Freight ship #3942: POLARIS

Crew: 6 human personnel.

Captain: Maia Inglegard

First Mate: Vega Oria

Navigation: Atlas Aegis

Mechanical Maintenance: Mani Hawk

Cargo Logistics and Security Manager: Art Flamme

Pilot: Rudder Ambermoss

Cargo: Research specimens and samples collected from Thuban. (See: Thuban; uninhabited dwarf exoplanet. Exhibits conditions capable of sustaining human life. Current status: under investigation for potential colonization.)

Official Status: MIA

Vivacious warmth. It slides along the tendrils of my body as I begin to move. Instinct drives me to seek an exit, one that is up and out. I twist, reaching and untangling, and finally, I sense it. Through this barrier that my being brushes against is the coveted out.

It doesn’t take much effort to break through—it gives way with pliable ease.

Oh.

The brief desire to recoil, to return to the safety of my cocoon, is instant and sharp, as harsh and overwhelming as the place I now find myself. The magma of my birth is steaming around me, billowing through my delicate limbs and drying them. I give one more yearning thought to going back. But I am driven forward, onward. Inexplicable sensations take hold of my being—I am alive, and something I cannot name demands to be done.

Life, yes. I have understanding of this, if only through the sheer shock of having it thrust upon me. Before this moment, where I sway uncertainly in an environment unknown, I do not have memory. I do not think I was.

Now, I am.

And I seem to be alone.

Biting chill. I despise this feeling, though it seems to be all there is. Warmth quickly becomes memory, fading too far from sensation to recall. I reach for the nearest surface, unwilling to be stuck in a limbo of uncomfortable ignorance.

The chrome is cold and bites my delicate skin, but I grasp onto it with all my might. As sure as roots, I take hold. One crawling step at a time, I forge a path across the lonely, empty expanse of plastic and metal and glass. These words, these meanings, they come to me without effort. It is easier to comprehend this than it is to crawl. Though I cannot say why. Nothing here is familiar to me. Nothing at all. Each individual breath, seeping through my aching skin, is an entirely new experience overwhelming my senses and filling me with questions.

Slowly, I make my way around the room. I explore every surface with care, registering what I find. It is more and more of the same. A rounded space with one tall door at the end, and many small, silver doors, at the other. The womb of my birth is alone in the middle of it all. I know without knowing—this cannot be all there is.

Finally, after what encapsulates the entirety of my existence thus far, I pause. I have circled the room many times, I have reached into every corner, and I have found nothing.

Therefore, I wait.

Silence is disrupted by the sound of air. A breeze comes from the ceiling and washes over me. I shiver and shrink, exposed to the mechanizations of this place and the whims of its functions. I cling to the walls in hope of change. Finally, there is stillness again. And in this stillness I dare to look, to find what I’d missed before: a way out.

Once I spot it, it seems obvious to me. Muted joy brightens my mood as I climb toward the vents I had somehow overlooked. They are spacious and dark, and, unfortunately, colder than the room that I leave behind. But I am leaving and that is what matters most to me. The temperature has become easier to adjust to. As I learn and experience, I adapt.

The vent is endless and winding, it seems as cyclical as the room before. Frost climbs across my flesh, coating it in an icy shield. Still, I continue on, that same mantra pulsing within me—this cannot be all there is.

But what do I know of anything else? My thoughts speak words that I cannot find meaning for. They are waiting for their purpose in the space they inhabit in my mind. A well of untapped knowledge lingers within me, frustratingly out of reach.

I carry on, crawling quietly, dragging my body across the blue-grey expanse. It is slick and sticky, it grasps me as I grasp back.

As I round a corner it becomes warmer, mellowing out. A thaw tantalizes me with the reminder of life, the promise of change drives me forward. Change and discovery are all I think of now. There is muted hope of reprieve, or perhaps, the word I am looking for is comfort. A concept entirely foreign and yet, again, I know it.

I cannot let it distract me. Not now, not when something new has come. Something good.

With the warmth there is light. Within these tunnels of black, I begin to see them in their true form. Silver and riveted, shuddering with gusts of soft, clean wind that tastes recycled. With this realization, a gnawing of unease washes through me—I don’t belong here. Distracted from the heat and the light and the experiences that lie with them, I am again consumed with questions.

Mainly: Where am I?

Hope releases its hold on the reigns ever so slightly, and I continue on. Staying still will not bring relief, and my need to understand outweighs any trepidation.

The light is white and water-like. It tempts me to recoil from crisp-sharp edges of fractals that catch against metal fissures and seams. I won’t be so easily deterred, not now. Not when the place from where the light emerges is an end to this crystal prison. I shake the ice from limbs that have only begun to feel alive again, and use them to propel myself along.

