I Am Lost Inside

I Am Lost Inside
Introduction: Searching for Meaning in a Scrap Yard
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They were sent to retrieve anything that they could find. Over the last hundreds of years, the people of Jupiter have wondered whether they were alone in the universe. Exploration of the vast expanses of space became, with time, their main priority. In this endeavor, the question of why there existed such a vast, empty space between Venus and Mars lingered in their minds and, when their technology was advanced enough, they set out to explore that emptiness.
And this is how Erick and Jansen, two brilliant engineers, who just so happened to be brothers, stumbled upon the ruins of an old space station. Well, they assumed it to be a space station. And inside it, they explored the various rooms and corridors, many of which were irrecoverably destroyed. They found, however, something curious. A man, or more accurately, a corpse, preserved in ice. Baffled, they searched the station further, hoping to find anything that might shed light on the strange situation. They discovered a series of old tapes, which, not having the necessary equipment to play them on their persons, they brought back home, along with the frozen body.
Later, a team of scientists, of which Erick and Jansen were a part of, assembled to listen to the tapes. There were no markings on them and they appeared to be scattered, out of order.
One tape was significantly more worn out than the others, prompting the brothers to insert it and search for clues about the identity of the abandoned man.

/Recording no. 21: Day 115/
/I cup my ears with my pale, trembling hands and scream./
/As more time passes by, as slowly as a grain of sand in a giant hourglass, the urge to bang my head against these walls until there is nothing left of me has grown ever stronger. But I cannot do it. I suppose it’s the fear of death, inherent in any living being, that stops me./
/The panic, the desperation, I feel their cold, dead fingers on my neck, their grip tightening with each passing day. In an attempt to regain control, I try to remember my reality, even as it slips away from me, little by little. God help me./
/Terrified, but intrigued, the scientists spent weeks deciphering, arranging and rearranging the contents of the tapes. As they found out, some were missing, presumably lost in whatever catastrophe befell the station./

The following is the order agreed by the Ministry of Science on Jupiter, the
order in which the content of the tapes has been made public.

### Recording no. 1: Day 1
Alright. Is this working? This is M. M., writer, explorer, womanizer, political activist and, apparently, captive extraordinaire. They recommended that I start this diary so I’d have someone to listen to. So I won’t get mad.
The first day, I felt like it wasn’t all bad. After all, I have food, shelter and don’t really have any grueling work to do. I can focus my attention inward, and for that I am grateful that I’m not in a regular prison, because God, even though we might not be on the best of terms, knows I have a lot of introspection to do. I have yet to figure out why I, of all people, have to be here, but, you know, one step at a time and all that.
The first morning, I woke up and forgot where I was. I actually got out of bed smiling, if you can believe it. Then, in the space of a few seconds, my demeanor changed from sunny to despicable to feeling like cutting someone with a plasma sword, repeatedly, myself included.
I’m still not used to talking to myself like this, out loud, therefore I’m going to end today’s recording by saying that, if anyone ever ends up finding these tapes, take it from me: the Communists deserve to die a thousand times, each of them. All of them. Imprisonment of innocents on political grounds was a thing they did a thousand years ago. All Communism is institutionalized societal regression. And, for that, they don’t deserve to hold any power. And no, these are not just the ramblings of an old bastard.

## Recording no. 2: Day 3
How can anyone survive in space with such dreadful food? Damn. Everything in tubes and plastic containers. Even the water. The tinge of metal and plastic is so present in every swallow, I might just eat the entire container, while I’m at it. And the food isn’t the worst of it, obviously. Years of putting my mind to work for the nation just to end up on a floating piece of sheet iron in the middle of nowhere, the only other person on it being the one in the mirror. But, hey. I’m optimistic. At least I’ll get to see this handsome face every day, for the next two years. Lots of quality time with me, myself and I to look forward to. I wish they gave me a cat, at least.
One thing up here that’s irreplaceable is the view from the upper deck. Leaning forward, my hands on the banister, I could believe myself a god. The thought is so ironic I might burst out laughing, given that in reality I resemble a caged rat more than I do a god.

