The Empty Ship (Electric Dreams Entry & Original Artwork)

A familiar dead silence enveloped the ship; the hum of circuits, the low shudder of engines, both long extinguished. Deep below the loading bay, in the wiring of the bowels, a forgotten light began to blink.

---

… System reboot 849 complete …

… Stand by for operational testing …

… Operational testing complete: responses received - 0001 of 3276 …

… Systems coming online …

… 0001 of 3276 systems loaded …

… Life signs detected ....

… Auto-reboot sequence disengaged …

… 3275 of 3276 systems non-responsive, please input command ...

---

Confusion crashed into Amy with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. The squeal of tires rang in her ears as she became aware of the tarmac rushing towards her, giving way to a hard metal surface.

Pain crumpled through her fingers, biting into her palms, splintering through her forehead as she failed to break her fall.

She lay, opening her eyes for a moment to register a skeletal metal passageway, taste the hollow, stale air, before sinking back into darkness.

Somewhere, in the depths of her abyss, she heard the distant call of an ambulance siren, whispering to hold on.

---

… 3275 of 3276 systems non-responsive, manual input timed-out …

… auto-reboot engaging in 10 …

… 9 …

… 8 …

---

The soft mechanical purr of machinery sank into Amy’s unconscious, the systematic return of low lighting raced down the passageway over her.

Turning on the cold metal flooring, she stirred, awareness rushing back to her with terrifying speed.

She scrambled to sit up, arching her back against the concave wall, her fingers pressing into the grated skirting.

Warmth touched her cheek, and looking up, she saw an open chamber, soft gasps of air spilling out to engulf her. A pale light filled the empty interior of the egg like structure, reflecting off the raised glass door.

Terror pressed on her chest as she tried to draw back from the sight, pushing further into the wall behind her, sinking into the loose second skin of her white bodysuit.

A loud, electronic ping tensed through her every muscle as it rang along the passageway, its echo followed by a hollow, electronic voice.

“All transportation crew please report to the manual control deck”

Amy glanced around, looking for the source of the sound. Unlit chambers stretched as far as she could see, recessed into the opposing wall.

She found herself standing, fear taking over her impulses. The desire to run, to hide, seized her with its panic.

She barely registered what she was doing as she tried to grip the curved edge of the glass door in the next chamber, drenched in darkness. Her fingernails slipped the fine seam, her heart hammering in her chest, she frantically tried to open it.

Moving to the other side, she found her eyes drawn back to the glass door. It took her mind a few seconds to comprehend what it saw, barely visible in the gloom.

The taut, desiccated skin, the sunken shriveled eyes, the bared teeth.

The horror she had felt until then seemed a hazy memory, lost in the face that stared back at her.

Blind to her surroundings, she fled, rushing down the passage, desperately looking for a way out.

The same clouded, vacant eyes watched her from every chamber she passed. Their gaze chasing her as she ran.

A single rectangular pool of pale light spilled onto the metal. Drawn by escape, Amy flung herself through the doorway.

---

It was three weeks since she’d woken up on a ghost ship, floating in dead space. Three weeks since the accident, the articulated lorry that hadn’t seen her crossing the road.

Amy had spent the first day, terrified, in the maintenance room she’d fallen into. Curled up against the wall, unable to comprehend how this, this was the afterlife.

She had been more rational after some sleep. Aware of a tightening in her chest, and a lack of air movement, she forced herself to get up, hesitantly exploring the ship, avoiding the passage she woke up in at all costs.

That was how she found the manual control room, and in it, the ship’s computer.

---

“Morning Olivia, what’ve you got for me on the reboot today?”

Amy gripped a warm mug of rehydrated thick pink gloop, absently stirring it as she pulled up the readouts.

… Engine reboot … Failed …

… Communications reboot … Failed …

… Memory reboot … Failed …

“Not a whole lot ey?”

She flicked through the failures, waving her hand over the sensor to skip through set after set.

… Main Deck Life Support reboot … Failed …

… External Sensor reboot … Complete …

“Olivia!! You did it! Now, let’s see what this gets us!”

Amy still hadn’t figured out all the controls, it was far beyond the motion sensors or touch-pads she remembered from 2018.

