The Stranger on Titan

Hell on not-earth

    Space is something most people believe to be a beautiful abyss sprinkled with endless, glittering dots. The belief that somehow those same dots provide them with wishes were they to fall from the sky. From the station, that same scenery is nothing more than a wish once wished upon one of the many 'stars' lost to the Earth's atmosphere. Space is just as unforgiving as it is empty. Aside from the blue planet aimlessly spinning below it and the occasional glimpse of lady luna, the Titan station gazes at nothing else other than enough black void to drive a man mad.

    Titan, named after its gargantuan size and T-shaped build, drifted aimlessly between Earth's moon and the planet itself. On the outside, the base was adorned in a pristine, white paint job and two black stripes that horizontally ran along its sides. The windows along its hull were circular except for the helm having a large, rectangular viewport at the base of the T. Foolishly, no weapons were present on the aircraft, seeing as America believed no one would accompany them with a ship of the same class. Well, at least for a very long time.
    The interior was built to hold the entirety of New York's population and then some, with the rather cramped living quarters being built along the horizontal top. Each room sported a single full bathroom, a bedroom with a bunk bed, and a small kitchen. Every room should hold a family of four with no problem.
    As for me, I lived in a small corner-room nestled right between the bridge and the main hallway. It was nothing more than a twin-sized bed, a dinky lift that went down into the engine room, and a bathroom. The engineers didn't exactly get the best of treatment around here, though we were the ones keeping us from plummeting back to earth or, you know, getting sucked out into space. Our uniforms weren't even the same. Everyone else had their standard, grey jumpsuit- save for the captain's military-green uniform- and we were the ones stuck wearing an outfit with the color of dehydrated piss. Perhaps I was a tad more bitter than I should've been, but I knew they could do better.

I did sign up for this, though.

The lively hisses from the water-cooled engine mingled almost melodically with the near-deafening clangs of pistons, as I worked my wrench around one of the side panel's bolts. My small, gloved hands remained steady whilst the room rumbled under the ship's power, the wrench's clicking soon joining the mechanical melody. The people around me ran rampant about the suspended catwalks like cracked out ants. Yet, I stayed put and work away at my own pace. My hand moved hurriedly, yet absentmindedly as I turned each fist-sized bolt back into their places. My thoughts wandered back to home. I felt my green eyes unfocusing, and chapped lips contorting into a content grin as I began to daydream.
    I was born and raised in the heart of Georgia until the age of 17. I've lived my entire life with dirtied hands. Whether that be from the farm's dirt or oil from fixing up cars inside Pop's autobody shop. I learned at a very young age the difference between a harvester's engine and a Camero's, but that came the hard way after I switched the two and almost got Pop killed. I learned how to grin and bear through the stuff life threw at me and, by God, did it have a good arm...
    A white-hot surge of pain brought me back to reality, the sensation traveling up my arm and into the base of my skull. My jaw clenched tightly in an attempt to silence my yelp. My brow pulled taut in a mix of pain and frustration, and I stared down at my now empty hand. It tremored violently, as I struggled to show my palm. The scent of burnt leather wafting from my palm was enough to cease my action. When I glimpsed up at the repaired engine wall, sure enough, there sat another lovely handprint left behind from the melted remains of my glove, joining the dozens of other, varying silhouettes of handprints left behind from other workers that made the same mistake.
    As I pulled off my ruined glove and chucked it over my shoulder into the abyss below, I began to notice a major lack of organized chaos within the massive room. No one existed, it seemed. Just me, and the roaring heart of the ship. The "silence" left behind made my ears ring.
My short, heavy steps echoed loudly throughout the chamber, as I made my way to my designated lift. I began to rationalize the situation. My thoughts attempted to piece together the hunger in my stomach and the absence of people to it simply being lunchtime. Yet, the thoughts of something having possibly gone wrong lingered in the back of my mind. Surely, the lunch bell would've snapped me out of it like usual. The lift jerked momentarily before slowly rising like an under-inflated balloon. As it did, the nauseating stench of sulfur and iron filled the air, too much iron. My weary gaze drifted up the copper tunnel, hoping the scent was that of my imagination and not of reality.
Unfortunately, that was not the case.

    Crimson coated the inside of my lift-shaft as if someone had just slaughtered a dozen cows inside it. A hand shot to my mouth in an attempt to stifle the urge to throw up the contents of my empty stomach, a gag surfacing whilst several drops of blood fell onto my shoulders. My pounding heartbeat drowned out the lift screeching to a halt as I reached the uppermost level of the ship; the bridge.
Maroon, veiny growths covered the previously white walls and grey floors around me, exuding the sulfuric stench that had wafted down into my chamber. The mangled bodies of the crew lied amongst the abnormalities with their eyes wide and jaws slacked; taken by surprise. Some of the veins had grown over the corpses and pinned them to the floor as if they had the strength or the life to struggle.
To my surprise and horror, one of the trapped bodies suddenly began to convulse and thrash violently with choked wheezes exiting it's gaping maw. It was supposed to be dead! The sheer amount of blood that surrounded the body didn't tell me otherwise! Its mouth started to widen, and widen, and widen. The surrounding skin grew taut and ripped like thick pieces of paper, and the bones in its jaw audibly snapped out of place. By the time it ceased its inhuman action, the man's mouth resembled that of a feasting serpent. Any hopes I had of recognizing him were now out the window. A bulge about the size of a softball formed within the corpse's throat and slowly inched its way up the esophagus, the frantic breaths growing silent.
The man's head started to lean back against the tile, the veiny vines holding his chest down forcing his neck to strain and bend at an awkward angle. His glossy eyes rolled back and bored holes into my soul, as I stood there like a deer in headlights. He let out a ghastly wail that reverberated throughout my entire being, shaking me to my very core. It belonged to him, but something else made it, something inside him. The screech grew louder and louder as the lump in his throat began to reveal its true identity. Six, spider-like appendages pried his maw open further, their claws sinking into the skin of his lips as the parasite began wriggling free of its lifeless husk.

Edit: This is a work in progress project for school that'll be updated as I go along.
Hope 5 years of waiting was worth it!

-Mystic