## Recording no. 3: Day 4:
This is what they do with you. It’s standard procedure. Keep you locked up for years, for a crime you didn’t commit or, to their minds, that you didn’t know you committed, then they give you an opportunity. “If you want to get out, all you have to do is stay on this little space station floating nicely in the sky for two years. You don’t have to do anything else, besides go up to the deck every once in a while to check that everything’s working. You will be given instructions. How does it sound? Others would kill to be in your position right now.” A delusion, of course, but one you’d better accept, because, like a court jester, you know that becoming their laughing stock, their puppet, is your best chance at survival. They do all this for economy’s sake. They use incarcerated individuals as expandable human labor for the stations. And, at the same time, they act as if they’re doing us a favor. This is the Power of the Greatest Nation.
The toothpaste tastes like cucumbers. As I brushed my teeth this morning, I felt like my mouth had become a salad. I suppose the idea crossed their minds to use me as a lab rat for untested house products, too. It’s not like I have any other choice, is it?

## Recording no. 4: Day 10
The station was already prepared for me. Clean, smelling like the artificially fresh air that filled it, as I entered from the decontamination chamber. My first impression of the Upper Deck was that it resembled a tall church hall, with the giant windows where the altar should be.
The psychologists they must have hired for the job probably thought they were being clever. Wanted to make it feel like a home. What it felt, in actuality, was artificial. Life on the station was like, in my childhood, I imagined the figures in a dollhouse must have gone about their day. I still can’t shake away this feeling.
That first day, I did my best not to think. I figured that I’d have all the time in the world, if I wished to fight my demons later on. For now, I thought, let the king get to know his subjects.
From the giant window I walked to the automatic door on the opposite side of the room, which opened with an almost weary whoosh, and climbed down two sets of stairs into the room which would serve as my chambers. As expected, and, I might add, as desired, the room was what, in the olden days, you might have called Spartan.
The retractable bed stood upright to my left, flanked by a set of bookshelves, already filled for me. I’ll have to check the quality of the literary choices later, I thought to myself. On the opposite wall stood two closets, which, when opened, presented a myriad of clothes for different occasions, atmospheric suits, work suits, anti-gravity suits, pajamas. So, if this is to be my cage, I thought, I could do worse. I’d have to make it mine, of course. Right then it looked unlived in. A room in the aforementioned dollhouse.
I am to receive regular updates. Once every month, they will send me a file containing cherry picked newspaper articles (ones that have passed the grinding machine that is the State Censorship Office), along with personal correspondence, if any arrives (or, more accurately, if any arrives that it is “safe” for me to read). The first update was nine days ago, on the day of my arrival, containing worthless trifles on the current state of affairs in politics, good news about the economy, taxes, how the State is making everything better than it was. The usual manufactured truth.

## Recording no. 6: Day 15
Mornings. Why the fuck do mornings exist and why the fuck does my body require that I go to bed at night? Just so I can wake up, after an endless amount of tossing and turning in the straitjacket that is the bed sheet, and feel like I’ve been hit by a speeding bullet train, miraculously revived, and then hit again?
Some alcohol would work wonders for my sorrows. Then, again, I should not forget where I am. There wouldn’t be a chance in hell of finding any here. On second thought, I might just prefer being in Hell to being here. At least Hell’s warm. And populated.
Some days I surprise myself by thinking that I actually deserve to be here. And here is an unfortunate term by which I mean to say incarcerated. And then I come back to my senses and realize that, of course, I am here because they want me here. It doesn’t matter whether I did anything that should prompt a swift judicial reaction. I might just as well have been a swan.

## Recording no. 8: Day 30
Today, I discovered something that made me uneasy. At first, I thought they followed me into waking. The nightmares. Because, when I assumed my usual position on the upper deck, on the railing, looking down at my former home, I saw an unusually dark spot covering a significant patch of East Africa. But time went by, I went about my duties as assigned, went to the engine room, carefully wrote down all the required numbers, checked the temperatures, mock-tested the equipment. When I returned to the upper deck, the...blob was still there.
I have mentioned the nightmares already. Well, then I might as well come clean. I don’t sleep much. Gave up on doing so a long time ago. Sleep and I don’t see eye to eye anymore, so to speak. I keep getting flashes of... a past mistake. Of a woman, no, rather a girl. On waking up, I tell myself that I don’t know who this girl is, that she’s a figment of my imagination.

