Science Fiction Short Stories (Once Apart of Wattpad's SmackDown Competition)

1.3 ~ The Future's End

I was not alone.

The unnatural sound radiated from within the compartment chamber, emitting an audible scuffle from behind the thin, metal door.

Instinctively, I reached for my blaster resting against the panel, my eyes fixed sternly to the noise. There was no doubt about it; there was some unwelcome presence onboard.

"We have arrived at given coordinates, Claeta X," Interrupted the system, yet it hardly reached my ears.

As I trained the barrel with a tremulous hand, it all began to make sense. The nearly unnoticeable, exiguous changes in the limited supply of food and water, as well as the often random yet minute foreign creeks of the spacecraft, all added up.

The thumping persisted as I drew nearer within every hesitant step, directing my blaster precariously.

I shuddered at the notion that during the entirety of my four-week-long journey, I had been unknowingly accompanied on my expedition across the universe.

Out here, within the infinite reaches of space, nothing falls short of limitations, and from beyond these stars, anything is possible; which was precisely the reason, while reaching out with a timid hand, I was terrified not of who was inside, but rather what.

Easing my cold fingers around the metallic latch, the shuffling from behind the door instantaneously ceased, giving way to an eerie silence.

From within the ghostly still air, only the slight hum of the hull as well as the thrashing of my beating heart could be heard.

A surge of overwhelming perturbation swept through my veins, dispersing over every inch of my body as numbness replaced feeling in my limbs.

In an instant, however, all thoughts and emotions previously escalating through my mind were completely wiped as the quarters quickly descended into a vibrant red, following the ear-splitting wail of the alarm system.

I raced to the cockpit in a frantic act, losing track of the blaster somewhere along the way.

"Warning." An animatronic voice spoke through the intercom, "Current trajectory in route for fatal disturbance. Situation critical."

Instantly, I stood incapacitated from the neck down at what horrors laid before me from beyond the thick, tinted glass. I shielded my eyes from its dangerously captivating beauty.

Indeed it was the brightest thing in all the universe, a sight nearly ineffable. The luminous, radiant glow of the ring, spiraled into the the heart of the beast, actively consuming all in its path.