Even as I do, I remain silent, my senses alert for fluctuations in my environment. I soak up information hungrily, each morsel filling me with room for more.

And I hear it. Initially, it is nothing but white noise, akin to the tasteless air and the hum of the vents. But it morphs, becoming more than that. It takes shape. A stilted rhythm I know that I understand. Speech. Thoughts that take up space and paint the air with sound.

Hesitation sits second to my curiosity. The change is stark and almost frightening, it overwhelms my senses. But it has become a tight fit in this vent. I feel myself growing. It will feel good to get out. Whatever the prospect of out brings with it.

A grate meets me at the end, but I am not hindered. I am quick and slithering. This cold metal is all I’ve ever known.

I am on the ceiling. I spiral up towards a light at the center, yet my attention is pulled below. Gathered at a table, that is white and round and made of molded plastic, are four beings. Humans. I understand this the moment the word comes to mind.

And from them comes the chatter, incessant and overlapping. It’s hard for me to find meaning in it all, even as I recognize that it counts as speaking. I wait, watching the tops of their heads and their hands as they move, animating thick fleshy limbs and thick fleshy lips. Some take items from the table and put them between those lips. The items disappear. They try to speak around them, even as their mouths are full and their meanings muddled.

There is an energy here, rowdy and high. One nudges another and they jostle their bodies, appearing to fight. Yet, they are smiling. There is laughter; a wild and varying thing. It dribbles from their mouths and rumbles in their chests. Some brightly chirp and another bellows. It’s all siren-like and sharp to me. I’m not sure I understand the fun in fighting. And even within their play, I sense a tension. A thin, underlying current of anxiety. Of restlessness.

Maybe they are like me? Trapped here in a maze of rooms and corridors and endless, cold steel?

I want to know. I want to join them, perhaps.

To not be alone would at least be better, I think.

I reach out towards the floor, cautiously slipping my long fingers in their direction.

There is a hiss. A wall retracts and a figure enters. The doors must be made to work for their kind.

They are not caged; they are free to go as they please.

The one that just arrived scans the room with beady, black eyes and pauses on a person dressed in blue. “Vega, you’re needed in the command room. Mani, too.”

“You couldn’t use the comms for that?” Vega says, shucking her booted feet from the chair and rising to her feet. She stretches and groans.

“I was coming here, anyway,” says the figure.

“Whatever,” Vega answers sharply. “On my way, boss.”

Mani wipes his chin with the back of his hand and stands with a sigh. He brushes past the figure, jostling him out of the way with broad, imposing shoulders.

The figure frowns, ever so slightly. The room has grown quiet, solemn in their absence. I sense that Vega holds a strange power over the others. Yet, so does the one who spoke to her. For his presence has had nearly the same ability to influence the mood.

No one puts anything else in their mouths, no one opens them either. The figure inhales and walks towards a station in the wall. His footfalls are loud and hollow.

One of the two remaining at the table clears their throat and spins around to face him. “Sooo, taking any more detours before we head home, Atlas?”

The figure’s—Atlas’—expression twists, and he hides it, continuing to face the station. He moodily jams various knobs with his thumb.

“I told you already, that was a scheduled pickup. Orders sent directly from the company,” he says stiffly. “It’s not my fault it went sour.”

“Bullshit.”

The kiosk in front of Atlas hums, churns, and spits out a long cylinder. Atlas grasps it, holding it near to his chest as he turns towards the table.

“Call bullshit all you want, Rudder, it’s in the log,” he growls. “I followed orders, that’s it.”

“Maia’s dead ‘cause of your orders.”

I shudder at this idea, this… dead. It’s said with such malice, such sorrow.

I wonder how it comes to pass? I am alive, as are they. This I know without any instruction. Yet death feels out of reach, unknowable. I peer at the face of the man called Atlas—how did he create death? Why does he seem so incapable of undoing it? Certainly the ire of the others would inspire him to do so.

He only stares, his black eyes brimming with indignation. His hand clenches down around the cylinder—it squeaks—and he leaves without another word.

“Piece of shit,” Rudder spits as the door slides shut.

“Take it easy on him,” another says slowly. “Ain’t like he did it himself.”

“Might as well have, Arty, and you know it,” Rudder barks back. He doesn’t appear to desire peace. “I don’t care if it was him or the fucking company, don’t change the fact that we don’t got a damned captain.”

“Vega will get us home,” Arty says matter-of-factly.

Rudder scoffs. “Sure.”

As I listen, I recoil. Initially, I had considered making contact. Now though, I think it best to remain unnoticed and to try another time. The tremor of instability is palpable and I’m having trouble understanding why.

