Sohum's Stories

This is heavily inspired off of Coraline so thanks Neil Gaiman

When Leo opened his eyes, he saw stars.

Not like a poster or drawing. Outside the window. Stars everywhere.

“Where am I?” he asked, groggily, to no one in particular.

“In space, genius,” called a voice from behind him.

Leo sat up from his dusty bed. His pillow and mattress were hard as a rock and his blanket felt like a sheet of tissue paper.

Standing in his doorway was a tall man with brown hair and hazel eyes. He had a side part in his hair.

Captain Derek Graves. He looked pissed. He always looked pissed.

“We’re supposed to be looking for a planet. Not sleeping all day. Now get out of that bed and get to work. Now.”

Right. The Wayfairer. The SS Wayfairer had been looking for a habitable planet for years now. After the Earth had succumbed to climate change, most humans had to burrow into the Earth as the Wayfairer and many other starships found another Earth.

With no way to receive messages, the Wayfairer’s mission was certain death if you didn’t succeed. If another ship found a habitable planet before you, there was no way to reach you. You will die. However, if you found a habitable planet first, then you could send a message to Earth and wait at that planet until the Earth inhabitants arrive.

But so far, the Wayfairer had had no success. Every time, it was the same deal: Find a promising planet; Take months, possibly years, to get there; then realize the planet wouldn’t work; and finally find another planet, where the cycle would start again.

The crew was getting restless.

Leo quickly changed into a faded t-shirt and jeans. He put on his socks and Nike’s before combing his messy hair and coming out into the dining hall. The wires along the walls rattled. Leo stumbled twice on the five minute walk from his room to the dining hall.

At one point, he ran into Vanessa Lepik, head scientist. He tried to start a conversation, but she just ignored him.

For breakfast was, once again, semi-liquid roast beef. Disgusting. Leo pushed away his plate.

“Eat your food,” demanded Graves. “Stop wasting. We only have so many rations.”

“But… none of the others are-“

“That’s an order, Carter. Now quit complaining.”

Graves put his plate right in front of Leo. Leo tried to deflect the putrid meal by starting small talk, but the second a word came out of his mouth, everyone stopped talking.

One person even laughed.

Then the conversation continued without him. Leo never wanted to be a hero. He just… wanted to matter.

Suddenly, an alarm sounded.

Leo rushed over to the control panel:
“WARNING: BLACK HOLE APPROACHING.”

He could hear Graves in the other room, yelling at Charles Wilkins, the navigator: “How incompetent do you have to be to miss a goddamn BLACK HOLE?”

“I’m sorry, sir, it just… appeared out of nowhere!”

“How can a black hole just… god… You better get us out of here, Wilkins.”

The world exploded into light.

“Hold on!” someone shouted (Maybe Lepik? Leo thought).

Leo was thrown against the wall as the ship groaned around him. Every alarm aboard the Wayfairer screamed at once. The stars outside stretched into bright white lines, twisting and bending into impossible shapes.

The lights flickered. Leo hit the floor hard. Around him, crew members scrambled to their feet.

“What happened?” he gasped. No one answered.

Captain Graves pushed past him and stormed toward the bridge. “Status report!”

Wilkins stared at the navigation screen with wide eyes. He didn’t say a thing.

Then everything went dark.

For a moment, there was nothing. No sound. No light. No gravity. Leo felt as though he were floating in an endless ocean.

And then

it was all

---

black, Leo thought. it’s all black.

leo.

who are you?

leo, you have to listen. you aren’t safe here.

what do you mean?

Leo opened his eyes. It was Graves. Or, to be more accurate, part of Graves. Half of Grave’s face was withering away and his skull was exposed. Leo could smell Grave’s flesh festering. Flies swarmed around a dissattached eyeball on the floor. Grave’s jaw had snapped off and was lying on the floor next to the aforementioned eyeball.

He saw stitches across his mouth.

you need to escape this place. now.

why? what is-

leo. you’re going to wake up. and it will seem like paradise. but it’s not. it created this place for you. it did the same to the rest of us.

…

leo… i’m the lucky one. Graves pointed to his decaying face with his finger. Only two were still attached to his hand.

where are we?

leo… listen carefully. if you wake up somewhere better… don’t trust it. don’t trust anyone. it learns from you. it builds things you want. it knows your deepest desires. it wants you to stay here. forever.

you’re not making any sense.

i’m losing you. remember, leo, you will awaken to a false paradise. do not trust it. i repeat, do not

wake up.

what?

Wake up.

graves, what do you-

WAKE

---

Up!”

When Leo opened his eyes, he saw stars.

Not like a poster or drawing. Outside the window. Stars everywhere.

“Where am I?” he asked, groggily, to no one in particular.

