Practice #4: An Unwelcome Awakening

Nick awoke from his slumber feeling a gentle tickle. A sudden surge of adrenaline shocked him awake as his brain registered that there was something on his face. Panicked, he quickly swiped his hand across his cheek and felt his hand hit something small. Whatever it was was promptly flung off the side of his bunk into the adjacent walkway. He scrambled to sit up in his bunk, arms and legs flailing.

"Lights on!" he shouted.

The room filled with bright light, blinding him momentarily. As his eyes adjusted to the light he began to scan the room, searching for whatever had been on his face moments before.

All he saw was the grey metal walls of his quarters. The room was barely tall enough to stand in, and the floor space beyond his bunk was little more than a walkway. Opposite his bunk on the other side of this walkway was a tiny kitchenette, complete with a sink, microwave, and a single burner induction stove. To the left of the kitchenette there was a single seat booth that functioned as a dining table and a work desk. To the right was a locker that reached from floor to ceiling, its windows showing the cherry red exo-suit within. Both ends of the walkway terminated in bulkhead doors, both of which were currently open.

"Is something wrong, Captain?" the ship's AI asked, her voice robotic but concerned.

"Yeah, something's wrong," said Nick. "I just felt something crawling on my face."

"Would you like me to scan for lifeforms, Captain?" asked Yuko.

"Do it." said Nick, his eyes still scanning the tiny room for movement.

"Scanning..." said Yuko. A thin beam of blue light shone from a small black hemisphere embedded in the center of the ceiling. The sliver of light split into multiple beams, fanning out across the ceiling before sweeping down across every surface in the room. Similar lights shone in the cockpit and cargo hold beyond the bulkheads at each end of the walkway. Nick sat anxiously at the edge of his bunk, still on alert.

"Scan complete," said Yuko in a sing-song tone. "No anomalous lifeforms detected via visual and infrared scans. The only living beings on board are you and the Nimokian monkey held in the CACV at the back of the cargo hold."

"That's not possible, I know I felt something," said Nick, growing distraught. He was sure he had brushed something from his face. But Yuko's sensors couldn't have missed something that size, not when she could pick up lifeforms as small as a pinhead.

"I did not detect any other lifeforms," repeated Yuko. "Perhaps you are experiencing symptoms of deep space psychosis, Captain. It has been over three weeks since we left Nimoku."

"I am not crazy, Yuko!" Nick shouted at the sensor bulb in the ceiling. "There was something on my face! There has to be something else in here other than those damn monkeys!"

Nick paused as revelation washed over him.

"Say, Yuko?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"When you mentioned the monkeys earlier, why did you say 'monkey'?"

"Because the other monkey appears to have perished," the AI said matter-of-factly.

Nick sprang up from the bed and began stripping naked.

"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered as he removed the last of his clothes and stepped over to the exo-suit locker. "Yuko, set climate to maximum cooling and prepare to vent the cabin," he said as threw open the locker door and a flashlight from its holder inside.

"Yes, Captain."

Ice cold air began to blast from the vents as a series of clicks signaled the ship's preparations to open the cabin to the vacuum of space.

Nick fiddled with the flashlight for a moment, cycling through it's various modes before finally stopping when it lit up with a dim purple light. He then began donning the bright red exo-suit, carefully inspecting the interior of each piece with the flashlight before putting it on. After locking the helmet in place, Nick pressed a series of buttons on the wrist mounted controls, causing the suit to hiss briefly as it sealed and pressurized.

"Okay, Yuko, vent the cabin," commanded Nick. He heard a loud hiss through his helmet as the atmosphere was dumped from the ships interior. The sound faded away as the last bits of air escaped from the hull, leaving cabin completely silent.

Nick scanned the room with his flashlight and soon discovered what he was looking for. A white spot, about three centimeters in diameter, faded into existence on the window next to his bunk. When he passed over it with his flashlight it shone bright pink, fluorescing under the ultraviolet light.

He kneeled on his bunk to get a closer look at the spot. Looking closer, he saw it was an arachnid with ten eyes, two of which stuck out above the body on small stalks like a slug. The spider's legs had splayed out as the fluid inside had expanded as the pressure dropped, turning the spider into a tiny hot-pink wagon-wheel with no rim.

"I knew it, fucking chameleon spiders," Nick muttered to himself. A he stepped back from his bunk he scanned the rest of the cabin. He saw seventeen pink spots just like the first one before he stopped counting. He didn't care to know how many of the invisible bastards had actually hatched from the corpse of the Nimokian monkey in his cargo hold.

Nick pressed a button on his wrist. "Yuko, please add ultraviolet spectrum scans to the standard scan profile," he said as he moved towards the cockpit. "And set a course for the nearest station with exterminator services."

"Yes, Captain," Yuko replied through the suit radio.

As Nick settled into the pilot seat, he felt the ship bank to the right as it changed course. He yawned as the adrenaline finally started to wear off. He leaned the seat back, hoping he'd be able to catch some sleep on the way to the station. He thought back to his rude awakening earlier and shivered.

I fucking hate spiders.

Afterword

Original Prompt: Make the reader feel fear in ~750 words.

This story was fun to write, though it also gave me the heebie-jeebies. I'm not exactly an arachnophobe, but I think it's safe to say no one wants to be woken up by a spider crawling on their face. I know from first hand experience, as the initial events of this story actually did happen to me. Obviously, it left a lasting impression on me, and I hope that this story led you to feel at least a portion of the fear I did.

Overall, I think I did a pretty good job capturing the fear of the moment, though I'll let you be the judge of that.

Thanks for reading!