Voyager Logs - Submeta Space Voyager 0066 Black Box

Content Warnings!

Clostriphobia, Themes of God and religion, blasphemous language, mental illness, insanity, starvation, suffering, gore, cannibalism, violence, deceptions of blood, death, and direct quotations of other writings

I looked out the window of the bridge. Blackness.

The same as it had been for the last 11 years, this anti-space at the edge of all known things that could possibly be considered the ‘universe’, we had set off in the year 5066; it had taken us 7 years to travel 77 billion light-years.

Our great metal prison palace, Submeta-Space Voyager 66, but of course that’s all a bit wordy, and so the people at Voyager Company called it ‘Fort Knox 0066’, and by GOD! That was a fitting name to say the GOD damn least! This ship is nothing but a fucking loony bin!

11 years I’ve spent with these maniacs!… I’ve had to lock off one half of the ship from the other, I have access to the bridge and the communications hub as well as the storage room, a massive hall full of shelving units, ladders like the stairs to heaven are required to reach boxes and boxes of ready made slop for our limited ‘enjoyment’ brought to you by Voyager Company - ‘eat it so you don’t starve in space’. I couldn't think of a better slogan if I tried.

It is not strange that we have spent so much time on this voyage, it has been 11 years, and we were sent out with 15 years worth of supplies, however, it was supposed to be 7 years on way, 2 to 3 months in the void, and 7 years back the way, and round up to be safe rather then sorry. It has been 4 years since we entered the void, and we have taken no action to retreat from our drifting through nothingness.

This great metal thing I have lived in for 11 years is rather… cramped; it squeezes ME sometimes, like it breathes in and holds its breath, and when it does, I cannot move. It is holding its breath as we speak.

There is more food on this thing then there is scientific machinery, I know very little of science, I am a navigator, captain and fixer of great skill but if you told ME how a Dyson Sphere, or as I believe they call it these days; a Dyson Cage worked I’d look at you slack jawed and buggy eyed and “EEHHHHHGGG” at you like some ape with its head on backwards.

This is not to paint MYSELF stupid by any measure, I am a great intellect on the subject of light speed travel and if it weren’t for ME this ship would have burst into flames at least once or twice, GOD, I was the face of the whole operation back on Terra 01 but that was 11 years ago, and for all their glorious scientific achievements these people had no memory of anything, I on the other hand am like that off a great globe spanning hyper-intelligent super-computer, I have the storage capacity to contane the first word MY mother said to ME to the last.

I am a great charismatic character, if I do say so MYSELF. I got this job from MY own merits, I did, I tell you! I REALLY DID! People signed petitions for GOD’S sake, all so they could see ME in space. I deserved it, didn’t I sacrifice everything to this company all MY life?

I don’t know how I’ve managed to retain MY sanity in this abyss for this long, I imagine it is due to proper access to food and water, the ability to preserve the outside, even if it consists of only darkness, and I have turned off the lights in their half of the ship, if you are not already aware; humans are not supposed to exist in pure darkness at all times.

Thus, I, by far, am far more…

‘BANG BANG BANG’ is the sound I am hearing from the door, constantly it rings through ME like an earthquake, rattling MY bones and through MY brain before fading into the background and finally pausing and then the scream and yelling and the screaming and the shouting!

“ICARUS! Icarus! Please god Icarus, open the door!” Athena’s voice came through the cold metal door as if she had possessed it with her fear and anger and jealousy for MY very sanity, like a blood sucking vampire who hungers so desperately for the life essence of those more life abundant than itself, the door carried her voice so clearly and precisely into MY mind and the very grey matter of MY brain as if an angel with a hundred screaming mouths descended in front of ME to give forth upon ME the words of GOD.

“I know you’re scared, I know that at this point we’ve all done terrible terrible things, but if you just open the door now I promise we won’t be mad at you, water under the bridge, we’ll just turn us around and you get home safe and sound, doesn’t that sound good” Echo said, putting on her best kind, sweet and gentle voice as she so often did, ‘not I the precious and pure young woman’ was her go to defence, when we set off she had been only 21 you see, and I was closest to her as a man of 33 and she was masterful at reminding us the purity of her naive and gentle soul but I was aware of the truth now, she, like Athena, was a vicious monster, a crazed son of a bitch, daughters of sinners the two of them, they had no access to food and thus I can only assume that to live they had eaten the other three scientists, and now, like animals, they huddle outside MY door. Their constrained banging like Sirens, Rusalka, Ceasg, Lorelei. Like half woman, half Kelpie. Born of Eve and Lilith. Cunts.

The banging began again, weaker… then stopped again… I, with all MY great perceptiveness, could tell that their hands had begun to numb and that their foreheads had begun to bleed.

“Please… just let us in…”

Something strange began to happen, something moved outside the window, out in the dark. As the vessel held its breath, and its lungs filled with flem. It can’t get oxygen, so it's taking mine.

Something strange is beginning to happen, the moving thing is… covering? Yes, covering the vessel, squeezing at its heart.

Something strange is happening; the lights have turned off, and light seemed to shine into the rest of the ship. I could see it in the crack in the door.