“In space, obviously!” chirped a perky voice from behind him.

Leo sat up from his grand bed. His mattress and many pillows were soft as hell and his three blankets felt thick and weighted.

Standing in his doorway was a tall man with brown hair and hazel eyes. He had a side part in his hair.

It was Graves. Oh great. Time for another lecture. But… he looked happy.

“Are you… alright?” Leo asked.

“Well, why wouldn’t I be?” Grave replied. Leo blinked.

Because you’re always angry, he thought. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he looked around the room. Everything was wrong. His bedroom was nearly three times larger than the one aboard the Wayfairer. The walls weren’t rusted metal; they were polished white panels. The ceiling lights actually worked. There wasn’t a single exposed wire in sight.

“What is this place?”

“The Wayfairer, of course.”

“But… the Wayfairer doesn’t-“

Alarms started blaring: “ARRIVING TO DESTINATION.”

The dead, cold face of the true Graves flashed before his eyes. That’s when Leo remembered. When he realized the truth.

Grave’s face changed. His eyes were completely black with small white pupils. His mouth was stitched at the edges, with the stitches in the middle ripped open. He was smiling right at Leo. Some sort of liquid seemed to be dripping from his face like a leaky faucet.

“This isn’t real! You aren’t-” Leo started. But then the world began to change. The world changed, and when he opened his eyes again he

---

saw perfection.

“This planet… it’s so beautiful!”

“I suppose.” Behind him, a voice. Graves. “Now get up. We have a party to get to, and more importantly, you’re not being paid to sleep around all day.”

“We’re not being paid at all. This is a purely volunteering miss-“

“Shut up and get up.”

Well, at least Graves is normal, Leo thought. Have I escaped…?

Screens across the ship read 100% INHABITABLE!

The rest of the crew had drinks in hand.

Vanessa Lepik passed one to Leo, before wiping her forehead with her hand. “Couldn’t’ve done it without you, Leo.”

Vanessa had never acknowledged him before. No one had. It wasn’t that they hated him, it was just that… they didn’t care.

It felt like this was a perfect reality. Leo never wanted to leave. He wanted to stay forever and ever and…

leo… every time it changes…

Leo punched Lepik in the face. Suddenly, the crowd became quiet.

Lepik wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. It was some liquid. “What the hell… Leo!”

“You’re not real! You can’t trick me! You can’t!”

Vanessa’s face changed to that dirty, stitched-up face. She was sweating buckets of that liquid. Most importantly, she was scowling at Leo.

“I KILLED THE REST! WHY CAN’T I KILL YOU?!” and then the world changed once more. The world shook violentely and Leo

---

opened his eyes, he saw a destroyed spaceship. And he saw Graves, in a spacesuit. Graves was

(sweating?)

happy.

“Graves… what happened?”

“We crashed, Leo. That stupid Wilkins finally outlasted his usefulness.”

“Where are the others?”

“They’re dead. If it wasn’t for you, I would be too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You saved me, Leo. And for that, I… I want to apologize.”

“I… thank you, Graves.”

“Well. We better explore this planet.”

Leo moon-hopped over to this small cave entrance he found. Inside was Graves. The true Graves.

l-e-o… it melts… IT MELTS…

Leo tore off his space helmet.

“Leo, what are you-“

“I know who you are!”

Graves face changed. “THEN YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT.”

“You want… you want my soul.”

“YES. AND I WILL GET IT.”

“But I also know something else about you! Your weakness!”

Graves looked absolutely disgusted. “HOW COULD YOU…?”

“The more you transform between forms, the more you change reality, the more you melt!”

it only exists when you let it exist…

“YOU CAN’T KNOW THAT. YOU CAN’T-” Then the world changed for the third time. Or maybe it was just Leo’s view of the world, because when

---

Leo opened his eyes, he saw a monster.

The monster had the face of Graves. Then of Wilkins. Then Vanessa. Then a decaying corpse. Then a crying child. Then Leo. Then back to the disgusting, stitched-up face.

It was a skinny monster, purely skin and bones. Its ribs stuck out, and the monster’s long, slender arms were thin as a toothpick. You could see the indents where the bones were. Its hands had boils and festering skin across it, with long, sharp nails at the end of each finger that seemed to have never been cut. Liquid seeped out of every valley and crevice in the body.

“I know what you are!” Leo cried at it.

The monster’s smile widened. It had no response to provide.

“I also know that your power only exists within my mind!”

Suddenly, the creature’s confident grin faded.

“So that means I control you!”

“NO… NO IT DOESN’T!”

“So I can make you Graves…” The creature changed to Derek Graves. Half of its body was melted off.