### P.S.
Something else, maybe. Although I’m sure it must be the aftershock. On going back to my quarters, I thought I heard a peculiar sound coming from somewhere below, the lower deck, I would assume, about which my instructions mention nothing. It is reasonable to think that I should stand my ground and do as I was told. Rebellion will bring me no benefit. But that sound. Like a screech. Like sharp metal dragging against metal. I know, I know. It may just be that my last two brain cells have finally had enough of each other and have decided on a final bout.

## Recording no. 9: Day 31
The latest batch of updates has me a little on the edge. A Nippon newspaper, of which I received a chopped off paragraph, mentioned “アフリカの影”, loosely translated as “A Shadow over Africa”. If I still had my doubts before, this made me certain that, at least in this regard, my mind was sound.
I have not been hearing any more sounds from down bellow. Therefore, today I went about my duties unobstructed. Every figure on the gauges checked out and was sent back to Earth. The only means of communication I have with the planet is a series of letters and numbers, carefully dissected on the other side. An encoded message, the like of which populated the science fiction literature of my youth, is out of the question.
What could that shadowy thing covering the planet be? Or what could have created it? I use such questions, though I know they are pointless, to distract my restless mind from its usual ramblings. Like an alcoholic going on a run in the morning to distract himself from thinking of the bottle. I should know.
Perhaps a secret organization is building a structure no one knows about. Or the African tribes have cultivated the world’s biggest Sequoia tree. The writer in me wishes it were aliens. That would make for some good stories to fill up my time. But you and I know better than to think that way, don’t we, mysterious potential future listener?

## Recording no. 14: Day 50
The net, as I might call it, is getting ever wider. Right now, it has completely covered Africa and part of the Indian Ocean.
I keep hearing things from down the stairs. One of these days, I know, I’ll have to grit my teeth and go down there, if only to reassure myself that I’m hallucinating. It doesn’t help that my sleep is only getting worse. Paradoxically, however, my foggy memory is starting to clear. What I once thought only part of my dreams might, in reality, have been a real event. The girl... I have read countless testimonies which say that after intense trauma the brain has a way of defending itself from further punishment, by burying these memories as far down as possible, but sometimes, these have a habit of coming back.
One thought keeps recurring: Maybe, for some forgotten reason, I do deserve to be shut off here.

## Recording no. 16: Day 61
### Side A
The mail is slow to arrive. This has not happened with the previous ones. The State prizes consistency, above all. Something has happened. Perhaps the world has begun to take notice of the great shadow and people are looking into things. Not that I care much for my correspondence. They only send what they want to, anyway.
I have reached a decision regarding the lower deck. In a little while, I will venture down there to set my mind at rest. A further update will follow. Meanwhile, I am chewing on these under-grown carrots, that the repetitive sound of my teeth slamming against each other, grinding the food into dust, may ease my tension.
The blob of darkness is rising over the continents, seemingly in continuous motion. By now, it has enveloped almost two thirds of the planet. As baffling as it is, however, there is nothing that I can do about it and I have more important concerns.

### Side B
[Ragged, rapid breathing]... I am not alone here after all. I don’t know what is more disconcerting. That I now know I have not gone mad, which means that somebody is here and they might want to cause me harm, or that I wish that I had indeed gone mad?
I went toward the staircase to the lower deck, my pulse faintly rumbling in my eardrums. In my heart of hearts, I still did not believe that I would find anything. So, I climbed down the stairs slowly, but surely. Everything was dark, except for a dim red light, near the end of the corridor. As I went toward it, I entered a large, seemingly empty chamber. The room that led to the engines, further back. Common sense dictated that the room can’t have been empty after all, a cornucopia of tools, devices and other paraphernalia must have been decking the walls and covering the floor. It being so dark, however, my unconscious mind reasoned that there was nothing in the darkness.
I was in the process of thinking so, when I felt something creeping up my right shoulder. Moving my head slowly toward it, I could vaguely discern a hand. A hand that was human in shape, but the fingers seemed oddly long. I curbed any further thoughts and jerked back, turning toward the stairs and broke into a sprint such as I’ve never before attempted. I reached the upper floor, barely keeping my breath in check, and went toward the kitchen for a glass of cold water, all the while looking behind me for my unexpected co-inhabitant.
Having calmed down, I realize that, for two months, I have had no reason to fear the lower deck. It was only after my venture down there that I have found one. It stands to logic that, as long as I remain confined to the upper floors of the station, I should be relatively safe. However, whatever is there remains a constant danger which I shall have to deal with, somehow, sooner or later. God help me.