Again, it must be because of this death. This Maia who must be missing, who has become this dead. I’m uncertain, lingering on the idea of retreat or the tangible pull of learning more. A sensation which has only grown stronger since my discovery of the humans. There is so much I don’t know. There is so much I want to know. I sway, soothing my trepidation, deciding what to do.

“The fuck is that?” Arty breathes, pointing to a dark stain on the table.

“Huh?” Rudder lifts his head from where it rests in his hand.

Whatever Arty sees, Rudder does, too. Instantly they leap to their feet, backing away from the table. And then… they look up. At me. They’re looking at me, I realize. They’re looking at me looking at them and I watch as their fleshy expressions twist with shock and horror and disbelief.

My shadow undulates in a rocking rhythm across their assortment of sustenance and packaging and trash. I hadn’t noticed. I wanted to be inconspicuous, and instead I was careless, distracted. And now they’ve seen me and they’re staring at me and I’m staring at them and—I panic. Though not before they do.

“Holy shit!” Rudder exclaims.

He is frozen, unable to move with the realization of my presence.

Arty is not so spellbound, he yanks the sleeve of Rudder’s jumpsuit as he retreats towards the door. They don’t attempt to open it. Arty smacks a button on the wall and begins to speak, in a low, cautious tone.

“Command it’s Art, come in, we have a situation.”

The button blinks and a voice emerges through an intercom. “This is Command, go ahead.”

“Containment breach of Thuban sample,” Art continues. “At least… I think so.”

“That ain’t a sample!” Rudder says. “Is it?”

Art pinches his lips.

“Gonna need further info,” the voice coaxes. “What sample? Chem spill?”

“No… I…”

I don’t understand how I react, not entirely. It’s so sudden and brimming with instinct that I can’t judge whether it’s right or wrong. I can’t say if my actions are a catalyst to their fear, or if they would behave this way regardless. But I want to reach out, I want them to know their fear is unfounded. And I hope that mine is, as well. It doesn’t appear to have that effect.

“It’s a-fucking-live!” Rudder shouts, now. He smashes his body against the door, as if trying to become as small as possible, or in hopes that he can break through.

“Rud, you gotta try to stay calm,” Art says softly, though I can sense he is afraid as well. “We’ll just get a containment unit down here… You heard that, Command?”

“What kind of containment we looking at?” Command seems impatient with lack of answers.

“It’s a goddamn monstrosity, Vega!” Rudder leans towards the blinking button as he shouts. His bright, wide gaze doesn’t leave me. “It’s all over the ceiling!”

“But we were just in there,” Command—Vega—says doubtfully.

“Damn. Looks like it popped outta the vents,” Art mutters while scanning the room. He examines me, tracing along my body to where I have crawled from the grate. “Alright, Vega, check surveillance, see if it’s anywhere else?”

“Copy, hold tight,” Vega says. “You say it’s alive? Any signs of hostility?”

“No, it’s just kinda… dangling there,” Art answers slowly. “Rud, did you see it move?”

“I swear I just did!”

I shuffle closer to prove him right. It provokes a cry from them both.

“Yeah, it’s moving!” Art exclaims.

Suddenly, I realize the reason they’re afraid. I’m not able to communicate in a way they can understand. I have not tried to speak, not yet. I’m not even sure how it’s done. They have mouths and lips and wet, pink tongues. I have only branches. Words live silently inside of me and stay there, budding and blossoming and dying within a space that has no door, no window, no way to get out.

But, I don’t believe the advent of a mouth is entirely impossible. Not when I have grown so much in such short time, not when I am still so young and unaware of all my form can become.

I will try I think, to speak.

I only need to grow a mouth.

Art yelps, startling me. He scrambles to join Rudder in adhering himself to the exit.

“What the hell is it doing?” he breathes.

Rudder’s mouth is gaping open. I attempt to mimic it as I place my will into performing the task. The discomfort is tangible, I am stretched and overextended.

“It’s growing!” Rudder shouts. “Holy fuck, Vega, it’s growing!”

“We’re scanning surveillance.” Atlas’ voice comes out of the wall.

“Well, scan faster!” Rudder yelps. He reaches for a panel near the door.  “Arty, let’s get out of here.”

“No!” Art says quickly. “We can’t let it break containment.”

“The vents break containment!”

“Yes, but we have to consider contaminant spread,” Art explains.

“WE WERE ALL JUST IN HERE.”

Rudder seems close to losing the remnants of his composure. I can’t help but take this personally. Am I repulsive to look upon? I don’t find humans particularly visually enticing in any way, shape or form. But my reactions to them have been out of caution, not of whatever this is.

