Tau Ceti

In the abyss of her disoriented consciousness, she awoke, ensnared within the confines of a steel chamber. The echoes of her own ragged breaths drilled through the air, her body trembling as she tried to recollect how she got here.

Her hands grazed the slick walls, searching for any discernible clue, but she found nothing. The metallic surface beneath her fingertips remained as unforgiving as her fragmented memories. The taste of rust lingered in the air, the biting cold painful against her skin.

She pressed onward, her bare feet tracing the wall-floor joint as they guided her. As her toes curled against the corners, she could feel the grit and roughness, while the walls and floor remained flat and slick.

Her outstretched hand finally found an irregularity in the wall. Her fingertips explored this newfound crevice, a hole that could have been no larger than than the width of her finger. A putrid scent seeped from within. As she pressed her finger into the void, a sickly sound of blades hitting one another, exacted its gruesome toll. A swift, unforgiving slice severed the tip of her finger.

Her agonising cry was swiftly drowned out by the sound of the walls moving closer, forcing her forward and down into a tunnel. Her feet moved instinctively, finding precarious footing on the conveyor belt. The tunnel came alive with the sound of quickening cogs. She could feel the vibrations beneath her feet, an unsettling, rhythmic pulsation. Then she seemed to be jolted left-ways with force. It took her a few moments to realise she was tumbling sideways. Left like a doll bouncing around in the dryer, she grew more disoriented with each moment.

The tunnel came to a slow halt, with a familiar sound of machinery powering down. Before she could get her bearings, the earth seemed to disappear beneath her. Thud. This room smelled like an old butcher's freezer, the kind someone would leave for a decade without de-icing or cleaning. She could reach out an arms length in every direction but could discern no exit. Desperate from thirst, she let the icicles on the ceiling drip into her dry mouth. She had no other word for the taste than dirty.

She had no way of gauging time passing and had slipped into a light sleep. Melted ice beneath her turned into a small pool, fearing she had soiled herself, woke with a start.

The wet clothes clung to her in a way no one would ever want to be touched. She kicked out her legs in disgust, which would turn out to be her salvation from this room at least. Beneath her ankle laid another small hole, this time the width of her large toe. Learning her lesson from before, she broke off a small piece of icicle. Her fingers wrinkly and trembling, inserted the ice into the hole - she would offer no offering of herself this time. 

No blades - just a crunch. If you’d ever heard a bone in vice, this was eerily similar. A hole appeared in the far end of the room, big enough for her to stand up in. She could smell fresh air, inviting and warm, from above. She stretched out her weak soggy arms and at her elbows, she could feel flaking paint against aged splintered timber. Mustering any strength she had left, she pulled just enough that she could reach a higher rung. After a few attempts she could finally get her knees on the lowest rung. It felt like salt and grain against her skin.

She was desperate for rest, but there was nowhere to stop. She could only climb, one rung to the next. She counted soberly under her breath, “99, 100, 101…” How high could this be? “The average house ladder has only 10 steps,” she thought to herself. If she let her limbs give way now, the fall would certainly kill her. She was at least 100 feet upward from the ice room. 

The temperature slowly rose the higher she got, it couldn’t be long now until some escape appeared. The warmth at least, was a balm for her frost-bitten skin. 

She reached for the next rung and felt a round, spoked, wheel instead. Turning it with one hand, the latch lifted with a creaking groan. She left out a hefty sigh and launched herself onto the cracked desert floor. She couldn’t help but laugh, thinking that her plight was finally over. The dry air threatened to choke her, but out in the open was better than inside that cage. 

Lying there for a while, she allowed her strength to gradually seep back into her aching body. The blistering heat of the artificial light above her began to scorch her exposed skin, urging her to rise. With her hands and feet scraping across the unforgiving ground, she reached a small, rocky hill. She clawed her way up its uneven surface, driven by a futile hope of escape.