## Recording no. 17: Day 70
The held-up batch of information has finally arrived, bearing grave news. I have received a letter, which, probably because its contents bring only sorrow to me, has been allowed to pass the filter uncensored. This letter brings painful memories back, that I desired buried.
It is a letter from her parents. Lara’s. The girl that I... Oh, God. I have been honest in these recordings, if only because I know that I’m the only one who will certainly hear them. So I shall uphold the standard. Lara is the girl who’s future I have destroyed. I think about it as a terrible mistake, one made in a moment of greatest weakness. I was terribly drunk and she was right. But I would not listen. I never did like to listen to anyone else. I snapped. In my soul, I cannot bear to think about this as anything less than an action of pure evil. If I believed in the Devil, I’d say that I was possessed by him. But I know better. I know it was all my fault.
She’s the girl that populates my nightmares. It is because of her that I deserve to be where I now reside. That is also what her parents are telling me in the letter.
They want me to know what an awful person I am, that I deserve everything I am getting and more. That I was unworthy of their daughter, which I know to be true. They are not telling me anything new, anything that, deep inside, I did not realize myself.
I have read the letter countless times, hands shaking, eyes drowning in tears, remembering...
When I was finally able to tear myself away from the wretched text, my hands were still faintly trembling. Even now, I can feel the unrest coursing through my fingers.

## Recording no. 18: Day 100
The planet is almost completely covered in shadow. I see now that it is not a mysterious blob of darkness that is threatening to swallow up the Earth, well, of course it isn’t, no 影 (Kage). It looks to me like a gigantic, metallic shell. One composed of multiple ring-like structures that converge on that point in Eastern Africa. Impossible for me to understand as it is, shocking as it is, it adds little to the overwhelming dread and sorrow that I already feel.
Sleep is but an afterthought, nowadays. If I manage to blink once, while in my bed, I count myself lucky for the night. Mostly I stay in bed, perusing the various books at my disposal, nothing too interesting to me. They are mostly scientific in nature, along with some old crime novels. The only interesting addition is a hardcover collection of “À La Recherche du Temps Perdu”. Shamefully, I have never had the opportunity to experience Proust’s masterpiece, so I took the opportunity, as much as my frail disposition has allowed.
I seem to be in a constant state of panic. Whenever I exit my room to go to the kitchen, I take the time to look toward the upper deck railing and out the window at the Earth. The sounds from downstairs are getting more and more aggressive and louder, but, for now, they have been confined to the lower deck.
Every time I manage to close my eyes at night she’s there. This is one of the reasons why I prefer to keep them open. Of course, I realize that sleep deprivation comes with its own dangers, but for now, I think sleeping is more than I can take.

## Recording no. 19: Day 105
There are scratches on the doors. They have not been there before. Deep cuts into the metal, as if by sword. Last night, as I lay in bed, I heard a tremendous crash outside my door. I tried to stand up, then thought better of it. I lay motionless and listened, my heart thumping. But I heard nothing more.
I am starting to feel the effects of the lack of sleep. In the morning, looking in the mirror while shaving, the taste of the cucumber paste still lingering in my mouth, I had the impression that somebody was behind me. I saw a big, dark shadow, its eyes crimson, put a colossal, clawed hand on my shoulder. It maintained its shape for just a second, but it was enough to send a cold chill down the back of my neck.
Even now, if I raise my hand to look at it, sometimes I see it change shape. Become longer, darker, sharper. If I don’t pay attention, I feel like it might leap from my forearm and grab me by the throat.