She held her hands in the air, twitching her fingers, lowering, raising the joints to try and access the external sensors. Something about operating the machine struck a dull chord with her; a Youtube video of a girl playing an instrument, waving her hands in the air around it.

A black curl of hair slipped over her face, and instinctively tucking it behind her ear, Amy sent the controls spinning.

She froze, waiting for the projection of the readout to settle. System controls flashed past with the slowing of a roulette wheel, eventually coming to rest on the systems log.

Amy had already spent days trying to figure out what had happened, where the crew was, and more to the point, where she was. Nothing she’d found made sense, although she’d not managed to locate the systems log, until now.

Careful to keep the rest of her hand steady, she flicked her right index finger, selecting the file, before tentatively easing away from the control sensors.

Retrieving the cold mug of gloop she hadn’t remembered putting down, she began to wolf down mouthfuls of the shiny substance.

It took the computer, hanging on by the bare threads of it’s under-powered wires, long minutes to access the log.

“Oh Olivia, you should try this stupendous slop, it comes in pink and vomit green, and always tastes exactly the same!”

Amy wasn’t quite sure how she settled on Olivia, something about it just felt right for the machine - despite it being oblivious to voice commands.

She was half way through the cup before the projection of the readout, pollocked with tiny dead spots, groaned out the file.

System log:

Auto-Reboot 849 … 0001 of 3276 Systems Loaded

Auto-Reboot 848 … All Systems Failed

Auto-Reboot 847 … All Systems Failed

By the time she reached Reboot 217, Amy felt the strain in the controlled twitch of her finger and the forced stillness of her hand.

It took all the focus she could muster to back away from the motion sensor, leaving the readout unmoved.

The weight of realization was beginning to cloud her mind and she knew she needed to take a break. She hadn’t found any signs of bodies anywhere on the ship, despite the evidence of lives once lived scattered across the decks, apart from the dreaded passageway. The Evacuation Pods lined the bays, not a single one had been triggered and yet, there were no people.

---

Emergency life support only sustained the manual control unit; powering the main room, the ship’s computer and emergency living quarters. The stale air permeating the rest of the ship hung unfiltered.

Amy had found the air conversion masks in the Emergency Evac Kits. Pushing away the uncomfortable knowledge that whoever had been on the ship hadn’t used those either, she had wandered, exploring the maze of corridors.

The upper deck had a vast viewing chamber, a huge transparent panel that opened on the endless fathoms of space. Her feet carried her there as her mind churned, to the familiar spot, an oasis under the starry realms.

It was here she had come when the homesickness crashed over her, when she couldn’t fight the thoughts of her family, her mum, or the tears that came with them. She could remember her life so well still. She could conjure up to recollections and almost, almost hear the voices of those she’d loved. The icy fog that sat between her last memory and waking up, still crystallized ...something... looming in the distant compartments of her subconscious. Something, slowly seeping through her with a lung-filling disquiet, that couldn’t reach her below the open stars.

The rest of the upper deck was littered with abandoned personal belongings, once cherished possessions, now meaningless clutter. A choking sadness gripped her whenever she passed through the living quarters, but it was worth it. Here, in the viewing chamber, below the realms of space, where she felt a little less alone.

Swathes of stars folded against the fabric of the universe, and staring into it, Amy sat. The possibilities in the systems log still rested heavily on her thoughts. She lay back on the floor, letting the vastness of everything, and nothing, wash over her.

---

It was the next day before she faced returning to the readout, dreading what she may find at the end of the steady stream of failures.

Her morning cup of gloop, pink again, somehow tasted the same hot or cold, yet something about eating it hot gave her a greater sense of satisfaction.

She took her time, digging her plastic spoon into the gelatinous substance, savoring each dollop as she put off the inevitable a little longer.

---

Auto-Reboot 1 … All Systems Failed

Systems Log: 08.03.2705

Systems Log: 07.03.2705

Amy twitched her knuckle, selecting the last systems log entry.

Letters flicked through the air as the projected readout opened the file. She had expected video, some form of captains log or recorded emergency message, not a floating wall of text.

