The Thing in the vents that eats people

1

I've always known I'd survive.
I just didn't ever want to. My first memory is my parent's voices, soft in my mind.
Go on. Survive. You are a strong one. I was terrified. And so cold. Always so cold and hungry. Every movement hurt. And I didn't know what to do without them.
Then my mothers came. They weren't my species. They didn't look like me. But they cared for me. They taught me how to live, how to survive. They were supposed to study us. Just collect data. That's all. But they knew I was dying. And I wanted to trust. I wanted to have hope. I wanted to have a family again. So I believed them again. I'm so very old compared to them. But I'm so very very young. I get scared of the dark still. And I don't like being alone.
And so my new mothers told me, they told me that I was strong. And I was brave. They told it to me so that it would be true. It's not. I'm not brave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid so much.
This time I wanted to die. When the bad things came, I hoped they would get me first so that I wouldn't have to feel anymore.
"You have to go," my mother, wrapping her jacket around me.
"No, no, no, I'm not ready, I can't do it—they'll kill me, just let me stay here," I knew she was dying. She'd die quicker without me to care for the wounds. I was okay. I wanted to die like this.
"They won't, take the jacket, they will not know, please?" She kissed my face again, "Go on and live. You can get away. So do it. Go."
And so I was as usual left with the insurmountable weight of my own steady mortality. I can, of course survive. I always can. But that doesn't mean I want to.
We all knew the escape pod would never have enough air until the next ship came. But that didn't stop people from fighting over them. We fought for ours too, but of course I will live without the air. Nobody noticed my mother breaking into the lab to free me, one last time. So many nights she or my mama would come and get me out, free me from whatever contraptions they had stuck to me, and take me back to their rooms to feed me sugary things and teach me to speak their language. Lots of practice for the hell that is this night.
There should have been enough escape pods on a research ship. But of course there weren't. Not enough for the scientists, let alone for the subjects. So they fought for them. I didn't see why when they were going to die, and I was probably going to live yet so ready to die. I'm ready to be finished. I haven't had a bad run I don't suppose. It could go better next time, though.
"There isn't enough air," I whispered, as she packed me into it, "What about mama? I should—,"
"The pilots are all dead, this is her jacket," she said, unemotional as she could be when she'd die within an hour. "It doesn't matter they'll say it's a miracle. They won't notice. I promise. Now, go and live for me sweet one."
"I don't want to go without you. I'm not ready to be without you," I said, clinging to her arms.
"Shh, you can do it. I know you can," she stroked my cheek again, before sealing me in the pod. I sobbed. I wanted to live only because she asked it of me but I wished she wouldn't ask something so terrible of me. To live a life, but to live it alone.
I can live for centuries without the nitrogen in the air. There's oxygen in the escape pod but it does me little to no good, nor do the high protein food packets they have. We had no time of course to do anything but run. I cry for my mothers. I cry for my parents. And I cry for myself willing myself to be over.
I curl up in the tiny pod, hugging my knees to my chest, and it is like that I drop off to sleep, praying to never wake up. Just be consumed by darkness. I do hate it alone. I wish I could have at least died with my mothers or my real parents or someone. But no, instead I'm alone here. In the total void of space.
Unable to die.