Endless

Originally Written 5/30/2020

The universe was vast and endless, stretching out beyond eternity and into the great beyond of time. Stars scattered the darkness, piercing light from millions of miles away. Quasars and Black holes screamed and whirled around as pale, waifish Besamie floating through it all. Her eyes had gone blank in the decades she had spent floating through the endless void of the universe. Her hair had grown long and drifted behind her like a long, sad, red train from a stood-up woman on her wedding day. She wore nothing but her star touched skin and resembled Godiva. But instead of a horse, she rode the waves of space. Endlessly drifting. 

Besamie felt endless and constant pain in her chest. A hollow feeling that sunk deep into the pit of her stomach and settled there like acidic molasses, refusing to be removed by any sort of scrubbing. She often felt weak and little tears would pour from her eyes but none of that had to do with her predicament of floating through the void without protection, without air, without hope, without anything but the eternal feeling of gut stabbing pain and fear that ripped through her every day. 

“Please, let me find someone, anyone to love. I’ve been out here for such a long, long time. I’m not who I was when I left home. But now I’m coming home, please bring me home.” 

She had no control over how fast she moved. Space merely moved her through the universe by the momentum from which she’d been launched at. She had yet to hit anything. So she waited and prayed every chance she had. Willing to fall, to collapse into someone. She grew more hollow the longer she floated. A great hunger took her over for more than just love, for something of substance. How long had she gone without breath or food? She couldn’t remember.

And then as though by her prayers and desperation, a small, blue, and green marble shined ahead with things that orbited it beyond its moon. Her eyes widened and with great effort, she practically willed herself into the hood of a space shuttle.

The astronaut within stared with wide eyes and wonder at the naked woman that had just slammed into the clear, tempered, aluminosilicate glass. His uniform read on the front “R. Gorish” He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes as he stood there staring inside the shuttle. He just stared his mouth agape in a small ‘O’, his green eyes wide with wonder and fear to them. He ran his hand through his short chestnut hair and looked away to think. Perhaps he was hallucinating, away from Earth, and alone. But he couldn’t argue the thump, thump, thump against the glass as the pale, white-eyed woman gently knocked and seemed to mouth;

“Hello?” A cant to her head as though she was completely at a loss for why he didn’t reply.

Gorish shook his head and walked toward the glass, pressing his hand against where hers laid on the other side, he stared in astonishment, and though he was tempted his eyes didn’t stray to her soft, curved, exposed form. He gestured with his thumb toward the airlock.

Besamie nodded and a smile crept across her lips as she slowly slid out of his view. She grasped the various nodes and clutches along the craft until she came to the hatch he had indicated. For a moment she waited, staring hopefully and with an edge of excitement at the mechanism before her. Suddenly pressure released in a gust of wind being let out as it opened and she grabbed and pulled her way inside. It closed after her and without warning her feet touched a surface for the first time since she had started drifting. For what felt like an endless amount of time.

R. Gorish watched through the small window as the girl, or whatever she was, fell to the shuttle floor and watched as the pressurization equalized and she took a breath. She gulped it down like she had held it for as long as time itself and she smiled up at him. Gorish wondered if perhaps he’d just found an alien species and was now breaking protocols for first contact. He felt sweat start to pool in his temples from the thought. He felt his gut scream at him to close the door but his heart tugged at him to help her.

Gorish was slacked-jawed and at a loss for what to do. A pale goddess from the galaxy had just landed in his airlock. He thought about what to do before his eyes looked at her form again and he couldn’t resist the pull in his chest to do something. He grabbed a dark green blanket off a shelf and opened the door to step inside, kneeling down beside Besamie. His hair was currently disheveled and his bright green eyes looked worriedly down at the gossamer femme that had came upon his ship. He threw the blanket around her naked, human shoulders and watched as she took breath after breath and smiled up at him. 

Her white gaze seemed to penetrate his and she smiled. She spoke in a gentle voice, but one that was worn from having not been used for quite a long time.

“Hello” her eyes flicked down to his name tag and she smiled wider with joy in her face. Which lit up like the sun itself that burned in the background. “R. Gorish. I’m Besamie… I’ve been waiting a very long time for you.”

Gorish stared at her with disbelief, but her voice was like a sweet, old song playing on a record. He said in a voice that also had not been used for some time;

“Roger. My name is Roger,” It was the first thing that came to his mind, his brows raised “Where did… Where did you come from?” He asked in a voice full of shock, his jaw slightly agape as he held the blanket over her.

Besamie smiled and laughed softly. She cleared her throat and spoke mysteriously;

“I came from out there. My name is Besamie. Do you have any water?” She added hopefully, her voice cracking.

Roger stared and nodded “Yes.” He answered and gently helped her up. He had so many questions and as she clung to him with all her might, he reasoned he would have many more before this was through.

As he led her to the small kitchenette that was in the back of his shuttle, she clung to him and walked with awkward and pitiful steps. Her stomach rumbled and Roger knitted his brows and looked down at her;

“Are you also hungry?” His voice shook a little, still feeling rattled from what was happening. 

“Yes, but that can wait. Please Roger, water.” Is all she said weakly before she collapsed in his arms like a swooning woman and had to be practically carried the rest of the way. Roger didn’t ask any other questions though, he just held her and for some reason, he felt a compulsion to protect her. A compulsion that Besamie was counting on as she smiled a wicked grin into the arm her face was pressed into.