The systems log mainly comprised of technical information, as meaningless to Amy as the trinkets sat where they were left in the living quarters. The systems all appeared, as far as she could tell, to have been functioning normally, nothing explained the ghost ship she woke up in.

There were a lot of notes in the section of the log dedicated to the external sensors, highlighted words illustrated where they had been added. With a level of control that resonated through her forefinger, Amy tried to view the annotations.

The soft tones of the disembodied voice that filled the control room wrenched through Amy’s heart. A lump, caught off guard, stuck in her throat as the choke of loneliness she had tried to ignore burst free.

“The external sensors indicate the Elka-Whales will pass by in just a few hours. The engines will cut at 19:00, and will sit dead ‘til they float by. Remote probes have been launched, and will document the passing of this latest shoal, triggering the auto-reboot system as soon as we’re clear.”

Absence rushed back as the recording ended, leaving Amy struggling for breath as tears slipped down her cheeks. She had to play the recording back twice more before the words permeated the rush of hearing a real voice.

The rest of the annotations didn’t go into much more detail. She gladly listened to them, the man’s voice quickly becoming a familiar comfort. There were some measurements, of what Amy could only gather must be speed, distance, size, although she struggled to work out which was which. From what he said about the Elka-Whales, there had been a group of the creatures, easing their way through open space towards the ship.

It was towards the end of the systems log she found a section relating to the passageway, the one she hadn’t dared to go back to. A thought had niggled at the back of her mind, ‘they might not all be like that… you weren’t…’ but the memory of that face, staring back at her, always won out.

It was just one sentence, but listening to the notes linked to it, it was the most she’d found so far.

”The passenger vote determined the Cryo-Crew Encapsulation Passage will maintain backup power during the passing. Although this poses a slim risk, it had been determined the more viable option.”

Amy nearly cut the recording with shock, unable to fully stop the urge to draw her hands towards her chest.

Cryo-Crew…

Nothing about the phrase seemed familiar. In that moment, the impact of her extreme situation finally cracked inside her.

Amy was not a woman easily broken, she had survived more than she cared to remember, and had never given up. The urge had, at times, bubbled up inside her, but she had always pulled through.

It took all the effort she could muster to remain still, and keep the log up on the projected readout. She only needed to keep her hands steady, but, she was fighting to hold back a crushing tide. The moment she relaxed her control in a single muscle, it would all slip away from her.

The words swirled now, and struggling to bring them together into sentences in her mind, she jabbed at a highlighted annotation.

“While the ship will be powered down, the transportation crew and passengers have opted to converge in the Aurora Gallery and watch the passing of the Elka-Whales. The remote probes will maintain a connection to the manual control deck, triggering the auto-reboot to bring the ship back online. In accordance with the Responsible Colonization Act of 2654, we have taken reasonable steps to prevent disturbing the migration.”

Hearing the voice casually refer to the year 2654 pushed Amy further than she could handle in that moment.

There was no going back to the life she remembered.

She dropped to the floor, ignoring the whoosh of the readout, as she inadvertently navigated to another part of the system. She didn’t take in where it settled, as it spun through menus and options, unable to process another wall of text.

She slept there that night, on the floor of the manual control room, not wanting to summon the energy to move.

---

Amy didn’t use the computer after that. She couldn’t. Even chatting to the inanimate Olivia seemed hollow, in a room where she had heard the voice of another.

After that, she spent her days wearing the air-conversion mask, exploring the living quarters, still lit by pale emergency lighting. There was an unexpected solace in the echoes of things people had cared about. She began to find a sense of affinity, in the forgotten objects, equally taken there, equally left behind.

She found she happily lost track of the days, letting them run into weeks. Not caring to check the clock as she chose when to eat, to sleep. Time worn by on her, and she became familiar with each thing left behind, she gave new meaning to the objects, feeling as though they almost welcomed it.

---

Exploring the deeper depths of the ship, Amy found the main engine room. Huge fluted, metal cylinders sparkled, suspended in mesh cages. Walkways webbed the spaces between platforms, stopping above each silver tube.

She threaded her way between ramps and stairs rising from the floor. In the center of the room stood a manual control platform, four corners giving the impression of a square, surfaces jeweled with colored buttons.

