if my words will mix with the recordings to bring me something new. Anything new. My eyelids begin to grow heavy, it had been about a hundred and twenty ad cycles since I last slept and I can feel its inky tendrils wrapping around my mind and pulling into its embrace. My sleep is dreamless or at least I assume so as my eyes open and I'm still drifting in this void, the same damm line again "She answered a phone call from her own number". I think the most maddening part of this whole story is the fact I never hear the resolution, it was broken down into two parts and it has only ever played the first. For a while there I was trying to imagine all the different ways it could end but the chatter never stops. How can I think if the fucking chatter never stops!!?? I bring my gloved hands against the dome that encases my face, rhythmic banging as I try anything to free myself from this accused suit. I know the void is cold and unforgiving, but how I long for its embrace. For a way out and a sense of freedom as brief as it would be before I'd cease to care. Yet another failed attempt marked by an upbeat voice telling me all about how there's nothing but clear and sunny skies for the next few days. The damm weather report, I'm sick of sunny days and clear skies. Their reports only serve as another reminder of this isolation I find myself in. "1 2 3 no eyes on me 4 5 6 along the river Styx 7 8 9 my soul is on the line 10 never return home again" I throw myself against the inside of my suit, eyes flinging open as the words echo around my mind. These bloody dreams are getting worse and worse, as my perception of time starts to break down. Have I been here for a moment or an eternity? Is everything I see still real or have I finally slipped into that madness that keeps knocking, knocking on my visor? Everything my eyes are shut knock knock knock, just for once I want silence. From the radio from the knocking FROM MY MIND!!!! I had my first warning light flash today, or at least I think it was today. The radio has become a garbled mess, all the words blending into one. It's constant chatter now chattering constantly, the voices replacing my own, constant in my mind. I lose myself to it again only to be snapped out of it by the warning light again. My suit, this prison that keeps me from my beloved void, is telling me that I'm running out of usable nutrients. The same recycled matter over and over again, every time being stripped more and more until there's nothing left to take. For the first time, I feel my stomach grumble, a possible route to freedom. The cramps have begun, sharp and devastating as my body begins to consume itself. The process feels as if it's taking a lifetime, with every used fat storage being recycled over and over till it is bled completely dry. The sharpness of my mind dulls as my body fights for what little remains, my arms and legs no longer bash at the seals of my life-sustaining tomb. Their movements are robotic and out of my control as the suit takes over them. I.....I......I had passed out and finally believed myself to be free, as the hunger washed over and then dissipated to the blackness. However I remain alive, a sharp burning pain in my leg as I feel something being pumped into my mouth. The suit had found a source of food, a way to prolong my suffering. As the meal is pumped into my mouth, I try to resist swallowing, closing my throat off and fighting against the flow. My body begins to betray me, my throat opening and sucking down the gruel. A warm feeling of fullness only adds to the dread playing over and over in my mind, where did this come from how much more can there be, how much longer must I suffer? I feel my strength beginning to return as the suit buzzes to life again, the sound of the recycler haunting me. Every second that it runs it prolongs this dammed suffering. My time now is mostly spent in a mess of incoherence and madness, these brief moments of lucidity growing ever rarer. I bring my hands up to my helmet blocking the light from a star as I feel around for my afterburner, using it to turn myself away from the near-blinding light, a memory of home flashes across my mind. The memory, the one that started this all, I was but a young boy my father had been gone for what felt like months, and then we had the visit. Two men in uniforms asked to come inside and speak to Mother, after I fetched her she sent me up to my room. I wasn't halfway up before I heard her wails, destroyed, heartbroken cries begging for this not to be happening, begging for them to be wrong, but they weren't, of course they weren't. It was on that day my father was declared missing in space. I can't stop thinking about that memory, it had been so long since I had thought about home, about everything I left behind. As I close my eyes Mother's face appears tear tear-stained cheeks as she strikes at my chest, soft pleading blows as if begging for this to all be some sort of joke, a sick twisted heartless joke. "I told you Mom, ever since that night I told you. I have to do this, I have to try and find him. Look this is fate, this mission is going to the exact last place he was seen, we never even had something to bury. If I do this, if I find him we can bring him home and at least we will know, at least we will be able to say goodbye" Those were my last words to her before I shipped out to training, the final words I would ever get to speak to her. The food has run out again, but this time there's not as much pain, I can feel myself weakening but that burning pain seems dampened. Maybe the suit has finally decided starving to death is worthy of some pain relief. It was quick to remove my access to any of the chemicals after I felt that first tremor in my hand. Antidote was quickly pumped throughout my body, flooding my veins and dragging me back to this dammed place. If only I had known just how much worse things were going to get. Another wave of hunger cramps washes over me, my body writhing in the suit. The pain may have been dampened but it was still almost unbearable, growing weaker and weaker as time passes, I start to drift in and out. It's as if I can feel how close I am to being freed, as my vision fades to black it does so with a smile on my face. "Why the fuck do you keep keeping me alive?!?!?!?!" I scream at the suit as it pumps more of the mystery food into me, the dammed thing force-fed me well I was unconscious. Every moment I feel the reaper's presence the suit