Orpheus

34

Everything rattled and shook as space began to warp itself around the Resilience, like an earthquake, but infinitely worse. Sheer terror bit into Riley's bones, the cacophony of alarms drilling into her skull.

She felt numb; numb from the emotional and sensory overload. She wished it would stop; it would all just stop...

"Hold on!" Owen screamed from upfront.

"We know! We bloody know!" Elise screamed back. He didn't reply. He was too busy wrestling with the controls; he was not winning.

The Resilience continued to spin; spin like a coin tumbling down from a height, in every and no direction at the same time. If Riley felt sick, it was subdued by the numb; the numb of the terror.

Outside, hues of blue and yellow crisscrossed one another, overlapping and whizzing past, breaking the engulfing black. At times they seemed to be with war with another; at others, they seemed to complement each other. For a second Riley thought it looked like a scenery: Golden grass 'gainst an azure sky.

Suddenly, the space around the ship opened up, and she found herself staring at the face of a tunnel; a tunnel to infinity. Distant lights flashed ahead; glows from galaxies light years away now merely meters from them, yet untouchable. It was all too much; the forces, the magnitude. The sheer size of it was crushing; space, with its enormous stature. Riley couldn't help but cower internally; a complete sensory overload.

Rattle! Slam! The quake seemed to get worse; it was almost as if the whole ship were to come apart any minute.

'No god please no... No...'

No, looking was too hard, too much. She needed to calm herself; she closed her eyes, trying to focus only on her breathing.

Her world now became dark, now only the constant barrage of tones and terror. Sharp inhale, shaky exhale... Sharp inhale... Shaky exhale...

She snapped opened her eyes; this wasn't working... nothing was working...

She didn't want to die, oh, how she prayed that she didn't want to die!

"Riley?"

The din of the alarms and rattle seemed to soften; a familiar voice... Owen's? Yes, his! She shifted her attention towards him; he sat motionless, looking at the infinite lights ahead.

"Owen?"

He turned around, slowly but to her horror, it wasn't him; the face staring back from Owen's seat was Jonathan's.

"There you are..." he continued to speak in Owen's voice, only the slightest undercurrent of his original tone. He seemed older, about Owen's age, and looked exactly like how she'd imagined him to be grown up. "Long time, no see."

Riley couldn't move; she was paralyzed. Her eyeballs darted around; she realized she was alone in the cabin with him. The others? Gone

'This can't be real; there's no way this is real...'

He unbuckled from his seat and got up, his shadow falling on Riley.

"What's wrong, Riles?" He smirked, his voice was now the tone she remembered. He leaned forward, inches from her face; she could feel the breath from his nostrils pierce her skin. They felt pretty real.

"You-you can't be real!" she stammered back, hoping he'd disappear. He didn't.

He gave her that smirk that she'd always fallen for. "I know right? I'm too perfect to be real!" he chuckled at his own joke.

"Remember us Riles? Gosh, I loved us." his hazel eyes twinkled. "Me, you, together. Was that too much to ask?"

"You- you raped me!" Riley screamed back.

"Fair enough" he shrugged as if it were no big deal. "But you better be careful Riles-"

Riley looked at him in disbelief "-I'm quick with my hands."

She felt a hand over her seat belt, unbuckling it. If what she was experiencing before was terror, she didn't know what she was experiencing now; her skin prickled, her hair stood. She was suddenly seventeen again.

She needed to escape; she needed out, and she needed it now.

"Riley..." he whispered softly, inching closer for a kiss. For a second, Riley thought he looked a bit like Owen, before his face turned into the 18-year-old she knew; the one she used to be in love with.

'No... Nonono...'

She lashed ahead and pushed him with all her might; he arced as he fell to the ground. But as he did his body began to change; by the time he hit the ground, he was somebody else: Ethan.

Riley stood there in horror, watching her son get up from where Jonathan fell...

"Mommy, why'd you send me away?"

Riley's throat began swelling with sobs. No this was all too much; too surreal to be real, too real to be a lie.

He began taking steps towards her. With each step his face changed, slowly, until by the time he reached her the gash on his forehead was gnarlingly visible.

"Why Riley?" The voice coming out of his mouth wasn't just his; it was overlaid with that of Owen and Jonathan. "Why?"

The Resilience groaned louder and the alarms blared back to life, louder, more disorienting. Outside, arcs of lighting lashed at them.

"TELL ME RILEY!" they demanded.

'This is it...'

Suddenly the front of the Destiny tore open, and Riley flew out into the open, towards the blinding light ahead of her. Space seemed to warp; she could feel herself being ripped apart by it. The last thing she heard before she hit the wall of light was the abomination calling out to her in its horrid voices.

"RILEY!"