Abandoned 1-03

The next time I opened my eyes, the pounding had retreated to a more manageable level. It took me a couple of moans to get into a sitting position but I made it and, brushing my hair out of my eyes, I discovered that I had collapsed into my own blood pool. The stickiness of it was everywhere and I shuddered in disgust.

I looked around again. The comm was right where I had seen it last although it may as well have been yards and yards away for the amount of time it took me to crawl to it. I rested a moment when I finally picked it up -- the room was spinning again and I couldn't have read the screen anyway -- and as the sound of my breathing softened, I heard a |clang| from somewhere on the ship. I froze. The clang didn't repeat immediately and there were no other sounds so I took a much-needed breath, crawled to the hatch, and squinted up at the status screen. It had gone to black, which meant it had been at least half an hour since the intruders had left. Considering the stickiness of my blood on the floor, I figured it had to have been at least a couple hours. Unless they had been in and out more than once. That thought made me grimace -- if I had woken up while they were in here... But I hadn't and I was still alive so no sense in dwelling.

I brushed at the black screen and it came alive. Normally green was the predominant color of the display, but I was dismayed to see our systems status was very nearly solid red. I wavered to my knees to reach up and lock my hatch. If there was anyone still on the ship they could see the hatch had been locked on any status screen, but since I was in no shape to defend myself I could at least slow them down.

The screen cycled automatically to the next display, which was life support and biometrics. I checked for other survivors -- "No!" I gasped. According to the display, I was the only one alive on the ship! How could -- how was I -- what ... I couldn't get my thoughts straight. We were a tight crew, we would have died to protect each other... I shook my head and then I couldn't stop until I cried "NO" and pounded on the hatch loud enough to wake the dead.