scares it off, by this time I'd welcome him as an old friend, and with open arms and joyful eyes I'd take his hand and follow him. Leaving this all behind for whatever is next, but no this fucking suit only exists to prolong my suffering, to keep me alive in this vast expanse of nothingness. I force my eyes closed as I try and escape into sleep as I so often do now, even my dreams are becoming more and more nonsense. It seems as if the only time I'm able to put a thought together is when I'm doing these journal entries. Perhaps the suit is forcing my mind to be focused well I document this. Keeping a record of my suffering for anyone who may find me or at least what's left of me. I lashed out at the suit again, this time not just with words, we floated past some debris and I grabbed a rock. I brought it over and over again against the visor of my helmet, it wasn't long before the suit had immobilized me. Holding me still and unmoving as pain ran throughout me, almost as if it was punishing me, teaching me a lesson for trying to destroy it. That thought draws what is a very rare smile to my face, maybe I truly have fallen victim to the madness, believing the suit was capable of such retaliation. The scientists at the academy were very forthcoming with what they could tell us about the suit, it's the latest and most state-of-the-art space suit, designed to keep its occupier alive by any means necessary for as long as possible. In the very worst of cases, it could integrate with the main systems of the body, taking care of everything from blood flow to breathing, from digestion to nervousness. They were expensive bits of kit and even have an auto return home function, at such a time when the occupant has passed the suit will override all safety precautions and try to return to its home base. Ensuring no man is ever truly lost in space, and that the suit can be reused. The cycle of hunger and then starvation repeats itself over and over again, always being saved at the latest of moments by the suit. Food seemingly pulled out of nowhere to sustain me, always forcing it down my throat no matter how much I try and spit it out, eventually, my body betrays me and takes it in. Each time only prolongs this suffering, serving to make my fleshy prison last longer. I can't help but wonder just where that food is coming from, and why whenever I start to focus on it my eyelids grow heavy, and I feel myself slipping into sleep. As those feelings start setting in again I try to fight them, try to force myself to stay awake, but it makes no difference. Before I can come to any real conclusion I drift away and all those thoughts are gone. The bright glow of a star forces itself through my eyelids, slapping me awake with its embrace. It seems as if my periods of sleep are getting longer and longer, almost unnaturally as if something is forcing me to stay asleep for extended periods of sleep. There's no pain at the moment, of any kind, no cramping, burning, stabbing, none of it as I sigh and stretch. Feeling the muscles in my arms tighten and relax before moving onto my legs, the left leg lets out a few small pops as I articulate the joint, however, there's no feeling in my right. No poping of joints no contraction of muscles, none of that, it's as if it lays there useless. I reach down to feel it the glove of the suit almost brushing against the knee joint before an error flashes and my joints freeze. The error flashing is for a servo failure, it informs me that the suit will need some time to repair itself and that until it is fixed I won't be able to move, with a curse under my breath I allow myself to fall away giving in to my exhaustion. Something going on I'm sure of it, my leg has been pulsing as if something is trying to convince me of it still being there, I can't describe it but the sense feels artificial and wrong. As if the suit had connected with the nerves and was giving them feedback, just enough for me to believe that everything was as it should be, but I'm smarter than that, I'm smarter than the tricks it will try and play. I know when something is not right and something is very much not right here. I bring my glove down on the right side leg, and as I feel the suit buckle slightly under my fist a scream escapes my lips. No this can't be happening, the suit was all but skin tight around my legs, how can it be that I can feel this space? I press in deeper still nothing, this doesn't make sense, sure I had lost weight but there was no way I could have lost so much, that much that I can't feel it by now. It has been so long since I've been clear-headed enough to make another entry, the mind fog is only getting worse, and I have been hearing voices. Voices like from the radio, wait what??? Why can't I hear the radio? Panic sets in as I notice the lack of the background noise I had so desperately blocked out. How long had it been quiet? Does this mean I'm ever further away from our ship? If it does does that mean that the suit has been taking me further into space? All these thoughts begin to race as I see a suit not too far away, a shakey breath as we drift closer to it. An older model looks to be floating aimlessly in the void. As we draw closer to it I make out the flag on its arm and it's one of ours. I slowly reach out to turn it around as the sun glints from its visor almost blinding me, the pour soul had appeared to run out of juice, no lights on the suit at all. I look up and down the front my eyes locking on its name tag, a shakey breaths tear rolls down my cheek before I look towards his face. I don't know how long it has been since my last entry, the suit, my father's suit, his body it was, it was. My stomach churns as I try and bring the words out, his flesh had been stripped from his bones clean cut and scrape marks over his skull. My mind flashes back to my leg as my heart skips a beat, everything starting to make sense now, the food and where it came from, why the suit tried so hard to stop me from touching my leg. As the realization sets over me so too does a strange and almost indescribable feeling as my entire body starts to feel numb, with a tingling running up through my skull as everything fades to black and I feel my body start moving without me as I finally fade to black.

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A float among the stars

Darktales

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Jacob

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