Ugly Beautiful (21 page)

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As a bonus, please find excerpts from my books 'Alone, Sarah Smiles and Lust for Life'

Alone

A young man awakens from a long hibernation sleep on-board an eerie and crew-less space shuttle with no memory of who he is or how he ended up on board the 'lost in space' vessel.

When a young woman awakens from hibernation shortly after him and curiously has no previous memories about her past either, the man is forced to solve the mystery of the shuttle, who they both really are and what became of the other crew members who haunt him frequently with ghostly and chilling visions.

The man must then come to terms with his own lonely fate, his possible limited existence and a dangerous physical urge towards his fellow amnesiac female companion.

Chapter 1

I awoke. A blanket of steam engulfed my entire vision. I lay inside some kind of comfortable, yet narrow container with the lid opened wide above me. 'Where the hell was I? And what was I doing inside this narrow container?' I couldn't remember a thing. Nothing at all before this waking moment. My mind was tangled in a web of throbbing darkness. I had no idea of how I'd ended up inside this comfortable tomb.

The steam continued to rise, evaporating upwards into a bigger, darker room outside. It drifted towards a strange sucking device situated upon the dim ceiling which drew all of the escaping steamy air deep inside its flapping metallic jaws.

I attempted to sit up with great difficulty. My head thumped, hurting more and more with increasing fury. It felt like something far too big and bouncy to fit inside were desperately trying to burst out through my ears and forehead. I tried to stand with even greater difficulty. When I finally did I realised that I was naked from the waist up. The only item of clothing I wore seemed to be an odd pair of white trouser bottoms. Strangely though I didn't feel cold.

I staggered out of the bizarre peapod shaped container balancing myself against its solid front length. I felt more disorientated by the second and found it difficult to steady myself. Damn, I felt like I'd been sleeping for an entire eternity.

I felt another sharp pain deep inside my throbbing head and raised my hands to my temples in an attempt to sooth the discomfort. I winced as the pain peaked, then gradually but thankfully subsided. I regained my composure taking a bewildered scan around the dimly lit room with its faint flashing lights and flickering screens surrounding me. Hazily I noticed another five long and narrow shaped peapod containers all in one neat symmetrical row with mine, yet unlike my own pod, the lids of the other five were all still firmly sealed. For the moment I paid little attention to them. I became more drawn to a bright heavenly light seeping in from a distant corridor to my far right, leading out beyond the room. Like a moth to a flame I moved towards the light. It felt like second nature. I couldn't help myself.

The new corridor looked to be a strange series of two continuing, brightly lit corridors. Both of them covered, from the floors to the walls and ceilings, with a decoration of plain and simple large white tiles. Briefly I turned back realising that the dim pod room I'd left behind seemed to be at a right angled point in the two meeting corridors. I turned front ways again and refocused. The corridor facing directly in front of me stretched towards a distant trailing black window. The second corridor on my left stretched even further before making a sharp right turn at its end. My mind remained blank. Nothing came to me in the slightest to suggest where the hell I was or how the hell I'd ended up here. I couldn't even recall my own damn name.

I stepped into the first corridor directly ahead and took a second to shield my strained eyes from the bright ceiling lights above. My eyes were adjusting, but gradually. I made my way along the corridor at a crawling pace, still desperately trying to remember something from my past, anything at all. But it was no good. The harder I tried to remember the more my head pounded insanely. I tried to stop thinking all together, concentrating on what was in front of me in the present. It became much simpler than I imagined, mainly because I was so easily distracted by every new thing and image around me.

Almost halfway along the corridor I noticed three sealed octagon shaped doorways on my right and all evenly spaced by a good few metres. I instinctively tried to push them open one at a time but hey were all sealed tightly and from what I could see there didn't seem to be any kind of handles or any simplistic way for my primitive imagination to open them.

Finally I reached the end of the corridor and became engulfed by the huge and sideways long, black continuing window which stood stretching out before me. It branched along to my sharp left with another new corridor where, at its far end, the new corridor turned sharply to the left once again.

My attention was caught though by a reflection of myself in the black glass. I took a few seconds to study my image like it were the first time I'd ever seen my own body in the flesh. As far as I could remember it was. I glanced curiously at the alien like being reflected back at me. The naked upper body looked fit and toned. The face, which I did not recognise, was the face of a ruggedly handsome man with strong cheek bones and deep brooding eyes, yet a face which looked pale and tired, hidden behind a scraggily worn beard. I moved my face closer to the reflection, wanting a more up close and personal view of this odd figure. Then something caught my eye! Something beyond my reflection and the reflection of the lighted corridor behind.

There was something through the window!

Something outside in the blackness beyond. I realised then it wasn't the window that was black. The window was clear, clear as my breath and the air around me. The blackness was coming from outside. It was coming from behind the glass screen and from every direction beyond. It looked like an entire ocean of darkness out there from top to bottom, left to right and as far and as wide as my eyes could see. Just a vast enormity of emptiness. It was unbelievable. Unimaginable in-fact. Yet there it was, as real as the feeling from the cold hard tiled floor beneath my bare feet.

