Last Girl Alive | Bangtan

112: The Time Limit

This was a disaster. 

A silence of utter despair crashes onto the group and this time it doesn't spill into a storm. This time you were really doomed because there was nothing you could do now. You couldn't run or hide or ask for help, you couldn't even depend on yourself and think selfishly because nothing you did changed the situation.

"What do you mean?" Namjoon demands snapping into realisation at once. Even though Hoseok's words had been pretty explanatory it was hard to believe.

"We've lost a quarter of our full tank," Hoseok replies. "Our oxygen is draining...faster than we thought."

"W-wait," you stammer. From beside Hoseok you can see Jimin close to tears. It was such a scary thought, and you felt like you had to do something about it. You'd studied the oxygen tanks refilled, it had been your job to help Namjoon fuel it and store it. You'd even kept aside extra small tanks for the spacesuits since they ran out faster. In fact three tanks were usually the norm on a ship but apparently only about two had fit into the that gap.

"It's supposed to last way longer. A few months at least," Namjoon speaks out your thoughts. "It can't be draining that fast. It's been hardly a week. Unless.." his eyes go wide with a sudden lightbulb. Everyone turns to him but he's looks at Hoseok who bites his lower lip nodding in his seriousness. The both of them seem to share a braincell that everyone else lacks.

"Yeah," Hoseok looks up suddenly like those characters in an anime before shits about to go down. "We've got a leak."

A leak?

Your oxygen tank was leaking. The one that replenished the oxygen inside the ship often. If one was leaking and you only had two...time had just cut short by a whole quarter. You needed to work faster, find your way home faster because this wasn't like starvation or thirst...hardly a minute without oxygen would mean instant death. From suffocation, from lack of air. And this wasn't like drowning no...there is no surface to reach. This is outer space. There is nothing. 

"Wh-what are we going to do?"

Namjoon gulps, turning to you. You bite your lower lip unsure, trying to rack you brain for some useful piece of information.

"We've got to fix the leak right?" Jimin perks up at once, in hope. "I mean...we can do that right?"

A silence hushes over the room. When he realizes Jimin's eyes are on him expectantly Yoongi shakes his head at once.

"I-I don't how to fix the leak."

"What are you saying?" Jimin leans forward at once, desperately. "Hyung... I thought you were good with manual things! You can't fix a leak?"

"It's not an ordinary leak," Namjoon sympathizes with Yoongi at once. "We don't have those tools with us anyway. We couldn't have been prepared for this even if we knew what to do about it. I don't think...it's ever happened before."

"Then what?" Jin joins Jimin's fearful gaze. "What are we supposed to do now? Let it drain? We'll die out here like that!"

"We... if we-" Namjoon stutters, unable to form clear sentences anymore. "We will just have to... To find a way back much qui-"

"You're insane," Jimin's voice goes stone cold with incredulosity. "In this universe? It's massive. A planet is a nothing but a small dot in this space hyung we-"

"He's right," You side with the scared ones, hands trembling, not knowing what to think anymore. "It's impossible to say where Earth even is...how can we find something when we don't know...where it is?"

"We'll just have to!" Namjoon shouts loudly suddenly, teeth gritting. "We have no other choice. It's not like we can produce oxygen like trees...or something. This is-"

"Wait," Taehyung speaks up suddenly for the first time. A light switches on in his head as he stands up eyes wide. "Maybe we can."

"What?" Everyone turns to Taehyung in sudden hope. It was a hope not for his intelligence or astronomical skills but for the hope that he had some extra tree-like power that no one knew of. However, he surprised everyone with the former.

"What about...electrolysis. We... We can form some oxygen like that can't we hyung?"

"What is that?"

"Water-splitting," you breathe, having read it somewhere. You begin to space out as you think of the process and how it may work, not realizing that everyone was waiting for you to elaborate.

"Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen," Jungkook explains on your behalf. He squints as he translates your train of thought into speech. "Water splitting is the process of using electricity to break down water into smaller compounds. We can make produce pure O2 like that, which is what we breathe through our spacesuit tanks."

"Wow," Hoseok laughs. "You sound so smart."

"Namjoon isn't this your area of expertise?" Jin snorts at the fact that the chemistry master himself was outsmarted by a failure. Namjoon smiles sheepishly, blushing red. Why hadn't he thought of that?

He stutters due to Jin's comment stunned by Jungkook's detailed theory. "I-it could work. I've done it before in a lab but using cathodes and anodes-"

"So you've done it?"

"It's different like this," Namjoon explains. "This is a totally different, uncontrolled environment. I feel insecure about the whole thing."

"We have to give up our water for that don't we?" Jin asks, a little concerned.

Jimin weighs out both of his palms. "Water... or oxygen?"

"I'd rather die of thirst than of not being able to breathe," Taehyung agrees with  Jimin.

"Y/N you know about this?"

You purse your lips. It was a complicated matter and you had barely skimmed over it because you never thought it was actually need to come into practice. We're you going to have to use solar energy to split the particles? How would it even work? What if you ended up electrifying yourself... or worse the entire ship? Electricity no doubt worked different in space and that prickly thought disturbed you. You knew the theory but you were extremely unconfident with trying it. If anything-

"It's safer not to take the risk," Jungkook translates. You seemed to be too stunned or in some other dimension - your mind palace perhaps - because all you were doing was spacing out. Either way, your views were along the lines of Namjoon's.

Everyone looks at him weirdly, finding the knowledge spilling from his lips sound very ghostly. It was far something Jungkook would say and it sounded very much like you but then again it was you.

"So..." Hoseok says slowly. "We're back to the start?"

"Are there any other solutions?" Jimin asks one around one more time, hoping that this circulation in the discussion would prompt some ideas.

But you guys weren't scientists. You hardly had a degree amongst yourselves. You'd taken countless risks in the past and they'd thrown you into all sorts of situations that you'd somehow managed to overcome. But this took everything to a greater level because there was nowhere to run or hide. This was outer space. You were all but visitors and every touch you left was made with the utmost care and research.

It was constantly unsafe. You're in danger.

Great danger.

Because now, you had a shorter time limit.

"No," Namjoon concludes when no one responds. "We can't do anything. We'll just need to accept it... Watch the leak and... "

"Pray we make it. "

[Swipe up. Two short chapters for today]