However, as she reached the summit, a disheartening revelation washed over her. Instead of the open sky and freedom, she found herself inside an enormous warehouse, its interior arranged in an unsettling, unnatural manner, resembling a bizarre film set. The realisation that her journey had merely led her from one confounding chamber to another threatened to crush her spirit. Escape seemed like an elusive dream now.

Despair clawed at the edges of her mind, leaving her feeling utterly defeated. Her dry eyes ached with the desire to shed tears, but she had none to give. Moving from room to room had become a futile endeavour, a never-ending cycle of torment.

Then, from above, a voice boomed, but it spoke in a language foreign to her, its syllables harsh and guttural. She strained to make sense of the incomprehensible words, but it was as if they were drawn from an alien tongue. Confusion and fear swirled within her.

Suddenly, the voice spoke again, this time in Russian: "Если ты сможешь достичь следующих двух комнат, мы позволим тебе выжить."

She struggled to decipher the meaning of the Russian words but could only pick out a few. "If you can reach something, we will let you live." The message hung in the air, its implications unclear.

Then everything began to shake like a small magnitude earthquake. Acrid dust flying into the air made her cough heavily. She fell to her knees wondering whether to stay still or crawl on, it was impossible to stay upright. She surmised that each room was designed in its nature to push you onto the next one, so crawl she shall. The summit, albeit bumpy, was flat at least. Her nails filled with grainy dirt as she pushed on. The rattling finally stopped as she reached the end, there was only a drop from there. With the ground settled, a tiny steel slit appeared before her. 

She patted her pants pockets to find anything that would be thin or small enough to fit. She even checked the lining of her shirt before she realised she could use the wire in her bra. Making a tear in it with her teeth, she slid out the U shaped wire. 

She jammed it forcefully into the narrow slit. Suddenly, a powerful suction pulled her upward, her body hurtling through a twisting, disorienting tube at lightning speeds. She spiralled, the sensation of ceaseless motion overwhelming her senses until she was violently thrust into yet another room.

In this new chamber, she tried to regain her bearings. The pungent, animalistic odour of rats engulfed her, assaulting her nose with the unmistakable scent of fur and filth. Their scrabbling movements beneath her hands and feet sent waves of tactile discomfort through her as she crawled and walked over their hordes. Hundreds of the creatures scurried around her, their frantic movements and chattering teeth creating an unsettling sound that reverberated through her bones. The rats, driven by fear or malice, lunged and bit at her, their sharp teeth almost puncturing her flesh.

As she endured this gruesome ordeal, a thick fog began to descend, obscuring her surroundings. The rats, as if responding to some unseen force, scurried away through a hidden passage, their cries fading into the distance. She collapsed to the ground, dry-sobbing uncontrollably.

The floor beneath her, however, had other plans. It shifted and moved like an escalator, propelling her onward to the next room. The wall before her opened up, revealing yet another chamber, and she wondered if this nightmare truly had no end.

This room was a wretched nightmare of odours, a putrid stench of faeces and rotting skin. It was boundless and without discernible edges, curved like a dome, almost claustrophobic in its design. Assaulted by the noxious atmosphere, she vomited, bile splattering onto the foul ground beneath her. To her shock, the vomit revealed jagged pieces beneath her knees.

With outstretched hands, she began to arrange the pieces, slowly realising they formed a puzzle. Desperation drove her as she pieced them together, forming a cube with trembling fingers. But as she completed the last section, nothing happened, and the hopelessness devoured her.

Defeated and drained, she felt a profound sense of resignation, a belief that she would die alone in this nightmarish realm. With nothing left to give, she succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a dreamless slumber.

When she awoke, it was in a sterile hospital bed. A doctor, a nurse, and an official-looking military man adorned with many medals, stood above her. The military man spoke with a voice of authority, saying, "Congratulations, Captain. You're ready for quantum travel. Colonisation mission to Tau Ceti will commence next week."