## Recording no. 20: Day 107
THE EARTH IS GONE! Yes. It’s just gone. I woke up and went to the kitchen and I saw nothing on the window. Just space. I went closer and there it was. Nothingness.
No, this is not an effect of sleep deprivation. For once, I slept heavily last night. Like a dying man stumbling backwards and crashing right into his coffin, I fell onto the bed and slipped into a feverish, agitated, but, thankfully, dreamless sleep.
And I wake up into this nightmare.
As it stands, I might be the only human left alive. The irony that I should be the one is not lost on me. However, the time for ironies, for jokes is long past. Is my incarceration not punishment enough? I have nothing left to say.

## Recording no. 21: Day 115
Yesterday, I wanted desperately to cup my ears with my pale, trembling hands and scream.
As more time passes by, as slowly as a grain of sand in a giant hourglass, the urge to bang my head against these walls until there is nothing left of me has grown ever stronger. But I cannot do it. I suppose it’s the fear of death, inherent in any living being, that stops me.
The panic, the desperation, I feel their cold, dead fingers on my neck, their grip tightening with each passing day. In an attempt to regain control, I try to remember my reality, even as it slips away from me, little by little. God help me.

## Recording no. 22: Day 120
I have not received any further information since the Earth disappeared. It seems their means of communication with me have been cut off, suggesting a great distance. Or, perhaps, with everything that must be happening over there, they may have forgotten about me.
My nerves still in a vice, I’ve been rummaging through the library in my room, futilely believing I might find something to ease my troubled mind. As it turns out, I did find some type of clue, in the form of a poem of sorts.
“Down into the Pits of Hell/ What you seek /Be found it shall /Be thou not weak /And listen well /That you might speak /About the fate /The Earth Befell”
I knew, instinctively, that I would have to finish what I started down into the lower deck. The Pits of Hell. Would that the situation were any other, I would appreciate the metaphor. As it stands, it only adds fuel to the hellfire. See, my mind is so beaten down that even I have begun to think in puns...ahem, metaphors.

I have begun to search the upper floor for any other unexpectedly relevant information and have found a ledger containing the names of some prior inhabitants of this damned floating prison. There I found something that made me think. The prisoner before me, J.T., disappeared one day. For all the others listed, the ledger includes minor details about their life after having served their sentence. For J.T., however, no further information exists. I am pretty sure I know where he might have ended up, although I haven’t the slightest clue how.

## Recording no. 24: Day 122
### Side A
Have begun preparation for final meeting with the presupposed J.T. Work suit, protective helmet, steel pipe and glue gun all ready. Whatever I could find and make instinctive use of. I am not an engineer, nor a fighter, so my options remain limited. Someone wants or wanted me to find something down there and I know, anyway, that, in order to stand a chance at survival, I have to make sure I am the only living thing on this piece of metal. Will update later (God willing).

