Orpheus

7

Riley dreamt that night; she dreamt of the swing.

She was driving, driving her car down the road to Ethan's school when the call came; the cheerfully morbid tune echoing through the car.

No, she thought. She knew what that call was about; she wouldn't pick it up. She focused on the road instead, the road that now began stretching itself. The pavements seemed abandoned; a ghost town in the ghost of a bad memory. The asphalt seemed to morph into rubber, stretching on forever. The ringtone was only getting louder; calling, screaming at her to pick it up; the trigger to the next set of memories.

No, she didn't want to pick it up. But she had to get this over with.

Her hand stretched from the steering wheel to the purse on the passenger seat and she pulled out the phone. She pressed the receive button and placed the phone to her ear; the glass slab as cold as her chest.

"Miss Summers," a feminine voice spoke "Ethan's been in an accident. Please come over immediately." The call cut itself.

'Had that voice been so robotic in real life? Or was it just my head altering my memories to make me the victim?' Riley wasn't sure; most of her memory after the call was muddy.

She floored the accelerator and the car sped on the road; the rubber now morphing back into the tarmac. For what felt like an hour later, she reached the pre-school.

The school was also strangely empty; there was no hubbub of children, no laughter, no shrills. It was all lifelessly void. Only one figure could be seen on the playground; four-year-old Ethan.

'No, this is not how it happened. Step into the foyer Riley. Your son's in there, not by the swings.'

Yet her heart dictated the next step, not her mind. She walked towards her son, each step heavier than the previous. Her heart was now in her throat, tying it into a tight knot. She stopped only when she was a few feet away, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mommy," He asked. "Why did you leave me?"

Riley choked up as she tried to mutter an answer "I had to... I-I'm sorry... Ethan..." She knelt down and put out her arms for one last embrace, but the shell of a memory only turned around and began to walk away.

"Please..." Riley's sobs were uncontrollable now "Ethan come back... COME BACK!"

But even as the tears dropped and formed some coolness on the arid dirt, the husk didn't turn back.

'This was all my fault; my fault...'

Abandonment, loss, and anger hung in the air. Riley closed her eyes tight, hoping the nightmare would end. Hoping, despite everything, things would be alright.

After an eternity Riley got up and turned, only to suddenly find herself in space. She was in her suit, yet she was naked underneath. The Earth a few hundred kilometers below her; a huge blue curve against the infinite black, close enough to realize its size, but not enough to reach out to home; a cruel, final taunt.

The strangest apparition, however, was the set of swings twenty feet diagonally above her; the spitting image of the one that had ultimately killed her son in that freak accident.

The swing suddenly began swinging, and the grief in Riley's heart was forced to move out; fear was the new tenant. The swing soon began expanding; the frightfully fast seat inching closer to her with every oscillation.

No, she had to escape. Riley tried flaying her arms, but the laws of physics which had seemingly abandoned the swing seemed to still govern her; she could flay all she wanted, but she couldn't move.

A ringing in her ear began to develop as the swing got larger and closer, till it felt like Riley's ears were bleeding.

Twenty feet out... Ten feet out...

She closed her eyes a fraction of a second before impact, opening them to find herself in space, aboard the Resilience. She lay there still, shuddering, feeling the path the tears had left on her face as she controlled herself.

'No one can see me like this; they have enough to worry about.' 

But then a thought stuck Riley: how were the others coping? Were they too in their bunks, wiping tears and putting on the brave face before leaving? Maybe; she wouldn't know.

Thinking so, she got up, wiped the tears off her face, and opened the hatch of her bunk. The long journey ahead would give her enough time to mope. Right now, they had to make ready for the orbital slingshot.