Suddenly, the ‘something strange’ was happening, and it was all around ME. I could hear the shifting of light, the popping of light-emitting diodes as they became overcharged, and the light burned even past the door, I hear the light saying something; it beg ME so desperately to look at it, it begged to be perceived and thus to know that it is what it is, like Lucifer falling before MY eyes, it begged to be seen out of its pride and need for reassurance despit the fact it would run in terror if it could only see itself.

The BANGING! BANG BANG BANG! Started again, and the crying and screaming!

The BANG BANG BANGING was so dreadful that it muted the screeching loudness of the light, like nails on a blackboard being drowned out by that damn drill breaking down again! Another thing I have to fix.

The door began to move from how hard they were hitting it. It was starting to slide to the left despite the lock mechanism, as it moved, “for fucks sake, let us in! I’ll fucking kill you, you insane bastard! You were mad from the start! Do you hear me, Icarus!” Athena yelled, Insane? Me? The nerve! I wanted to rush in front of the door and block the entrance with MY body.

As I went to move, I fell forward, with a great crash I hit the floor, and then after a moment, I sat up against a control panel, lacking the strength to stand.

I hear SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING, GOD the screaming, I held the sides of MY head to drown it out.

It's too high-pitched to be Athena, Echo screaming like her leg had been broken from a drill malfunction, then halfway through a scream, she stopped dead, and she began to say, “Athena. Do you see them, The Eyes? They are so beautiful…” and in response Athena said “no no no no no… no god, why me, why US, please, sweet beautiful dear Echo don’t look at them please, come help me with the door instead, or anything else just don’t look… god your eyes… their… melting”

I started to hear the gentle song of human flesh melting, with a slosh and a pop. The irises must have exploded, and with that, the SCREAMING started up again, both of them this time, and a banging sound was heard as Echo fell to her knees.

Athena was filled with the rage of madness and pain; the door broke, and she bashed and clawed and wrestled at it like a beast possessed by the werewolf's curse. She eventually managed to force the blood-covered extremities of her flesh, once considered to be known as fingers, between the door frame and the locked door, and she started to pull it to the left; it opened slightly. Like a tendril loosening its grip on me, the strange thing let go of the vessel. As the light then returned to its rightful place, I saw it outside the window. A great many armed things of an unnatural thin body spanning miles and covered with a great many eyes, and its spine covered in luminous feathers.

“ICARUS! If you let me in now, I’ll try to kill you quickly,” Athena had said

It was dark in that room, yet I had been returned to the light and could see the crimson curling round the edge of the door.

With the snapping of fingers, the door opened almost halfway. I could see her, long black hair cascading over pale, sunken skin. She, like a demon, stood there, HATE HATE HATE, it had nested so deeply in her eyes. What for, what had I done to deserve such ire? It could only be the pain and fear and madness that invoked such feelings in her.

“ICARUS!!?? How the fuck did any man, woman, or beast feel love for someone like you?! I am sure I will make it through this doorway and kill you, then one day we can meet again in the darkest pit of Hell, doesn’t that sound nice???”

The vessel exhaled.

In a flash, she squeezed through the half-open door, just as I had run to stop her, but without the use of MY cane, I was about to fall again, but as she lunged at me, I managed to grab her by the throat.

“Do you see him?... our LORD?”

With a crash, we hit the floor, but not before Athena hit her head on the control panel on the way down.

All was silent for a moment. Singing???

“LOOK AT ME! GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS”

Suddenly, I came to MY senses a bit after having hit MY head again, but so did Athena, and she took the chance to grapple ME and began choking me, even with broken fingers; this lasted only a moment, though.

“IN MY NAME THY CHARGE IS TO INACT SACRIFICAL VIOLENCE”

I punched her in the ribs; I heard them crack. I felt them crack. Yet her eyes were filled with the kind of rage that would not die, the HATE that would kill a lesser animal, and yet flows so freely in the hearts of humans.

She leaned down, and with all her might remaining, she bit MY ear off and spat it out on MY face, saving it for later.

I punched her in the side of the head, and she hit her head on the side of the control panel, leaving a bloody mark.

Suddenly, the room went dark.

“Hyacinthus never really loved you”

I took this moment to push her over and get on top of her. I grabbed at her skull and pushed MY thumbs into her eyes as she tried to bat MY hands away. She crawled at MY arms and face till they bled, she kicked, she punched, she growled, she snapped her jaw open and shut, she screamed, she did everything and anything an animal might do if it had its eyes impaled by hooks.

“SHE SITS WITH ME IN MY KINDOM NOW. YOU HAVE DONE WELL”

I stood.

I felt it looking at ME.

A light came from outside.

The Light.

It spoke unto ME

“I AM THY LORD, TURN TO FACE ME”

I turned around…

…and I saw…

…An Eye, its iris like the sun, the pupil a moon, it looked into ME and through ME. Its divinity swallowed all that I was, and so I was then nothing all at once.

In that moment, I could hear MYSELF screaming, never breaking eye contact. I fell to MY knees and started clawing at MY melting eyes.

“COME TO ME, MY SON, FOR I LOVE YOU”

GOD said…