Want (Numbered #1, YA Scifi Dystopian) Wattpad Featured Story

Chapter Four

She crouched and clutched her head, exactly as the safety instruction videos had shown her to do. A red warning light flashed around the elevator cabin, and emergency sirens began blaring.

Aurelia could feel the shudder of something hitting the ship, and then she felt pressure as the shuttle righted itself from the blow. Suddenly there was a jolt, and the elevator dropped. She clung to the metal railing, her stomach dropping faster than the cabin. She was convinced that the lift was about to crash into the floor, and she had a vision of the elevator rushing through the shuttle and smashing through the bottom of the ship itself.

She closed her eyes tightly but then felt a rush of cool air on her face.

The elevator had stopped at the next floor, the doors sliding open. It obviously had some kind of safety precaution. Aurelia found herself crawling on her hands and knees over the threshold of the elevator, her head spinning. Another explosion rocked the ship, and she felt the air pressure change. Her ears popped, hard. She lay on the soft blue carpet of the floor, her arms tight around herself, not knowing what to do and not caring anymore.

If she was going to die like this she would do it here, alone, the tufts of the carpet pressing into the side of her face.

The alarms continued ringing.

"Security Workers to deck 31," an announcement shouted, then repeated itself three times over the wail of the alarms.

Aurelia kept still. She could hear the sounds of people moving, of screaming, but far away, not here on her deck. Again the shuttle shook.

"Med personnel report to deck stewards," yelled the announcement.

Something stirred in Aurelia's mind. She screwed her eyes tightly closed and breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

What did she know about death in space? She racked her brain, thinking back to all her training. Quiet - it was quiet, she knew that. Space was a vacuum; nothing could be heard. Not instantaneous, as many people believed. You could live for minutes out in space, even without any protection. Cold. Suffocation.

The thought of suffocating slowly in the cold vacuum as she screamed silently made Aurelia sick to her stomach.

"Med personnel report to deck stewards," repeated the announcement.
Realising she was about to lose her first space shuttle meal, Aurelia quickly rolled over until she was on her hands and knees, her head hanging down. Her body trembled as she retched, and her eyes stung with tears.

When she was done, she crawled away from the stinking pile of vomit and sat, leaning against the wall of the column. The tech Worker had warned her that she might get space sick, she thought, and her lips curled a little; he probably hadn't meant like this, though. There had been no explosions or movements from the ship for some minutes. Aurelia wiped her face on her sleeve. What now?

"Med personnel report to deck stewards," said the announcement for the third time.

It was only then, hearing the announcement again at the same time as she looked at the red slash on her sleeve, that Aurelia remembered. Gods, she was med personnel.

All panic fled from Aurelia, and her training kicked firmly in. Report to deck steward. Okay, that was step one. She stood, shakily. The deck she was on had grown strangely silent, and she realised that the emergency sirens had stopped blaring out. Looking around, Aurelia contemplated taking the elevator again, then shook her head. Not safe enough. There had to be emergency stairs around here somewhere; she remembered her steward mentioning them.

Quickly, she checked all the doors in the central column. Nothing. Wait, stop, think. Medicine had taught her that it was better to act slowly with knowledge than to act quickly without it. If you didn't know what to do, then take the precious seconds to consider the options. She closed her eyes; there was something niggling in the corner of her mind. Right, got it.