Leah's Hero - Miranda Martin

1

LEAH

My head throbs in time with the screeching alarms. It’s hard to breathe. The air is acrid, filled with smoke, so it’s hard to see. Without warning, the room tilts crazily. As if up and down are no longer constants, the floor tips to one side and I’m sliding, along with everything else in the room, towards the wall.

I’m sure there are screams, but everything slows, and silence falls over me so heavy it’s a weight. Can’t breathe, can barely move. The air is thick. I’m trying to move, but it fights me, trying to hold me in place.

Scrambling the best I can, I try to stop my mad slide. I can’t. My feet hit the wall, and then everything tilts back to normal. Something explodes in the distance, and then there are more shouts followed by more explosions and screams.

“Help!”

I must reach her. She needs me, this is my duty. My job. She’s strapped to a gurney, under my care. I have to get her to the escape pod. In an instant, I’m at her side, gripping the cold steel of the bed.

“What’s happening?” the woman asks, her face a mask of terror, eyes wide, mouth contorted.

“I don’t know,” I say. “We have to reach the escape pod.”

Another explosion and she’s ripped away from me, screaming. I reach, almost have her, my finger brushes the steel rails, then she’s spinning away. My own scream echoes hers.

“LEAH!”

“NO!” I scream, bolting upright.

“Leah, you’re fine. It’s fine,” someone says.

Arms wrap around, pulling me away, pushing the nightmare back. I cling to the body, shaking, cold sweat pouring down my back and tears streaming. Comforting, shushing noises orient me in the dark room. I shudder, panting, letting the nightmare go slowly.

“S-s-sa-sorry,” I stutter, wiping sweat from my forehead and tears off my cheeks.

“It’s fine,” Allie says. “You’re okay, I’m here.”

I hold on to her until my heart stops racing, hating myself every second but unable to let go. I can’t, it’s too dark. So dark there aren’t even shadows dancing, nothing but pitch black in our windowless room. Black like the emptiness of space.

“What was it this time?” Allie asks.

“It’s… nothing,” I say.

The dream is fading already, as it always does. I can’t remember it when I wake up. I only know it was bad. Terrifying. Awful.

“This one seemed worse,” Allie says, still holding me tight while rubbing my back.

“Maybe,” I say, squeezing my eyes tight. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

“You sure?” she asks, yawning.

“Yeah, sorry,” I say.

“It’s fine,” she says. “We’re all having a hard time.”

She releases her grip and scoots back over to the blanket that passes as her bed. I lie back down on my own, pulling the thin material up to my neck and rolling onto my side. I’m not going to sleep, I know from experience, but I’m not going to be selfish. One of us should get some sleep at least.

This is my life. It’s not the life I had, not the one I wanted, and sure not any life I ever dreamed of having. In a few moments, the only sound I hear is Allie’s breathing as it evens out telling me she’s asleep. I lie as still as possible, keeping my eyes closed, and praying maybe I’ll find my way back to sleep.

I’m so tired. Every bone in my body is weary, aching for a good night’s sleep. I won’t get one, which I know, but I’ll try. What else am I going to do besides lie here and wait for the suns to rise?

My thoughts spin in circles, but every time they get close to the nightmare or what happened when the ship crashed, they jump to something else. I know the ship crashed, but I don’t remember it. My memories have a gap in them. I was working in the medical unit when the attack happened.

I remember the alarms, smoke, screaming, then I was on the escape pod with the others. Hurtling towards what’s now our new home. A handful of survivors. How many were on the generation ship? Millions, I think, that seems right. It wasn’t something I ever thought about too much.

As a nurse, I know we were concerned about overpopulation. The third generation was called the boomer generation because they had too many babies. More than the projection models predicted. The ruling Council had to implement productivity limits, making it so you had to have a permit to have a baby.

That was popular—not. I understood it though. The ship only had