### Side B
I know everything. I will start by saying that this will be my last recording and that I am happy that my toils may not have been for naught, after all.
I went downstairs as previously mentioned. I climbed down those ominous stairs in the faint light of the red dot, steel pipe and gun at the ready. As soon as I reached the doorway, I turned on the lantern on my helmet, which I hoped could provide a tactical advantage, if not necessarily a navigational one.
I turned my head, slowly, from right to left, searching. To my right, a faint shadow appeared at the edge of my vision, but, as I turned my head in that direction, I saw nothing. Never mind, I thought. I kept steady on my feet and scanned the room again. I shouted, hoping to startle. “Show yourself and fight me like a man!”, I said to the surrounding darkness.
A forceful blow connected with the right side of my helmet, cracking my visor. Presently, I panicked and starting hitting the air with the pipe in my right hand. I eventually calmed down and started thinking. I put the gun down near my left foot and grasped the pipe with both hands, like a baseball bat, or a katana. I assumed an improvised fighting stance.
The crazed man came at me from the front, swiping down and to my left. I dodged to the right and swung my bat at its ribs. I was too slow. J.T. jumped back. We circled each other for some time, each one anxious for the other one’s next move. My breathing was starting to quicken. I feigned a swipe and J.T. dodged to my left, at which point I unleashed the delayed hit and J.T. could not jump away. I hit him in the jaw and heard a sound of smashed bones, like acorns being crunched underfoot.
J.T. fixed me with his eyes. His jaw hung limply and blood dripped from it as if from an open wound. Scrunching his nose, he spat out the broken teeth and tried to hiss at me. The sound died out as it exited his throat, coming out more like a forceful exhalation, due to his inability to close his mouth. We stood staring at each other while he adjusted his stance. Then, with a deep, guttural growl, he came at me, swiping furiously from the left and from the right. I deflected the blows as well as my writer’s constitution allowed. Each hit sent shockwaves through my bones. Eventually, my head rocked from a fierce blow that sent me stumbling back. The pipe fell from my hands. My vision blurred.
I walked, slowly, trying to find the pipe. The lantern had been cracked itself after such a vicious assault, so that it only managed to shed a little light on my surroundings. J.T. jumped at me then and we locked arms in a vicious struggle. He tried to bite me, scratch at my exposed face. Eventually, he got me down to my knees. My vision darted to my left and I saw the glue gun. And I had an idea. I pulled J.T. to the ground with me, keeping his head close to my chest and my feet on the ground. I inched, worm-like, towards where the gun was, using my left elbow and my feet to propel me forward. When I judged that I had travelled far enough, I pushed him off me, using all the remaining strength in my hands and feet.
I grasped the gun and he lunged for me. Hands held high, ready to rend flesh from bone. As he came at me, faster and faster, like a hungry hyena, I pointed the gun towards his legs and pulled the trigger. A sphere of glue encased his legs and solidified in seconds. He fell to the ground, face first. I jumped or, more accurately, struggled to my feet and shot him a few more times, for good measure. I breathed a ragged sigh of relief, such as I have never before experienced.
I tried in vain to extract any information from the man. His mumblings were impossible to decipher, but for three, seemingly unconnected words: “paper”, “ice” and “future”.
Leaving my defeated opponent, I explored the room and found a door at the back of it. A door which was, strangely, open. When I went in, a powerful gust of wind blew me back and a chill ran through me. It was like stepping out of a tropical sunrise into Antarctica.
The room I was in was small and cramped. To my right, there was a table. But it was to the left that my attention was drawn, like metal to a magnet. There, side by side, were two gigantic tubular structures, the size of a grown person. And one of them had been smashed open.
Upon closer inspection, I found that these tubes were some kind of machines for the preservation of humans. I had heard of cryogenics, of course. But I had never seen machines the likes of those before. I wondered what they were for and the answer was closer than I could imagine.
On the table lay a mound of papers. Suddenly, I made the connection with the words J.T. had uttered. “Ice” and “Paper”. So, I thought, I was on the right track. But what about “Future?”
The first time my vision darted over the text, it felt as if a veil was slowly being pulled over my eyes. Momentarily, I lost my balance. I began reading the documents many times, before I was actually able to get to the end.
A team from the Ministry of Science wrote a report. Report no. 105 on the Packaged Earth Conspiracy. The report presents the situation as follows, in short: The World powers have made a pact with... another civilization. How they came to be in contact with them is unclear. They promised they would hand over the Earth, in exchange for absolute and unquestioned power over everybody, so long as they obeyed their alien masters.
“Future”. I am to follow the instructions carefully laid out before me. I have chosen to preserve my body, my mind and these documents, so that I may live to tell the Earth’s story to somebody that might help. In other words, the success of this mission is only a probability. It may be that I will never wake up, bound to float forever in the vast expanses of space. But, in the eventuality that somebody does stumble across this station, with God’s help, I will still be here.
And Lara... if by some miracle you’re listening to me right now... I want you to know how sorry I am for what I’ve done to you. You deserved so much more and all you had
was me. I pray, here and now, that someday, when we meet again, I’ll have a chance to look into your eyes and show you that.