*czzzt

 

*czzzt

 

I opened my eyes, staring at the ceiling, which was formed by mixed metals. The lights had to change,  the noises they made were driving me crazy. I leaned against the headboard of the bed and looked at the woman lying next to me. Helen. She was sleeping peacefully. I ran my hand over her cheeks.

"Did you wake up?" said Helen, her eyes still closed.

 

The warmth in her voice sometimes made me forget everything that had gone wrong on this damn journey.

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“I thought you had a meeting with the captain? Why are you still here?" she said, opening her eyes.

 

“The captain can wait. Time is perhaps the most we have here?"

 

"Get ready big baby, you don't want to piss off the Captain," she said and tried to get me out of bed with the pillow under her head.

 

"Okay, okay, I'm taking a shower, would you like to join me?" I said after getting out of bed.

 

"Not today, come on hurry up and go to the meeting maybe we can do something tonight," she said in the sexiest way I've ever seen.

 

"You can't go back on what you said, Helen"

 

I heard Helen's distinctive laugh as I stepped into the shower. Guess I'll have to wait until evening, I muttered. My face smiled involuntarily.

After a quick shower, I entered the room with a towel around my waist. Helen had already combed her hair.

 

"Aren't you taking a shower?" I asked.

 

“New resolutions, We need to use water sparingly.” said

 

“You will soon turn us into cavemen. Is there any other decision of the committee that I should know about?" I reproached.

 

“We are opening a new vertical greenhouse, the water is used there. Also, taking a shower every 2-3 days is better for the hair.”

 

“But not for smell. If everyone starts smelling like a pig, I would shoot myself into space,” I said.

 

“Don't even joke about this” said Helen. Her voice was quite serious.

 

“Okay okay, I'm sorry. ' I said and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

 

“If you have such thoughts, you can talk to me. I don't know if I can handle one more person committing suicide from depression," she said, her voice quite sad.

 

I'm starting to realize that I'm screwed.

 

Sometimes I forget how sensitive Helen can be about these things. The committee was dealing with such things every day, even though I wasn't too interested.

 

"Don't worry, I'll be the last person to commit suicide here," I said.

 

What I said took away the seriousness on his face.

 

“Stop lingering and get ready,” she said and smiled.

 

After I put on my clothes, I saw that Helen had changed.

 

"Let's go if you're ready," said Helen.

 

“Why are you leaving early, get a few more hours of rest?”

 

“I need to inspect the new greenhouse. We've taken away people's right to water, and if it fails, we're in trouble."

 

We both came to the automatic door of the room. When we got to the front of the door, the door opened and we stepped out into the main corridor of the spaceship. Helen's destination was on the opposite side of mine.

 

I reached out and gave her a kiss.

 

I said, "We may not meet at dinner, you'd better be ready for the evening."

 

Helen looked at me defiantly. That was the thing I loved the most about her.

 

I parted ways with Helen and started walking across the hall.

 

The name of the spaceship was Hope. Considering our current situation, this sounded pretty tragically funny.

 

I was walking along the curved corridor. The corridor was about four kilometers long, and it was like walking in a large donut.

 

There were glass in the corridors, these glasses were as durable as metal. I'm sure when the Spaceship was being designed, the engineers put these glasses in so that they could see the magnificent beauty of galaxies and planets.

 

But when I looked outside right now, I only saw darkness. Endless darkness. I could more or less understand those who committed suicide. This endless darkness was frightening. There was no star, no planet, nothing giving light. This darkness made the human feel so helpless.

 

I remember the first time I got on a spaceship. The idea of ​​interstellar travel, living in a colony on a new planet, and the idea of ​​starting life from scratch was so appealing; I seem to remember my hands shaking with excitement.

 

The spaceship consisted of 6257 people. It was as if I sensed that something strange would happen when the spaceship entered the artificially created subspace. I was filled with restlessness.

 

I was in the captain's cabin when the ship left subspace early. And I remember the chaos like it was yesterday, even though it's been 3 years.

 

When I came to the front of the room where the meeting will be held, I got rid of these thoughts and had my bracelet read on the door and went inside.

 

In the middle of the room was an elliptical table, in the center of which a three-dimensional model of the ship was spinning. At the head of the table was Captain Harris.

 

Harris was in his early 40s. But it was obvious that he was using genetic serums before he went on a space journey. His body looked like he was in his late 20s.

 

I went to the captain's side and greeted him.

 

“Captain Harris”

 

“Oh, James, sit down, we'll start in 10 minutes.”

 

I sat to the right of the captain and waited for everyone to arrive. As the vice-captain, I had to be there for the captain at all times.

 

Actually, it was pure luck that I got the vice captain's post, and it was a bad one.

 

Of course, the first to understand what was going on were the captains and the people who made the ship move.

 

 I, who was the assistant of the vice-captain’s assistant, suddenly rose in my job when my superiors, seeing the hopelessness of the event, decided to take their own lives.

A student who had just come out of the academy was thus promoted to vice-captain on one of the most complex and large ships ever produced by mankind.

 

Captain Harris had decided to form a committee after his co-captains killed themselves. The committee that Helen took part in was constantly checking the life and sanity of those on board. It was agreed that everyone on board would talk to a psychologist at regular intervals.

The meeting started with the participation of the last few members. Captain Harris stood up from his seat.

 

“Heim, I hope you came with good news?” said Captain Harris.

 

Heim was the head of the scientists on board. And the captain had tasked them with looking for this place they found themselves and a way out of it.

 

“Actually, we have made some progress. Now we know where we are.”

 

“Where,” said Harris.

 

"At a time hundreds of billions of years ahead of our world in a parallel universe.",

 

"Great, now we're sure how fucked up we are."