Creature of the Sun

Chapter I

"Are you ready to board, Z?" I could almost hear the echo of my mother's voice in my head from when I was younger. She built me a cardboard spaceship and I was running around the backyard in the astronaut helmet I got for my birthday that year.
"I'm ready, momma!" I squealed while trying not to smile. I pulled my shoulders back and tried to look professional, as professional as a 7-year-old could be.
"Okay! Lift off in 10...9...8..."
She closed the cardboard box and reached down for the switch to turn on battery-operated star lights.
"7...6...5...4..."
The lights turned on and my eyes lit up. My mom started to shake the box to imitate the engines starting.
"3...2...1..."
Normally at this point, I hear "LIFT OFF!" and the box shakes so hard I think there's an earthquake, and I laugh so hard my face starts to hurt. Then my mom would simulate a landing, pick me up, and hug me while saying "welcome home Major Zan."
But this time I only heard a loud crack sound come from outside the box, then nothing. There was no "lift off," no "welcome home," only lightning, then the deafening silence after the storm.
I remember screaming until my lungs felt raw that day, roasting in that cardboard box until the police found her body and opened the box to me passed out with tear stains on my cheeks.

"Major..." I heard far, far away.
Lights, sirens, screaming.
"Aldridge..."
Fading, crying, bright.
"Are you alright?"
Suddenly I was back in the training room. For a moment, I freaked out at the fact I was upside-down, then I remembered I was in the metal fortress that was our centrifuge. "Abby? Uh, yeah, I'm fine." I said, dazed. I rubbed my eyes. "Was I out long? And how many times have I told you to just call me Zan?"
"Sorry, sir. Just about a minute went by before I noticed your eyes were closed. Kind of hard to tell when you're spinning so fast I guess." She laughed nervously and cleared her throat. "You should take a break—"
"No, I said I'm fine, Abby," I said as I reached for the button to turn on the machine, which proved to be very difficult from such a weird angle.
"Major— I mean Zan, if you need a break, you should take one." She said worriedly, trying to force my hand away from the button.
"No, listen to me—"
"Zan the handbook says—"
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE HANDBOOK!" I yelled and kicked her hand away from the button.
She fell silent, her eyes full of a mixture of fear and pain. She was fondling her hand with her other one. "Listen, Abby, I'm..."
"No, it's fine. You know your limits, I shouldn't restrain you, Major." She said, brushing herself off.
"Abby wait..." I tried to reach for her but I was still upside-down.

As she walked away, she faded into her 10-year-old self: a small, thin brunette with emerald eyes. Her and I were playing on the swing set my dad built me after my mom died. Somehow he thought it would help me mourn her death better.
"Ready for lift off, Major Abby?" I screamed in her direction.
"Ready as I'll ever be— I mean affirmative!" She squealed back, both of us smiling from ear to ear.
We swung as high as we could, counting down the seconds until we would make our ascent.
"3...2...1... BLAST OFF!" We yelled in unison. On that cue, we both leaped off of our swings and came tumbling down on the grass, laughing until we couldn't breathe.
"I can't wait to be an astronaut with you, Z." She said, gasping for breath.
I sat there, thinking about my mom and the tragic accident that to this day Abby doesn't know about.

Suddenly my head hurt and I remembered all the blood was rushing to my head from being in the centrifuge too long. I unstrapped myself and crawled out from under the harness, buckling it back up on my way out. I put the machine in sleep mode and sat on the bench next to it. After all these years and I still can't shake my mom's death.