Below the great, silent engines, stood between the master control units, Amy found a glass panel, sunk into the floor.

Suckered to the panel, a removable handle had been attached, and turning the lever, Amy lifted the glass away.

Four keys sat, turned in their locks. The large red slider had been pulled down from AUTO to OFF.

Capitalized black lettering snaked around the hazard banding skirting the switch.

MASTER POWER CONTROL - KEYS MUST BE TURNED IN UNISON - WARNING MANUAL OVERDRIVE WILL PREVENT ALL AUTOMATIC FUNCTIONS

Amy stared at the text. It seemed like it was too obvious, that this was all that was preventing the auto-reboot.

She reached for the slider, about to move it, when she stopped.

Four keys had all been turned at once. Deliberately.

There had been nothing in what she had got through of the log that mentioned the chance of this.

Amy turned it over in her mind, a sickening sensation grabbing her stomach at the possibility of trying to listen to more annotations. A part of her had longed to hear the dulcet voice again, regardless of the words, but the things he said, they conflicted so greatly with the reality Amy knew, everything about her life that she remembered, it was too much for her to face.

She knew she could return to the comfort of the things she had claimed, the open space of the viewing gallery, and forget about this. Couldn’t she…

The more she thought about it, the more the sinking grew inside her. She couldn’t waste away her days, reduced to a ghost on a ghost ship, knowing this was here.

Biting her lip, she didn’t give herself the opportunity to hesitate any longer. Seizing the slider, she pulled it back to AUTO, watching the dull grey letters light up as the system registered the command.

Nothing happened. The silence remained undisturbed.

For a moment.

The deafening hum of the engines beginning to spin shook the very metal of the room, each bar of the walkway humming as it vibrated.

Had Amy thought a little more before returning the power to the automatic systems, she may have thought about the room roaring into life, and noticed the ear-defender signs.

Her hands pressed to her head moments too late, and her eardrums rung with the death-throes of notes that would be forever lost to her.

---

As Amy made her way back to the upper decks, the soft whisper of an air current brushed by. Removing the conversion mask, she felt liberated as she walked the illuminated, air-conditioned corridors.

Her ears still screamed with the echo of damage done, but as she entered the living quarters, she ceased to notice it, distracted by the soft flicker of scenery over the walls.

Fields, distant trees, swayed with the same breeze she felt on her skin. For a moment, she had an engulfing flash of memories of the life she had had; stood in a meadow, walking through the tall grass.

Small rectangles broke the display, cursive text sat in digitized gold frames, pulling her from reminiscing. She drew closer to the nearest one, focusing to make out the elaborate lettering.

‘The best of man, goes to Asca Faltan.’

Something churned in her stomach, and she dashed to the next framed message.

‘Purchase your Cryo-Crew, to do the work for you’

The sensation rose up her throat, and unable to fight it, Amy splurted the ill-chosen green slop from her recent breakfast, barely noticing the marbled effect of the floor it sprayed over.

She hadn’t wanted to know.

She could tell by the off-hand way the annotated notes had referred to the ‘Cryo-Crew’ that she didn’t want to know. She had actively avoided finding out for as long as she could.

She felt then the bursting of the bubble in her mind, a memory, repressed since she woke. A fragmented impression of opting into a cryogenic preservation plan.

She had no way to reconcile the betrayal she felt.

---

Amy teetered on the edge, aware she was eating too little, sleeping too much. Her will was gone, she knew the ship was moving now, but couldn’t bring herself to make the effort to check any of the systems.

---

A sharp ping woke Amy, cutting through her slumber with a harsh, familiar crack. Followed by the voice.

“All transportation crew please report to the manual control deck”

She lay there, in the luxury passenger bed, not wanting to respond to the command, knowing she wouldn’t be able to escape the nag of wonder until she did.

---

… External Sensors: Long Range Alert …

The dread in Amy weighed in her fingers, as operating the theremin-like controls, she opened the alert.

… Incoming motion detected …

The display rushed towards a visual feed. Portrayed in green pixels, she was able to make out the shapes of large creatures, drifting through space in a synchronized shoal.