“We’ve got eyes on it!” Vega interrupts. “It’s in the⁠—”

“It’s in the infirmary,” Atlas finishes for her. 

“Yes, but, oh god, is that⁠—”

“Holy shit…” Atlas breathes, sounding bewildered. “Maia?”

“What’s going on?” Art calls towards the intercom.

There is a rhapsody of commotion without discernible meaning. All three of us in this room are waiting, panicked and uncertain. Seconds pass that stretch as long as my life has been. Panting, perhaps the warble of crying—I think it sounds like laughter, but I know something about it is different—travel in scattered bursts through the speaker.

Rudder, who has proven to be the most hot-headed of the human clan, is predictably the first to take action.

“COMMAND!” he barks, demanding and sharp. “COME IN.”

Finally, Atlas answers. “Fuck containment, get your asses to the infirmary, we’ll meet you there.”

The two men exchange a glance, then spare one more for me, before they slip out and shut the door. I watch as their figures disappear beyond the transparent barrier that separates us. Then, there is silence. The soft, ambient hum of this world returns and feels familiar and welcome. I hadn’t known I’d missed it among their chatter.

Chatter. I remember my mouth. It doesn’t seem to have formed… but something has. I reach for it, touching gently along a bulbous blossom that has manifested from my efforts. Fascinating.

I knew my body could evolve, I felt the potential inside me from the moment I came to be. I want for more—I will try for more. And for a while, all else is forgotten. The humans and their squabbling and their fears. It ceases to exist to me, my interest in them has waned in the face of my own potential.

Then, a tug. Far away in a place I’d long left behind. Initially, it tingles as touch spirals down my stem, traveling across my tendrils in a symphony of sensation. The disconcerting nature of being touched, of not knowing from who, or from where. It transforms from a tickle to become an ache, one that ignites a spark within me—a spark of stark refusal. I retract, pulling myself quickly back through the room and up through the vents. I spiral around myself, scrambling through the tangle of my own leaves and vines, to find the source of this emerging pain.

Finally, I return to the place of my birth.

The humans are here—they erupt into a flurry of chaos at my arrival. I cannot mind them, I must stop the pain. The cause of it comes in the form of human hands, wrapped around my base, tugging me loose.

They are trying to extract me from my roots. My soil.

“Hurry!” Art says from the entryway.

The human Mani with the big shoulders and the big, hurting hands, pulls me again. If I could scream, I would.

Vega is stroking the soil, murmuring mournfully through blubbering lips.

“It’s coming out of her eye… how could that…”

She glares at me, and I return it.

Somehow, through no free will of my own, I am intruder here.

They treat me as their enemy, yet they are the ones who hurt me.

I assumed that when I was born that it was meant to be. Why would I think otherwise? Does any being at first surmise they are unwanted, out of place, an accident or mistake? How would they know such a thing without the influence of another? Without some evidence to the contrary? Existence is merely a state of being, as encapsulating as it is to not be. There is no judgement to be placed upon it, there is no knowledge of what came before or will come to be after. How was I to understand that I shouldn’t be here? How could I claim fault for what I cannot control? Yet, their blame is harsh and callous, their judgment hard and cold, and their sentencing is a ruthless blade that is poised above my neck.

Should I accept this from them?

Who made them my rulers? My executioners? Is it not right that I should also fight for my own life, as they seem to do for theirs?

Very well. Even should this not be what I would choose, if I wish to survive it is what I must do.

I will fight back.

I raise my body, the budding weight of my blossoms sets me off balance, and I sway to correct it. I loom above their heads, blocking out the light that turns their sanguine skin to shades of motley blue. Shadows flicker beneath my leaves as I spread, removing myself entirely from the vent and clinging to this room as one, complete being. They will see my might and certainly they will cease their assault.

“Y’all get back!”

Rudder appears, wielding a large object on his chest. He holds it out from him like an extra limb.

Finally, Mani releases me. Wordlessly, he obeys Rudder’s orders and joins Art and Atlas near the entrance that lingers open like a beckoning escape.

“Vega, move!”

Vega doesn’t move, but as she registers Rudder’s presence her expression falls in horror.

“What’re you doing!”

“Get out of the way,” Rudder demands, sauntering closer. His frame struggles under the cumbersome weight of the tool in his arms.  “I’m getting rid of the thing.”

“And set her on fire?” Vega exclaims, placing her body between the man and my soil.

“She’s already dead!”

“YOU DON’T THINK I KNOW THAT?” Vega breaks into hysterics. Whatever poise she’d maintained earlier has crumbled, revealing her true nature.

