Through a fogged helmet visor, Ebbe looked down upon the glistening oceans, dusty deserts and lush green forests far below. The heat in the suit was becoming intolerable, probably a malfunction in the heat exchanger, damaged during the last EVA. Her breathing was becoming shallow, the oxygen reserves beyond critical by now.
In a few minutes I'll be dead, she thought to herself, in her ever pragmatic way, but at least I shall have died trying to save the world, how many can lay claim to that? Far below the familiar shape of Africa was breaching the horizon and Ebbe was surprised to find a smile creep onto her weary face.
"Hello old friend," she said out loud, her voice husky and unrecognisable to her. "I'm so very sorry," she told the vast continent, the smile dropping as quickly as it had emerged.
Suddenly unable, or unwilling, to continue looking down upon the planet, as she continued her inexorable orbit around the Earth, being pulled further and further away from The Spartacus, Ebbe twisted herself so she instead could gaze upon the empty abyss behind her. It was a sight she had never reconciled herself with and if these were to be her last moments she may as well try one last time to make sense of the black void. After all, she pondered, that is where I will soon be heading, followed not long after by the entire human race.
The blackness was worse up here, where there was no atmospheric interference. It was just a dreadful nothing. Not even nothing, Ebbe concluded, because to say there was nothing, was to give it a name. This was beyond nothing, beyond naming, it was just the absence of light, the absence of colour. Yet there something was shining upon the planet's surface behind her. Something brought the days and nights. This blackness was impossible.
Her eyes seemed to ache as she peered into the abyss.
"I can see you," she croaked at the void defiantly, as if an otherworldly reply may come. None did. Instead she heard Nietzsche reply in a thick German accent, if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes into you. "Gaze all you like, damn you," Ebbe tried to shout, a curious anger welling up in the pit of her stomach. Her head began to spin from the extra exertion and she realised the oxygen had finally been depleted. So, I am truly to become a human satellite, she concluded, a macabre image of her preserved corpse hurtling around the globe for years to come popping into her head. Except, she interrupted her own image to tell herself, who knows if there is time left even for that to be the case? Our mission has failed and now, I, Ebbe Nystrom, the last survivor of The Spartacus, will soon be joining my fellow crew members. Had we all known, she wondered, that we truly had no idea the scale of the problem, would we have tried regardless? Probably, she concluded, knowing in her own mind that all along that there was more happening than they could ever understand. But what choice? When faced with the apocalypse, you only have one choice, fight to the very end.
And here I am, at the end, Ebbe realised. Her lungs were crying out for fresh oxygen where there was none and her brain was already beginning to feel light and clouded. Images begin to flash into Ebbe's mind, first came Jorge, his face serious as always, then the school science block she had burned down when she was thirteen, next her red bike that had been stolen the day before she'd insured it, penguins on an African beach, the lump of lava Sam had proudly presented to her, people, places, things, all began to flash, fade and blur into one. But one image stayed, seemingly burned into her retinas. A door. I'm dying and all I can think about is a door, Ebbe puzzled drowsily, why a door? Why not my lover? My son?
A door. A door. A door.
Hell with this, Ebbe thought, assuming it to be her last. With the last reserves of energy she raised her left arm sluggishly and fumbled at the clasp to the side of her suit. The clumsy thick fingers on her glove slipped off the metal, but she persevered and managed to lift it to reveal a keyhole. Her right hand now searched a previously sealed compartment of the suit and from this a circular key was produced. Ebbe blanked out for a split second, her energy sapped, her whole body screaming for oxygen, her mind such a blur she was no longer sure if she was already dead, or simply dreaming. When she regained consciousness, she could see, from the corner of her fuzzy vision, the circular key drifting towards the marbled Earth. An arm, one she presumed to be her own, reached out and grabbed at the key. Ebbe saw the gloved hand sweep across and capture the escaping key. The arm pulled back towards her and suddenly seemed to belong to her again.
For what seemed like an eternity Ebbe struggled to fit the key into the hole in the suit. Finally the key slotted in and with a quick jerk she turned it to the right. The shell of the suit popped open with a fizz and immediately began to drift off in different directions. The sweltering heat was gone, replaced by an intense and penetrating cold, but the sudden shift in temperature seemed to jolt Ebbe back to reality.
My God, what have I done, she screamed internally, as her flesh began to expand, puffing Ebbe up so she began to resemble a female body builder.
Fifteen seconds. I have fifteen seconds, she repeated over and over and she began to kick towards the black abyss.
Fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds...
