I feel like every time i walk to work this walls are closing in on me. I can feel them breading. In and out. Each day the air goes in then back again.... then in and out again....
The cycle is endless. The walls seems to close in on you as with the air rushing by you. But then the air goes rushing pass your face and it seems that the way opens up a bit.
It helps if i run my hand along the wall. I can feel the hard metal surfaces. My fingertips scratching the rough surface of the metal. If you're careful you can fill where the metal slabs are joined together. It reminds me that it's still human made. This hellhole still has holes.
You take a breath of the putrid air rushing by you and you remember it's just a ventilation system. Pushing and pulling air like an old monster breathing it's last breaths. Everything seems to be dieing but somehow it never does.
You seem to always walk along this corridors. They're the only ways to get to where you have to go. It barely fits two persons side by side but in a twisted way everything seems more manageable when you brush pass someone. You dare not raise your head to see who it is. Happiness is not allowed in this forsaken place. The blackness of the walls, the dull faces of the people always in a hurry always busy seem to absorb the happiness that might clumsily wonder around. You live and work in the blackness. No window no open spaces. No night, no day... just a dull twilight that seems to ooze from somewhere above.
Sometimes you hear a distant roar like thunder. It's a deep roar like the whole universe vibrates. Some say it's distant battles.... maybe a lucky bastard managed to hit one. Maybe he will get lucky and kill us all. But i don't believe in luck. Some say it's some reactor blowing up and you wait for just a second to see if the flames will consume you. I don't believe in luck.
Every now and again you see some new people walking around. Prisoners of war. They're always wide eyed and wary. It takes them a few days until they get accustomed. But there is no other way. If too many people come aboard some other people have to go. You walk down a hallway and the door closes in front of you. All you hear are the screams of the poor souls who have been... washed down the drain. They're jettisoned into space like trash. It's strange how after a while you hear they're screams and all you can think of is... come on already.... i need to get to work.
I was an engineer before i ended up here. I've enlisted with the army like all young men do. After years of training and hard work i got aboard a deep space science vessel. It was a dream come true. We where off to discover new places. Experiment with new technologies.
Just my luck to run into this. It ate us just like one of the monsters of the old. You never really believe in those tales until you end up face to face with one. Our ship was a decent class ship. A kilometer long and half that wide. It was like sitting in a zodiac as a cruise liner was heading towards you. Your doom was inevitable. But it wasn't. Somehow i survived and put to work or maybe it's best to say... set free.There is no anybody who tells you what to do and where to go. You just got to figure it out or die.
You're one in a billion working little bee that either works on something or get's jettison out into outer space. I'm doing what i've always done monitoring machines and fixing things. I don't have a lot of friends. But nobody around here speaks or lives. There is nothing to do but do something so you don't die. You're like a little ant. You're life achievement is to serve the bee queen and hope that one day somebody will come and pick you up. Look at you with funny childish eyes.... and crush you!