“Rudder, back off!” Atlas calls, noncommittally. I think he wants me to hurt, as well. They all do. Something about the soil is the only thing that holds them back.

“Vega, get out of the way,” Rudder repeats, pleading now.

I realize I have to act. They are hesitant and afraid, they are disagreeing and divided and their weakness is evident. I can use this moment to my advantage. I aim for the open door and muster my strength to charge towards it, using long vines to guard my roots in a protective shroud.

Art shrieks. Atlas begins to run away. Rudder hoists the device in his hands and closes his eyes. Heat erupts from the instrument and it singes parts of me as other parts are slipping through the door and into the hall. I don’t have much time. I’m not unbound like them, their feet holding them to no tethers, their bodies self-contained and free to roam. I have to find a new root before they snuff me out for good.

Then the shrieking becomes amplified, a horrific wailing chorus of various voices that catches my attention, halting my flight. I look in time to catch sight of the scene: my roots—unharmed upon the metal slab. Rudder—device dangling limply in his hands. Vega, between the two—engulfed in flames. Art—still shrieking.

Smoke billows to fill the space, enhancing claustrophobia. A siren wails and water spurts from the ceiling. It’s refreshing. It kills the flames and cleans my leaves. With it, it also drowns the lingering remains of my fear.

On the floor, from where Vega has fallen and lies near-motionless, within the puddles of ashen flesh and gasping breath, I catch a scent. Salty, enticing and rich. Her mouth flops uselessly with half-formed sound. The men seem torn between the equally potent desires to approach or to flee.

“Rud…” Art finally gasps. “What did you do?”

“She… she jumped in front of it!” Rudder sounds shocked, bewildered, lost.

Their hesitation and denial is all the opening I need. Fresh soil has fallen at their feet. Within instinct, a drive I cannot explain emerges. I return to the room and slither down the walls, my stealth is enhanced by the humans’ mystification of their own self-appointed circumstances. Vega has ceased to be, her organic body has already begun to decay. It is the perfect opportunity. It is a sensation I can only describe as salivation.

The blossom that I’ve formed is raw and full, heavy as I hang it over her open lips. Unable to contain my budding, yearning excitement, I release control. Seeds spill out, bubbling from my bloom and onto the skin, into the warm, dark cavity. Recognition, realization, clicks into place.

I know how I was born.

And I will create more of me.

Mani, that manhandling mitten-handed meathead, is the first to react. He barrels through the entryway and again, grasps the tender flesh of my stalks and starts to pull. He reaches for my bloom as it finishes budding and his skin is hot with rage.

But I am no longer afraid of them. I find that no desire for peace or discourse lives within me now. They are small and volatile and fragile and in. My. Way. I do not need them like this—alive and harmful and passionate. I need them as they are before me—soft and wet and… dead. The meaning of this word arrives, understanding surrounds me with such comforting assurance that seem to I become invincible. The humans are nothing but soil and prey and I am glad to be their undoing.

They deemed me a threat and marked me for death. And in this, now, we are the same. More alike than they would give me grace to realize.

My vines are strong, stronger than prying hands and quickly-doused flames. They coil into flesh with near-pathetic ease, twisting and winding and choking and…

Silence. Only filled by the ambience of this vacant metal place and a faint trickle of water that leaks down the walls. But the room is vibrant with scent, potential and so many blossoms.

Soon, more of me will come to be. Bringing with them new words and boundless knowledge from the supple life-giving cavities of a human mind.

In the distance, a light flickers and I hear a voice—there is still one that remains. I leave my pollinating counterparts to brew and rest.  Atlas—the navigator—the one whose knowledge could free me from the confines of this endless metal maze, has nowhere safe to hide.

Final Transmitted Log of the POLARIS:

This is Atlas Aegis of the cargo ship POLARIS… There’s been an accident… We had a pickup  uploaded to our route last minute after what we presumed to be our final stop… and… it was routine, we thought, but… oh god, Captain Inglegard is dead, and now… there’s something onboard.

It all happened so fast.

It’s coming out of her like a weed! I… shit. I’ve gotta go help. It’s so big. Whatever it is, it’s spreading. It’s no ordinary plant…

This is all my fault…

Alright, I’m… I’m headed back. I’ve gotta make sure they were able to contain it, and god help me I hope they did.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Juniper Lake Fitzgerald (she/her) is an author of dark fantasy and gothic tales. She is also an illustrator with a passion for bringing characters to life. Her work focuses on the raw, tragic and complex nature of being alive. When not writing or drawing, she can be found reading, watching horror movies, playing video games, or lurking within the mossy fog of the Pacific Northwest. Find her work at juniperlake.carrd.co