Adrenaline

Keith's Decision

It was mostly just a morbid curiosity if he could do it but the feeling of eternal helplessness and hopelessness were the things that tipped him over the edge and motivated him to act.

One extended leg was all he needed to push the bottom button and the door opened obediently.

Keith let out puffs of air as he was forced to use only his arms to turn himself on to his stomach and then slowly move the meter between himself and the open door. He took so long that the door closed automatically and he had to use his leg once more to press the button.

The door opened and Keith hurried through it as quickly as he could. It was not very quickly and he would have had time to thank his flexibility multiple times if he had let himself have any other thoughts than he ones required to move himself when he had no sense of where his limbs were.

Inside the room, Keith faced himself towards the wall to the left of the door opening and pulled himself up by holding on to the smooth doorframe until he stood almost completely ridged leaned up against the wall and looked at the two square buttons on this side of the wall. Keith took a deep breath, pushed the one closest to the door, and enclosed himself in the small, metal room. The room was light gray and smooth like the inside of a casket but with none of the useless pillows and velvet found in the deaths' last homes.

"Keith?" Lance asked faintly a distance away and just loud enough for Keith to hear through the door. Keith froze at the sound. What the hell was he doing inside an airlock?

"Where is he?" Lance asked himself loudly, the sound of his voice just in front of the door was enough to startle Keith and almost caused him to fall.

Keith looked at the buttons sitting innocently next to each other. Looking at them like that it seemed preposterous that they had ever be meant to be anything other than opposites. Life and death. The decision of living for others or dying for yourself.

"Keith!" Lance shouted through the door and Keith looked up at him with wide eyes. The sound was muffled through the glass but it still sounded louder than anything else Keith could remember ever hearing before and the time for thinking was over and had to make way for action.

Keith sent Lance a last look and looked into his wide eyes as he pushed the left button and was sucked into space with a breathtaking pull. It was both figuratively but mostly literally meant, as the pull felt like a punch in the gut and forced Keith to exhale all the air in his lungs.

His eyes blurred because of how fast he was pulled away from the castle, and his last sight of it before that was Lance throwing his fists on the glass, yelling after him and Keith felt remorse at what he had put Lance through. What he would put everyone through but he didn't know if he regretted his decision. He couldn't remember how long it would take to die in space but he would just have to hope that it would happen before Lance rung the alarm or Allura noticed the airlock had been opened. Waking up with even more helpless would be harrowing. On the other hand, what more could be done without killing him or turning him into a complete vegetable that even his emotional teammates wouldn't force to suffer? He at least hoped they wouldn't keep him around and defiantly doom both themselves and the entire universe because they couldn't form Voltron.

Keith ended up just outside the castle breathless with no chance of catching any air while he was floating and waiting for the air in his blood to slip up. Looking past the uncomfortable lack of oxygen, Keith found his first second in space surprisingly non-horrible. He expected it to be colder, harsher, and that was when the effects of space kicked in.

Keith could feel the bubbles forming in his body. His training back on the Garrison informed him that his body was not boiling even through the boiling point in his body had lowered significantly but every little bubble felt like fire in his veins. Seconds passed like hours and Keith's entire body started to tingle and he looked on in horror when his fingers started to swell. Not enough to burst his skin and it didn't hurt more than the rest of him but it was still a surprising sight to see.