Tevun-Krus #53 - Return to First Contact

The Entanglement - A Short Story by @MoonLoop

Cira wakes up to pain so profound, she nearly vomits. Something crawls inside her. Searing hot. Branching. It perforates her intestines, her lungs, even her brain. The smells of burnt flesh and hair cloys her suit. It's cooking her from the inside out.

Her lungs fully expand for the first time. She screams. The branching accelerates. Thin scalding filaments fork through her body until every capillary and nerve ending is alight. Muscles flex involuntarily, cramp and spasm. Icy sweat pours down her face, stings her eyes, and fogs up her helmet. Tears blind her. It's not one type of pain. It's all of them. Burning, aching, stabbing, throbbing, bursts, and waves.

Above her is nothing but blue-tinged light. It dims and brightens again. Smearing through the fog on her visor. It finally drills into her bones. Her left iliac crest. Her right. Her pelvis ignites, followed by both femurs and lumbar vertebrae. Spreading up and down. She vomits. Swallows. Starts choking. The acrid smell stings her nose and mouth. Thoughts swarm around her skull, but one breaks free: pulmonary aspiration.

She tries to move. Nothing happens. She tries again. Something hooks under her skin and wrenches her whole body until she lays on her left side. Cira coughs until her innards clench together. Finally, air. She gulps deep breaths and watches condensation ebb and flow along her visor.

Everything dims. It feels like she's falling through the floor. Her arm abruptly contracts. The muscles in her face twist. Even her eyes roll up and to the right. Pushing against bone; ready to capsize in their sockets like ancient Terran boats. Her whole body suddenly twists and jerks. Even her vocal chords. She grunts while her throat opens and closes like a fist. Spittle wets her chin.

Seizure. The word slithers around her mind until it connects with a concept. She's having a seizure.

The violence eases as if naming her condition is enough to ward it away. An alarm beeps in her ear. It pauses and a rising electronic whine fills her helmet. Her scalp tingles. It's not quite painful. Nothing compared to before. Cira gasps for breath and finally blinks of her own volition.

It takes time for her head to clear. The pain and heat are echoes of their former intensity. She slowly opens her eyes. Vomit stings her nostrils. Her skull feels ready to split open. It's only made worse by the station klaxon. Data flashes across the bottom of her visor. It's legible now. The atmosphere is stable. She disengages the lock on her helmet and doffs it. The air is cool and fresh in comparison, but the smell of burnt plastic is everywhere. Lights flicker on the brink of failure. The hallway is scorched. It looks like someone graffitied the walls with a blowtorch.

The temptation to sleep is nearly irresistible. She wipes her mouth with the back of her glove and rolls onto her back. The ceiling is ripped open. A severed cable hangs down overhead. Another coughing fit wracks her body. Fire races through high-oxygen atmospheres like this one. There's no dying of smoke inhalation. It's either escape or burn.

Cira clenches her teeth and grabs her helmet. Each movement is clumsy and delayed. A pricking sensation ripples underneath her skin. Something is inside her. Wriggling like a horsehair worm inside a cricket. She shuts her eyes for a heartbeat, but the image won't go away. It's the sort of tall story people tell in bars. The horrors of alien biologies meeting for the first time. Being digested, rotted, or parasitized; equal parts brutal and bizarre.

Except those are stories. It's impossible. But the image of a horsehair worm keeps coming back. She shakes her helmet until the sick is gone and dons it again. Every contraction of her muscles brings on a prickling sensation. Something crawling. She shoves her feelings into a box and imagines herself closing the lid. It helps.