Half-Awake and Half-Alive

The isolated peace of the sleeping pod contrasted harshly with the dull roar of pneumatic vents filling the room. Kevin held onto the walls of the pod as he climbed out, wriggling in his jacket as his paws met the cold steel floor.

Other pods lay aside his own. He was used to waking up before the rest of the crew, but in this case, he was the last one up. Every other pod was empty.

He had no better luck in the adjacent rooms. The pump room had gone unmaintained. Only whimpering machinery accompanied him in the cockpit. More alarming news came when he looked at the shuttle's fuel gauges: both engines had been left on overnight. Only a quarter tank of fuel remained, perhaps not even enough to turn back around.

The shuttle contacted ground control a final time. The familiar voice of his lifelong friend Sebastian fuzzed forth from the radio.

"Kevin? Kevin! You're still up there! What happened to the crew? Are you still in good shape to return home?"

The aardwolf frowned. "It's no good, Seb. Fuel's low."

Furious typing came from the other end. "I'm calculating the angle necessary to return a ship at your coordinates back to return orbit. Hold on."

But Kevin had other plans. Poking around in the overhead compartment, he found a fishbowl someone had left up there, fit it over his bulbous head, and threw the escape hatch open.

Sebastian's typing stopped. "You didn't just open an escape hatch, did you?"

The shuttle sealed shut, and the escape door overhead opened.

"KEVIN, YOU'LL DIE!"

"No, it's alright, Seb! I have my helmet on!"

Launching through the hatch, Kevin flipped and flailed upwards, right into the vacuum of space.

"Be home soon!" he called back inside, swimming away towards Earth.