Flaw
Something I wrote for class awhile ago...
It's not every day one would come upon a situation like this. In fact, I doubt anyone ever had...well, not like this. Sweat beads down my face as if I had ran a marathon, but I did nothing of the sort. Rather, I just stood here, my hand on a lever. I stood there, thinking, wasting precious time. It's not easy for a completely sane individual to commit suicide. That's how I was seeing it. But I knew I had to do this. Sacrifice is not the same as suicide.
I never should have taken this job. Then again, I never knew it would be the end of me. It's too late for regrets now. Space travel was not perfected. There would be sacrifices, as there always had been in this line of work. I just didn't think it would be me. Funny, isn't it? Every day we go out, the people on earth get in their car, think "I won't get in a crash today," and go about the rest of the day. Go to work, "I won't get robbed on my way there." Well...that one may be a bit more paranoid. Or is it? It's happened, right? Our survival instinct is disappearing because of our trust for one another.
Trust...we kept each other alive. No single person can manage a space ship of this size. We all had our own job, and we'd be in deep trouble if we didn't do our job and do it right. We, as a species, aren't naturally hostile towards each other. Not anymore. We've evolved past that. We care about each other. Compassion. Empathy. Selflessness. But this situation is not because of a human, well, not directly. More like faulty engineering. I have no doubt the scientists back home gave their all constructing and designing this ship, but it wasn't good enough. We trusted their design. But they didn't kill us...not directly.
Some of the ship had been torn apart by debris in space itself. Strong materials and metals it's made of, but without slowing down and only speeding up, the physics of damage changes. We wanted to go fast, to travel amongst the stars at an incredible speed, but how fast is too fast in space? The answer is fast enough for whatever is in your path to tear a part of your ship off.
Without wasting anymore time, I slammed down the lever. I was jettisoned into space itself, wearing my space suit as I was doing external repairs. I watched as the ship sped off into the distance, the rear engines glowing a bright blue as it burned fuel. I prayed to whatever was out here with me that the rest of the crew would survive. I hoped I had saved hundreds of lives, as tens more was wasted by me trying to think of what to do.
The lever I pulled was an emergency lockdown lever, shutting all doors that worked as airlocks. I may not have saved everyone at that time, depending on where they were and where the damage was, but it's better than dooming the entire ship...right? I imagined no one had access to a lever since it hadn't been pulled sooner...maybe everyone was in panic. Being in an airlock, the door on the outside opened as the inner door closed, forcing me outward, but sealing the inside along with any other doors that had a breach. I don't know where the hole was. I doubt anyone did. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe someone already had their hand on the lever just as I pulled mine.
My safety rope had snapped when we took on an asteroid. I knew pulling the lever would kill me. Well...I guess it didn't. I guess all I could do now was wonder what would kill me. Lack of water? Lack of oxygen? An asteroid? I watched as the blue lights of the engine faded into the distance, putting a huge amount of space between me and it extremely fast. I watched...watched them speed through the asteroid belt. I hoped they would make it. I looked at Jupiter for a little, almost being proud I got to see it so close. Then I looked at Earth. My home. I hope one day we'll do better...that this won't happen again. Such a beautiful planet, even though it looks so small from here. At least I could admire its terrifying beauty and not realize my oxygen was gradually decreasing...