The Gnat

By Abigail Falanga

The first thing you notice is light—cool and soft white, pervasive and blank.

You are so comfortable and drowsy it doesn’t occur to you to wonder where you are or how you got there. The temperature is pleasant. There is no sound other than your pulse, no smell besides a faint, somewhat chemical odor that you associate with… what? Something.

You examine the blank whiteness more closely. It’s a smooth, featureless matte surface only inches from your eyes.

Blinking a few times changes nothing. Still, there is only that empty field in front of you—around you.

You try lifting a hand and encounter resistance. You can’t move it more than a few inches. Both hands are at your sides, not restrained, but contained within the white surface. Your feet and head are too.

At least you can breathe. The air is fresh.

How did you get here? What happened?

You push your mind back, but find a barrier as impenetrable as the physical shell. The memory won’t come.

Let it return on its own. Forcing it won’t help.

You shift your head, arms, hips, legs, feet. The shape seems to be perfectly you-sized. Which is comfortable. Except that you can’t move.

Time to make some noise. Someone has to be out there. Right?

“Hey!” Your voice is gritty. Clearing your throat, you try again. “Hey! Anyone there?”

Your voice is dull and flat and falls back to your ears—where, by the way, you now have a tickle, behind the left one. There’s no way to tell if your voice penetrated the white plastic, but you doubt it.

You slam your fists against the casing as best as you can. Next, you attempt a kick. Nothing.

Gradually, your pulse slows after the exertion, leaving nothing but the silence and your irregular breathing.

It’s not that unpleasant—comfortable, if you don’t think about cramps. You could sleep…

Mzzzziiiiiyytt

You jerk your head. The noise just beside your left ear stops so abruptly you almost don’t notice its oddity.

It feels like you’ve been like this for hours, but there’s no way to tell the passage of time—except by counting heartbeats.

Bvvviiht

Oh. No…!

Something moves in the corner of your vision—a black speck—then it’s gone.

It can’t be… It is.

The speck hovers into sight, the high-pitched hum receding as it distances from your ear.

A gnat! Stuck in here with you.

Maybe this is a good thing. Something to break the monotony, pass the time. Something to look at. At least for a while… until it dies. Gnats don’t live long, after all.

A day to endure the gnat’s unpredictable existence. Relief? Or dread?

You can see a tiny dot hovering over your soft, nondescript, gray clothes by looking toward your feet.

It’s the first living thing you’ve seen since… since you can’t remember when.

The only living thing…

Buzzing around incessantly. Torturously.

There it is, hovering just over your hand.

You swat toward it, fiercely glad to have something, anything to do. But the gnat wobbles away, out of your limited reach.

Muttering curses that turn to screams at the little beast, you methodically squish your body all the way around the white shell.

Then wait a moment to see if you’ve squashed the dratted thing. But no.

Hmmmsssszzzztt

Your pulse spikes. You thrash against the white blankness. Elbows hammer against the sides, feet kick, head thumping back and forth, screaming for anyone to hear.

When you stop, your heart pounds, your throat hurts. Everything hurts. Your breath comes in aching sobs and you find yourself crying. Your nose is running, not that you can do anything about it.

Mzzzziiiyyyeettt!

You whip your head over, crashing against the side.

And still the gnat flies free.

It settles on the white surface just over your chest, out of reach. You watch it crawling aimlessly.

“You’ve only got a few hours, gnat, and I’ll outlast you!”

Will you?

Is this your life now?

The surface is getting smaller!

Hissssss. Pop.

Darkness shadows the white.

Sudden, vivid shapes and colors, movement, forms… a person?

“Hey! This pod must’ve malfunctioned—initiated wake-up too early!”

You thrash out instinctively.

Gentle, strong hands ease under you, hold you down. “It’s okay. We’ve nearly reached the colony, and planetfall will happen in a matter of hours. You’re the first to wake.”

You blink rapidly, struggling to discern details after so long seeing nothing but blank whiteness. But your savior’s voice rings clear. “Sorry we didn’t get you to the receiving beds first. It’s all right now. You’re safe—you’re free.”

An ironic chuckle. “Good thing that gnat landed on the pod skin. Must’ve gotten stuck in there when the stasis started. You’re lucky! If the gnat wasn’t there to disrupt the sensors, you might’ve been waiting in there who knows how long.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Abigail Falanga may be found in New Mexico creating magic in many ways – with fabric, food, paper, music, and especially with words! She’s loved fantasy ever since playing out epic adventures of swords, fairies, and monsters with her siblings, and loved sci-fi since her dad’s stories around the dinner table. Besides sharing mad little stories on Havok, she is busily trying to launch approximately five hundred novels into the world. Some of them are even finished!

---

More Stories | Author Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter