Serenity

The distant roar melded into my dreams, becoming the horrid sound of the unseen beast in the ice, raging as it had once raged throughout long forgotten centuries. I was too drugged to pull myself into full wakefulness, and so the terrible visions continued long after the thrusters had died.

Weightless, I slept, the IV pumping my blood full of that awful drug. I’m told I was in a coma; I probably was. The thing being, I wasn’t “dead to the world” as the saying goes. Life’s tricky like that, and the assurances of doctors are only ever half-truths.

Ever since my adventures had started, my mind had been tormented by the never ending cascade of wild thoughts always streaming in from man and beast and even, to some extent, from the dreaming plants. The whole earth was full of life, as it ought to be, but so too my head was full of the noises life made, too full for my own good.

Not even our celebrated medical sciences could, with their IVs and comas, shut that out; I was aware of it all, and made completely defenseless against every stray thought surrounding me by those hideous drugs. But, as the shuttle rocketed away from earth, the noises died, growing fainter and fainter, until only the three pilots, my three guards, were left, and their well-trained minds did not wander much but were like the computers they worked, highly efficient, nearly silent machines.

I knew they meant me ill, but this silence was the best comfort I had felt since my mind had been opened by that deep sea terror. Sometime after the thrusters died and a near total silence fell over me, my nightmares fading away to naught, I found peace.