The Imagination Latibule: The Martian - The Lonely Planet

Chapter 2

a/n: Warning for injury detail 

You came to with an alarm beeping in your ears. When you opened your eyes, all you could see was red sand, and then you realised... Holy shit! You were alive. You gasped for air, but not much of it, as you also realised that the alarm you could hear was the Oxygen alarm inside your helmet, and you were running out of it. You jerked with a start, and cried out in agony as a pain shot through your arm. It was trapped under you, and as you managed to roll over, you realised that that was the least of your worries. there was a metal barb through your arm - literally going in one side and out the other. You wanted to pull it out, but it was keeping your suit sealed, and any movement could cause the atmosphere to blow your face off.

It wasn't a great situation. But then, as you blinked dust out of your eyes and stared through your cracked helmet, you noticed that the MAV was gone.

"Fuck," you breathed, throat going dry. You had been abandoned and left to die on Mars. You were the sole inhabitant of an unliveable planet. "Fuck."

Trying to comprehend the gravity of the situation, you steadily got to your feet, glancing at the screen on your arm. 6% oxygen. About 94% less oxygen than you hoped to have. Cradling your arm to your chest, you walked slowly towards the Hab. It was buried in a foot of sand, and the solar panels that powered the place were in disarray. If the Ares Hab worked when you opened the door, it would be a miracle. 

But another miracle occurred before that one could, and you gasped as you saw a bright orange suit half buried in the sand. The nametag read Watney. "Oh my God, Mark!" you cried, dropping to your knees and trying to roll him over, hissing at the pain in your arm as you did so. You prayed that once you got him on his back you'd see his face staring back at you, and that the suit wouldn't be compromised and he wouldn't be dead. The movement of rolling him woke him up, and he came too with a start, lurching into consciousness with a violent cough. the movement of his abdomen caused him to scream, and you looked down to see a jagged length of antenna piercing his spacesuit, with blood dribbling from the wound. 

"Mark, breathe," you cried, the beeping of the oxygen alarm echoing in his helmet too. "You're gonna be alright, ok?" 

"y/n..." he stuttered, trailing off as he noticed his stomach. "I can't move." 

"It's ok," you repeated, survival instincts and training kicking in. There was a breach kit on the side of his helmet, and you pulled the valve free, grabbed the antenna, and tried to block out Marks screams as you yanked the antenna out. But instead of sliding out of his stomach as expected, it snapped, and you grimaced as the pressure of the suit dropped and Marks head lulled back slightly and he went woozy. But you quickly covered the hole with the breach kit and sealed it, watching the screen on his arm until the oxygen stabilised. 

"Come on," you said, struggling to haul him to his feet. Your arm felt like someone was breaking it in a million places at once, but you held it firmly around Marks waist as he leant against you. 

"Thanks," he mumbled, looking towards the battered Hab. The look of momentary relief flashed across his eyes, but then he noticed the MAV missing, and his heart sank as yours had done. But you had no time to panic; that could happen once you were in a space where you could breathe. You only had one breach kit each, and you had two holes in your suit, and as your oxygen dropped to 2%, you urged Mark towards the hab.

When you reached the entrance, you fumbled your way into the airlock, dropping to your knees as Mark heaved the door shut.

"It's ok, y/n," he said. "Just a few more seconds." You gasped for breath, staring at the green light on the wall and begging it to turn green. There was a hissing noise and then it did, and you tore off your helmet, swallowing air like you'd never tasted it. As you sat back on your heels, Mark pulled his helmet off, hung it on the suit rack, and held out his hand to you. In silence, you took it, and the two of you stumbled from the airlock and into the communal area of the Hab. As Mark took a seat, you ripped the med kit from the wall, dropping it on the table in front of him and taking a seat. 

"Holy shit," he said, noticing your arm for the first time.

"We gotta get you sorted out first Mark," you said, pretending like your arm didn't hurt like a sonofabitch as you moved it from your lap to resting it against the table. Mark nodded, and slowly peeled off his jumpsuit, wincing at every movement. You grimaced on his behalf as he ripped the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt from the wound, fingers prodding at the puncture. It was a lot deeper than you hoped. The two of you exchanged a glance, and as Mark stemmed the bleeding with his hand, you pulled out anaesthetic, a syringe and forceps. You arm shook like a leaf as you tried to fill the syringe with anaesthetic, and eventually Marks hands curled around yours, taking the vial from you and doing it himself. 

With a sweaty brow and gritted teeth, Mark gasped as he injected the anaesthetic into the wound, and you had to force yourself to watch. You didn't want him going through it alone. So, when he was done, despite the numerous warnings throughout life to never share a needle, you took it from him, filled it up with more white liquid, and injected your arm, crying out as you did so. As you tried to shimmy the suit from your body, it caught on the wire and you bit your lip so hard you drew blood. Mark slid a pair of scissors across the table and you took them, cutting through your suit and letting it fall to your waist. Now you could see the wound, it seemed even worse, and perhaps it was being deprived of oxygen for an extended period of time, but you suddenly felt lightheaded. 

You watched as Mark picked up the forceps, taking a deep breath as they wavered an inch from the wound. He hesitated, but then dug the forceps into the seeping wound with a yell. Fighting the urge to stop, his face went white as he dug around. After too long a time, he gasped, and slowly retracted the forceps with a small piece of shrapnel attached. 

Mark let out a humourless laugh and dropped the shrapnel in a bowl, and then held out the forceps to you. You stared at the cold metal in your arm and shook your head. "I can't."

"You can," he said, pressing them into your palm. You took a deep breath and lay your arm across the table, putting the forceps around the metal barb. The anaesthetic worked to an extent, but the pain was still prevalent. You decided that you needed to act like you were ripping off a plaster, and rather than do it slowly, the barb had to come out in one smooth motion. So you held your breath, clamped the forceps onto the barb, and counted in your head: three, two, one...

You let out a scream so loud it would eventually be heard on earth as the barb came out of your arm, leaving a hole that started to bleed profusely. The shock of the pain had you frozen, and you couldn't do anything but stare at the metal, leaving Mark to pull the forceps from your hand, and grab the closest thing to hand that could close the hole. A stapler. 

It was an ugly fix, but before you could even react, Mark pinned your arm down with his elbow as he pinched your skin over the wound and with a click, stapled it together. Then he flipped your arm over and did the other side, and you were in such shock that your mouth gaped open, and you felt sweat running down your face. You were numb by this point, and feeling nothing. You barely registered as Mark pinched his stomach and stapled three staples in quick succession along the wound, crying out as he did. Then, he flung the stapler on the table, leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath.

You had no idea how long the two of you sat there in silence until finally, Mark spoke, glazed eyes drifting from the middle distance to yours. 

"Fuck."