“No… you’re Wilkins.” Suddenly, the body became less slender and the skin changed pigments. The creature began to melt more and more.

“STOP!”

“Actually, you’re Lepik.” The creature’s body changed shapes once again.

“WHY… YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!”

“No… you’re actually me.”

Then the world began to change. Then the changing stopped. Everything was pitch black aside from Leo and the creature.

“WHY CAN’T… WHY CAN’T I MAKE THE CHANGING?”

“Because I won’t let you.”

“THIS SHOULDN’T… THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING!”

And then the monster began to melt.

And melt.

And m

e

l

t.

Leo sighed. Was he free?

Leo created the spaceship within his brain. He entered it. He flew with perfect precision.

He found the black hole.

He let out one final gasp.

And then he flew straight into it. Had he escaped? Well, he supposed he would find out, since when

---

Leo opened his eyes, he saw a lady.

Not like a mannequin. A real lady, standing at the edge of his bed. She had blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was smiling right at him.

“Welcome back, Mr. Carter!” The lady said, disconnecting tubes attached to his body. They were coming out of his arms, and from underneath the blanket – Leo didn’t want to know where the latter were attached to.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your Nurse!”

“Nurse? I don’t have a Nurse.”

Leo looked around: He was in a hospital bed. The ceiling and floor had white tiles. There were screens showing things such as his heartbeat. And most importantly, his window didn’t show the vast expanse that was space. It showed sunlight. A bright blue sky dotted with large fluffy clouds.

Leo jumped out of bed and rushed to the window. Below him was a city. Not a cramped underground colony. Not the inside of a spaceship.

A city. Towering buildings gleamed in the sunlight. Green parks covered entire blocks. Vehicles drifted through the air between skyscrapers.

People walked outside. Outside. No radiation suits. No oxygen masks. Just… people.

“That’s impossible,” Leo said.

“What is?” the Nurse asked.

“The Earth died.”

She stared at him. “The Earth what?”

“Died. Climate collapse. Rising oceans. Food shortages. That’s why we’re on the Wayfairer.”

“The Wayfairer is just a museum.” Now she looked genuinely concerned.

Leo slowly turned around. “A what?”

“A museum,” the Nurse repeated. “That old colony ship from the First Expansion Era. The Wayfairer hasn’t flown in over three decades.”

The room suddenly felt very small.

“No. No, that’s not right.”

The Nurse took a cautious step forward. “Maybe you should sit down, Mr. Carter.”

He pushed past the nurse and sprinted into the hallway. Everything looked familiar, yet different.

The layout was almost identical to the Wayfairer’s corridors; but brighter, cleaner, larger. As if someone had taken the ship he knew and rebuilt it into a luxury hospital.

People passed him. None of them looked worried. None of them looked exhausted. No one looked like they were spending their lives searching for a planet.

Leo ran.

After many minutes, he reached the central atrium, and froze. Mounted in the middle of the room was a massive bronze statue.

The plaque beneath it read:

IN HONOR OF THE CREW OF THE SS WAYFAIRER

WHO DISCOVERED NEW EARTH

YEAR 2187

Leo’s blood turned to ice. 2187? Last Leo remembered, it was only 2154. Not only that, but carved into the statue’s base was a list of names.

DEREK GRAVES – CAPTAIN

CHARLES WILKINS – NAVIGATOR

VANESSA LEPIK – HEAD SCIENTIST

Worst of all, near the top, on its very own line it said:

LEO CARTER – CHIEF PILOT

His own name. With shaking hands, Leo stepped closer.

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t the pilot.” His voice came out as barely a whisper.

A nearby tourist glanced at him. “Of course he was.” Leo looked up. The man pointed toward the statue. “They teach that in primary school.”

Leo slowly stood. “No. You’re mistaken.”

The tourist laughed. “Mistaken? Everybody knows Leo Carter. He practically saved the expedition.”

Leo backed away. Saved the expedition? He wasn’t even important on the Wayfairer. He spent most days helping maintain equipment and running diagnostics. The real heroes were people like Graves, Wilkins, and Lepik.

The tourist continued talking.

“When the navigation systems failed during the Rift Incident, Carter manually piloted the ship through the anomaly. Unfortunately, most of the crew died in the rift, and he was injured in his head, and since then has been in a hospital. But… man, what a great guy!”

“I must’ve… Must’ve blacked out, then, back on the Wayfairer…” Leo muttered. He began to walk back to his hospital room. He felt sick to his stomach.

Behind him, the tourist’s face changed.

Previously, Leo had been offered comfort, belonging, respect, and relief. Leo had always realized the truth before he fell into the trap of the creature.

But this time…

This time, Leo never noticed.

He never escaped the creature.

And now he never would.

THE END