I Hear You From the Other Side
by Rebecca Bennett
Madness set in after the 14th day of silence. Without a crew or working light-speed engines, all background noise was gone. It was just Cecilia within a metal tube, lost in space.
She pulled herself along the corridors, hands grasping onto the bars to launch herself from room to room. No artificial gravity since the event. Her muscles were deteriorating. She stopped talking to herself on the fifth day, tired of one-way circular conversation that always led to the same outcome: she should have done better.
The bodies were all in the crew quarters, air purification working overtime to scrub the scent of decay. Each day she'd stop in front of the locked door and press her ear up against the metal. Only quiet, rhythmic thuds. She imagined the bodies bouncing off each other, perhaps like a hug rather than a collision.
Today there were no thuds. No imagined hugs. Instead there was Elliot's voice on the other side of the door, sounding tired and hoarse like he'd been up for days. It wasn't like she had left food or water with the corpses.
"Let me out," Elliot pleaded. "Please Cece, let me out."
She floated, holding herself in place as he tapped against the door. She tapped back.
"Please," he repeated.
She took a deep breath of recycled air before unlocking the door. She was ready for an irate and dehydrated Elliot; ready for an undead man.
The room was quiet. The bodies were still bundled together, drifting through the room. She spotted Elliot in the nest of limbs, his face blue and unmoving.
Cecilia closed the door, locked it again. Pressed her ear against the metal and heard only the soft ricochet of bodies.
"Please," Elliot called out as she pulled herself away from the door. "Please let me out."
Rebecca's short stories and poetry have been published in Strange Horizons, Bourbon Penn, Luna Station Quarterly and other literary locations. She wields minor power as a Senior Editor at Apparition Lit and Managing Editor at Heartlines Spec. You can follow her occasional tweets at @_rebeccab