I stared harder, trying to make out something solid, anything. When my eyes finally adjusted something else caught my eye, a tiny little pin prick of twinkling white light appearing out of nowhere. It was like someone had stuck a tiny pin in the back of the black blanket to let in the smallest and faintest fragment of light. My eyes focused upon this spot when suddenly another pin hole appeared, followed by another and another... then another. What kind of trickery was this?

Within seconds there were hundreds, no thousands of dotted little pin prick holes of twinkling lights decorated all over the blanket of black endlessness. They leapt out at me from every angle conceivable to my vision. My eyes widened with fear and dread. I backed away feeling horrified at this disturbing revelation of chaotic twinkling which had sprung to life in amongst the darkness. I had no idea what the hell was out there and it terrified me to the core. I took some deep breaths, calming myself. I turned my attention left glancing along the next descending corridor leading towards another area of wherever the hell I was.

I peeled myself away from the window and walked towards the end of the new corridor on my left. I kept my head and eyes focussed straight ahead, still aware of the trailing window of black dread on my right stalking and leering after me. Finally I reached the end and made the sharp left turn into the next corridor with a great thankful relief to be away from the hideous window.

I continued my bewildered jaunt along the next new corridor. It led me towards a darkened doorway on my right hand-side and in the very centre. I slowed my pace coming to a halt outside the new doorway. I peered for a moment into the eerie room, deliberately taking an overly long moment to study the vast and wide area inside. The dark room seemed to be filled with more flashing screens and buttons all around. I recognised them as a type of computer system, but I didn't have the faintest clue about how or where to begin using such equipment. The largest of all these computer systems was situated halfway into room on the left, standing tall and proud all by itself.

I noticed six small lights upon this large computer. One flickered green with a slow blinking pulse, while the five others flickered wildly in a flashing fiery red. I finished studying the room. It was time to step inside the dark, eerie room.

Chapter 2

I approached the first row of inactive computer systems. A closer inspection of these bizarre digital screens revealed they'd been very badly damaged at some point in their past, but by whom or what was another unanswered riddle. I turned my attention towards another huge spanning window situated right at the very front of the room. This massive glass screen looked much greater in size compared to the trailing one in the previous corridor. It took up the entire back wall in both height and width, and just like the previous window that horrifying yet sadistically peaceful twinkling dark scenery stared right back at me. The feeling of dread and despair deep inside my gut increased ten fold every time I thought about what the hell was really out there.

My eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness and I made out a row of three large chairs at the far end of the room directly below the gigantic viewing window. I studied the three seats one by one until my eyes widened in terror. I could just make out the shadowy outline of a dark and faint figure slumped over the side of the third chair. It shocked me, took my breath away for a few icy beats, to see such a similar figure to my own, coming completely out of the shadows. I remained where I stood, utterly frozen in shock at the sight of the creepy being just sitting there, doing nothing, nothing at all. Was it someone who could perhaps help me? Or even tell me who I was and where the hell I happened to be?

'Hello!' I called to the figure without even thinking about it. My voice sounded horse, dry and croaky. Like I hadn't spoken for a thousand and one years. I tried again.

'Hello.'

This time it sounded clearer, more audible. The figure should've heard me if indeed it were listening. There was still no reply. I edged closer towards the row of seats, moving slowly and cautiously towards the back of the dark seated figure until I stood directly behind. It was so bloody dark that I could barely make out the outline of its upper body and head still.

'Hello.'

Still nothing. Not even a flinch of breath. Without thinking I pushed the back of the chair. To my surprise it swivelled around with ease, swinging the slumping figure round to face me. I gasped, horrified at what I saw. I was confronted by a frail, decayed and hideously looking skeleton of someone... something. I couldn't contain my nerves and adrenalin from making me jump back in fright. At the same moment a small fiery spark spurted out from one of the damaged computers directly behind me. I turned distracted for a brief second, glancing curiously at the spark which quickly faded. When I turned back to face the disgusting creature I clumsily swung my knee hard into the side of the chair with a painful crunch. The force of my collision made skeleton crumple onto itself, collapsing in a broken heap down from the chair and onto the floor below.

I stepped back, startled at the sudden fall. It really scared me. I then rushed back towards the corridor doorway, towards the comforting, soothing light. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there. Clumsily I tripped over a small step in my panicky state and fell hard and just shy of the door. I scrambled anxiously to my feet and continued towards the exit only stopping when I reached the doorway. I glanced back at the row of chairs. They had faded into the darkness once more. My heart was beating fast, furiously fast. When it seemed that my nerves couldn't be anymore shot, a blurry and darkened shadow passed by the doorway out in the main corridor behind me. It caught the corner of my eye for the faintest of seconds, yet as soon as I swiftly turned to face it there was nothing and no one to be seen anywhere. Yet I had definitely seen something! I could feel the hairs all over my body standing upright. In a second I rushed, adrenaline pumping through my veins out into the main corridor. I glanced left then right. The corridor empty in both directions. I turned sharply to my right and without a second thought ran at full speed down the rest of the corridor, giving chase to an invisible assailant who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. I ran into the next corridor noticing two more opened doorways leading into another new set of lighted rooms on my right. Frantically I sped past them though and came to the entrance of the dim pod room from where I'd first entered into this strange series of continuous right angled corridors.