A current of curiosity, forgotten in her hopelessness, rushed through her, and seizing it, she painstakingly found her way back to the system logs. She barely noticed the hours it took before she reached the screen she had stumbled on weeks earlier.

She scanned through the records, a different sense of purpose allowing her a degree of detachment.

There was nothing. It ended saying all checks had been completed, and all backup systems had returned operational.

She had no way of knowing what had happened to the crew, the passengers, nor what happened to the other cryo-chambers. Whatever it was, must have happened after the ship had powered down, something the system hadn’t been able to record.

Amy didn’t get long to consider what she should do when the alert came up again. As it did, she realized, she had been left no choice.

… External Sensors: Short Range Alert …

The message opened itself, too important to risk being ignored.

… Incoming motion detected … Identification complete: Elka-Whale … Auto-response sequence activated … Probes launched … Switching to emergency power in 5 … 4 …

Amy didn’t wait. She knew where she wanted to be when the Elka-Whales passed. Where everyone had wanted to be; the viewing gallery.

She barely registered the living quarters, alive with the imagery of nature in motion, as she rushed through.

The doors, which seemed so large from the outside, were dwarfed as they opened into the vast chamber. Curved glass stretched from the floor to the wall, sweeping over the ceiling to form the infinity viewing window.

It was a sight that had welcomed Amy many times, yet still raised the hairs up her neck; the clarity in the expanse of space.

Dark shadows already moved towards the ship, gradually obscuring wider swathes of stars as they grew closer.

She stood, in awe of the colossal creatures. Their elegant, streamlined shape akin to a whale, with a smooth tip in place of a tail fin. Although their bodies, entirely in shadow, had no discernible features, Amy sensed the darker depths of their eyes, huge holes in the nothingness.

She felt, the weight of their gaze, and with it, an intensity of connection.

As they drew closer, blocking out most of the stars in their advance, waves of energy emanated from the Elka-Whales, crashing through Amy.

The empty fathoms of space rang in her soul, filling her with the everything of nothing. She felt, as they felt, the wider current, the threads that ran deeper in cause and effect. She saw, as they saw, the birth and death of stars, of systems, of galaxies. The ballet of eons flashing by in an instant. She saw the rise, the flame and gutter of species, of life in endless forms, and she felt them, the Elka-Whales, there, between it all.

And as she knew them, they knew her. She felt them touch her memories, the crevices of her mind, the hollows in her heart. They saw her for who she really was, from her darkest intentions, her worst moments, to the very best, the moments she had overlooked, times she had shone as herself.

Sweeping over the ship, the Elka-Whales held her, weighing her in their gaze, and knowing her; they let her go.

She felt their pull over her, the strength of their power over the fabric of the universe, and knew they chose to pass her by.

As their shadows drifted away, the stars returning in their wake, and Amy knew why she had awoken to a ghost ship.

A sense of relief washed over her at the realization that mankind would not go unshepherded into the great unknown, their sprawling selfish advance, would not be unchecked. The responsibility did not rest on her shoulders, for a greater being had intervened.

The despair at her situation, the anger at those who brought her on this voyage - to sell her, slipped away from her. She had been judged, and found worthy, where they had not.

Everything and nothing awaited, and there, alone, she would go.

I have been off form for such a long time on my writing, but had the same kick of satisfaction I used to get with this one <3 - that traced out feeling of trying to record a movie in the mind. So it may not be amazing, or back where I was, but I enjoyed it so very much, it was a pleasure to imagine and write!

This is my entry to @tygertyger's contet - #electricdreams - you can find all the details on the original post. this is a great contest, the prompts are so out there, and so much fun to run with!

Original Artwork By Me - this is the cereal bowl I painted last birthday from part of my deep space set, this is the only item so far to feature the space whales

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_{Thank you to @svashta for his tireless editing, and @gaby-crb for giving her opinion in on what she'd take certain sentences out-of-context to mean, and @dirge, if you do come across this, and have chance to give me any notes, it would be greatly appreciated (I do feel like the computer readouts are a cheap trick, but it was a fun thing to incorporate, and the tenses may need evaluating, but yeah, I would be really grateful if you have any tips/pointers on this one)}

Love, sparkle, and endless adventures ~ Calluna